Left For Dead In Malaysia
So, last Saturday I took a trip into The City Without A Heart, Toronto, for a Randy Newman concert.
The concert was very good.
I missed the bus back to Guelph (All of them) because I didn't know where to wait. I waited where I had been dropped off, figuring there would at least be another drop-off that night in the same place, even if the driver told me he couldn't let people on at that stop and to blow it out my asshole.
This story doesn't get any better than it is now. The rest of the night and morning until I caught the 7:30AM bus were just 8 of the most stupefyingly boring hours of my life.
I stood outside the hotel where I had been dropped off for, man, probably about 2 hours. The first hour there were two other guys there waiting for the same bus, to Kitchner. We didn't talk much except for "Is that the bus?" and "I think we missed the bus." The most demoralizing thing was that I DID see Greyhound buses going by, and it did raise some flags in my mind. But in the end, I decided one or two other Greyhound buses wasn't a sufficient argument against staying where I was.
Whenever the one guy went to ask somebody about Greyhound stops and the person didn't know anything, he would walk back and do the most exaggerated shrug and "I dunno" expression I ever saw. The other guy just kept insisting one of the buses we saw had been supposed to stop there, but just "couldn't fucking be bothered." I had trouble following his reasoning, and things were not much worse when those two went into the hotel and never came back.
I whistled Dixie to pass the time. I whistled it different ways. Sometimes I whistled it really fast, sometimes I whistled it really slow. A couple of times I tried to whistle really carefully, which was depressing because it made me realize how violently off key my normal whistling is. Oh yeah, I was also extremely depressed at this point, not about whistling. I knew I was going to be waiting until the not-very-wee hours of the morning before I could get a bus, but I had no idea where that bus would be stopping. I didn't know who to ask, and for some reason my mind wouldn't let me stop a taxi. I guess the image of getting in and saying "Greyhound terminal" and having the driver say "Greyhound terminal? What's Greyhound terminal?" was so frustrating and unbearable that it was out of the question.
I had also taken a taxi to University of Toronto for the show, because absolutely nobody was willing to give me decent walking directions (Everybody I asked told me to take a bus). I figured as a stranger in this city, I shouldn't argue. I thought, maybe it's a crazy question, maybe it's like asking somebody in Brooklyn the shortest walk to the Bronx Zoo. Needless to say, I wasted like $10 on a very crappy and unnecessary cab ride and it soured me to the whole institution.
After some fruitless walking around, I went into a Tim Horton's, which is like Dunkin Donuts, since only three people on my friends list have any business knowing that. I decided to steel myself for 8 more hours of brutal consciousness by drinking some pure sugar diabetes iced cappuccino. I got out a book because my plan at that point was to stake out the bus stop (Don't worry, I realized all along what a shitty plan this was, and felt bad about it!). I saw two people using their laptops and decided to ask one if he could check the Greyhound website for me. He was very accomodating, accomodating to the point where I wasn't sure he had been doing anything on the computer previously, and I wondered what he was doing with his laptop in a Tim Hortons at 1AM on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. The connection was shitty though, and I didn't learn shit. I thought about asking the woman, but decided it would be weird after she had just seen my entire exchange with the guy from across the room.
I decided to ask the front desk of the hotel if they knew anything, which maybe occured to you all at home right away, but keep in mind that I had only recently given up hope completely on a bus stopping. They gave me some directions, and I set out once again. I have very little confidence in my ability to follow simple directions, so after a while I decided to see if I was on the right track. The guy I asked was on drugs, and kept saying "No, man, you don't want to be on Dundas! You don't want to go to Dundas." I said "But is that where the bus station is?" He said "Yeah, but you don't want to be on Dundas." I said "Could you tell me where Dundas is anyway? Dundas and Bay?" He said "You're on Dundas."
The next guy I asked seemed like he was making fun of me, but I followed his directions anyway, and I made it to the bus station. Some janitors were just leaving and told me it would be open at 5, so I had like two and a half hours to kill. Around 3AM, I found a 24 hour Kinko's. I got some free paper and sat down outside a DRUXY'S and began to write. Originally I was just going to post what I wrote, and devote most of my entry to RANDY NEWMAN and how good and underappreciated he is. HOWEVER, rereading it all, I realized it was very bad and embarrassing, and I should probably preface it briefly with the complete psychic breakdown that inspired it. Then again, maybe you won't even be able to read my handwriting, a la 'Doug's Runaway Journal.' Or maybe you'll read it and find it no better or worse than my average Livejournal entry.
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It doesn't cover the end of the story, which is this:
At 5 I went into the bus station and napped until 7:10. I got on the bus to Guelph at 7:30.
Don't read what's behind that cut. That's bad. Read this instead, it's good. It's not me, but sometimes I feel like it is.
