transit transient
I have little to report on today just because the advanced screening I attended yesterday, plus getting there early, plus being up kind of late getting the review written, took up the entirety of my evening. I saw Stillwater, which doesn't actually open until Friday next week (July 30). I rather enjoyed it more than I feared I might based on the mixed reviews, but I still wouldn't tell anyone there's a pressing need to see it in theaters, which is a big reason why I landed on a solid B. I'm sure it will be on streaming platforms or VOD not long after, and that's when I would recommend seeing it.
I will say though, that the experience of going to an in-person advanced screening was a little different. I've watched several advanced screenings over the past several months, but they were all at home. Last night was the first one I attended in person since 2019. It was thus also the first one I ever attended with a face mask on, and maybe a third of the other people there also wearing face masks.
I've already written here about how I've settled back into mask-wearing when I go to the movies. A lot of other people aren't wearing masks, but a kind of surprising lot of them are, and in Seattle, there's no reason to assume they are all unvaccinated. We have people here in Seattle who pay attention to things like the Delta variant. I even social-distanced between the people in front and behind me in the line I had to get into, which was actually inside the AMC Pacific Place lobby, along the north wall just beyond the escalators that go up to the second level of the theater. I have recently gone into Pacific Place in its main atrium area with out my mask, as it's cavernous, four stories high. I have my mask on by the time I enter the movie theater space, though.
So, I was masked up in line. Several others were too, including the woman checking us all in from a list of registered names. Presumably she was a movie studio rep of some kind. The emails had requested that we get in line by 6:00, and Shobhit was arguing that I could easily get away with not getting there until 6:30. I realized after getting there at about 6:10, though, that there is good reason for their request, as checking everyone in is a fairly lengthy process, and if we all waited until, say, 6:45 to arrive then people would still be getting checked in long after the showtime started at 7:00. Plus, even getting there at 6:10, I barely managed to get a decent seat, especially with the continued desire not to be seeing directly to anyone (they did not fill every seat, as they often did in the past, and my guess is that was deliberate), and even then only because I grabbed the one open seat in between two that are reserved for companions of people in wheelchairs. I much prefer the front row of the back section, which is right behind this, as it is slightly elevated and has metal bars on which I can rest my feet, but this was good enough.
I had thought about biking back downtown and back for the movie, but decided instead to take the bus. I brought a library book to read, which I only managed to get a little of read. The trip back was annoying, and I absolutely would have gotten back home at least a few minutes faster had I just ridden my bike: the #11 was around 10 minutes delayed when I first got to the bus stop on Pine & 9th, so I just walked up to the next bus stop several blocks further to the east on Capitol Hill, and then One Bus Away kept bumping its ETA two minutes, over and over again. I finally gave up and left to walk to the next bus stop, and of course this is how it goes: I was a block away and the fucking bus arrived at the stop I just left! Luckily it got stuck behind the #49 at the Broadway stop, so even after sprinting to catch it, we just sat there for several minutes before moving along. I did still save some time by getting on that bus, but in the end it was probably by less than five minutes.
Then I had another bus experience on the way to work this morning, my first time commuting to work by bus since my return to working at the office—today being the end of my fourth week since that change.
I've been eating breakfast at work three days a week, since Reception started buying boxes of cereal for us to eat for breakfast here if we want. And I fucking love me some cereal, especially if it's free! Without eating at home first, I get done earlier, and I caught the #11 downtown outside my building at about 6:45. There was a young Black man at the bus stop who was instantly chatty with me, totally ignoring the fact that I had my AirPods in so I had to remove them so I could hear what he was saying. He asked me if I was catching the bus (what else would I have been doing there?), then even asked what time I get off work and said, "We could hang out. I have weed." In retrospect I should have just said, "I don't care for weed but thank you." Although I soon discovered there was nothing I could say that would make him stop talking to me.
He was very friendly and I wouldn't say I was threatened by him. I just wasn't that comfortable with his odd, hyper-focus on me—he said nothing to anyone else on the bus, besides the driver, and when he got on after me, he came and sat in the seat in front of me. I had put my AirPods back in and he still insisted on chatting with me until, much to my relief, he got off the bus at Melrose, maybe half the way downtown. He asked me no fewer than two more times what time I get off work. He asked where I work, and didn't understand what PCC was, which I had to explain. He spoke with a dialect I found difficult to decipher through his face mask. He even asked me about some place we had passed, I think, and if people go there to "take showers." Was he talking about Steamworks? Someplace else? I truly have no idea. He said he was new to Seattle and I really wondered where he lives. It would be a mistake to assume he was homeless, his odd question about showers notwithstanding. He didn't smell or look dirty or anything (not that all homeless people do). He gave off vibes like maybe he was lonely.
He was just . . . very young. I could find nothing that could possibly bond us in any way besides his kind of clueless chattiness. I was glad when he got off the bus and I could get back to the email I was trying to write to Alexia on my phone.
I got off the bus myself on 3rd Avenue downtown and walked the rest of the way, as I used to do often in the Before Times. This morning I walked up Western and Elliott Avenues, listening to Prince's 1999 album.
[posted 12:39 pm]