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Page Six
The concert was very good.
I missed the bus back to Guelph (All of them) because I didn't know where to wait. I waited where I had been dropped off, figuring there would at least be another drop-off that night in the same place, even if the driver told me he couldn't let people on at that stop and to blow it out my asshole.
This story doesn't get any better than it is now. The rest of the night and morning until I caught the 7:30AM bus were just 8 of the most stupefyingly boring hours of my life.
I stood outside the hotel where I had been dropped off for, man, probably about 2 hours. The first hour there were two other guys there waiting for the same bus, to Kitchner. We didn't talk much except for "Is that the bus?" and "I think we missed the bus." The most demoralizing thing was that I DID see Greyhound buses going by, and it did raise some flags in my mind. But in the end, I decided one or two other Greyhound buses wasn't a sufficient argument against staying where I was.
Whenever the one guy went to ask somebody about Greyhound stops and the person didn't know anything, he would walk back and do the most exaggerated shrug and "I dunno" expression I ever saw. The other guy just kept insisting one of the buses we saw had been supposed to stop there, but just "couldn't fucking be bothered." I had trouble following his reasoning, and things were not much worse when those two went into the hotel and never came back.
I whistled Dixie to pass the time. I whistled it different ways. Sometimes I whistled it really fast, sometimes I whistled it really slow. A couple of times I tried to whistle really carefully, which was depressing because it made me realize how violently off key my normal whistling is. Oh yeah, I was also extremely depressed at this point, not about whistling. I knew I was going to be waiting until the not-very-wee hours of the morning before I could get a bus, but I had no idea where that bus would be stopping. I didn't know who to ask, and for some reason my mind wouldn't let me stop a taxi. I guess the image of getting in and saying "Greyhound terminal" and having the driver say "Greyhound terminal? What's Greyhound terminal?" was so frustrating and unbearable that it was out of the question.
I had also taken a taxi to University of Toronto for the show, because absolutely nobody was willing to give me decent walking directions (Everybody I asked told me to take a bus). I figured as a stranger in this city, I shouldn't argue. I thought, maybe it's a crazy question, maybe it's like asking somebody in Brooklyn the shortest walk to the Bronx Zoo. Needless to say, I wasted like $10 on a very crappy and unnecessary cab ride and it soured me to the whole institution.
After some fruitless walking around, I went into a Tim Horton's, which is like Dunkin Donuts, since only three people on my friends list have any business knowing that. I decided to steel myself for 8 more hours of brutal consciousness by drinking some pure sugar diabetes iced cappuccino. I got out a book because my plan at that point was to stake out the bus stop (Don't worry, I realized all along what a shitty plan this was, and felt bad about it!). I saw two people using their laptops and decided to ask one if he could check the Greyhound website for me. He was very accomodating, accomodating to the point where I wasn't sure he had been doing anything on the computer previously, and I wondered what he was doing with his laptop in a Tim Hortons at 1AM on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. The connection was shitty though, and I didn't learn shit. I thought about asking the woman, but decided it would be weird after she had just seen my entire exchange with the guy from across the room.
I decided to ask the front desk of the hotel if they knew anything, which maybe occured to you all at home right away, but keep in mind that I had only recently given up hope completely on a bus stopping. They gave me some directions, and I set out once again. I have very little confidence in my ability to follow simple directions, so after a while I decided to see if I was on the right track. The guy I asked was on drugs, and kept saying "No, man, you don't want to be on Dundas! You don't want to go to Dundas." I said "But is that where the bus station is?" He said "Yeah, but you don't want to be on Dundas." I said "Could you tell me where Dundas is anyway? Dundas and Bay?" He said "You're on Dundas."
The next guy I asked seemed like he was making fun of me, but I followed his directions anyway, and I made it to the bus station. Some janitors were just leaving and told me it would be open at 5, so I had like two and a half hours to kill. Around 3AM, I found a 24 hour Kinko's. I got some free paper and sat down outside a DRUXY'S and began to write. Originally I was just going to post what I wrote, and devote most of my entry to RANDY NEWMAN and how good and underappreciated he is. HOWEVER, rereading it all, I realized it was very bad and embarrassing, and I should probably preface it briefly with the complete psychic breakdown that inspired it. Then again, maybe you won't even be able to read my handwriting, a la 'Doug's Runaway Journal.' Or maybe you'll read it and find it no better or worse than my average Livejournal entry.
Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
Page Five
It doesn't cover the end of the story, which is this:
At 5 I went into the bus station and napped until 7:10. I got on the bus to Guelph at 7:30.
Don't read what's behind that cut. That's bad. Read this instead, it's good. It's not me, but sometimes I feel like it is.
Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
Page Five
Page Six
