Uh. Stuff.

Yesterday was Monday. Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. Yesterday was my wonderful, lovely mother's (as opposed to all my other mothers', which tend to be in early Autumn) birthday.

I took the bus home from work last night and was treated/subjected to one of those conversations that only occur on the public transportation. Or perhaps they happen all the time as soon as I leave the room, but I only see and hear them on the bus.

The bus driver was in his early 50s. I entered the bus and sat in the first rown past the semi-reserved seating and noticed that there was a three-way conversation going between the driver, an older woman, and another guy. Conversations on the bus are actually not very common in my experience; people tend to sit in their seat, listening to their headphones or reading their book or trying to check out other people without actually getting caught and roped into some sort of eye contact.

Perhaps it's this culture of silence that only allows the most boisterous conversants to stand out. In this context, I don't intend "boisterous" to be merely the loudest... I mean most willing to talk, irrespective of relevance or whether topics are appropriate or not.

I wasn't really paying attention to the three-way conversation, but the woman departed and the passenger (mid-to-late 40's, long gray hair in a ponytail, a malformed beret perched atop his head as some sort of progressive maraschino cherry) took it up a notch. Somehow the conversation turned to the armed forces (maybe it was the Stephen King comment yesterday? Doubt it. But maybe.)

The conversation was a bit rambling (shocker, huh) and one-sided (with the driver being sort of an unwilling, or at least reluctant, participant). Highlights of the conversation included:

Driver: I spent time in Korea during the Vietnam war.
Rider: Woah. Were you drafted?
Driver: I served during the draft.

(Translation: "No, I was not drafted. I signed up so I could have some control over how and where I served.")

Rider: Man... I tell ya. The draft. I was just young enough to avoid it, but I tell ya, I would have taken the next train to Canada.
Driver: A lot of people did.
Rider: Or gotten some kind of deferment or something.

(Translation: "I served my country and you're acting like I was too stupid to avoid it.")

Rider: The thing is that there's a whole generation of people, man, that my generation--and your generation--have to deal with.
Driver: ... ?
Rider: The people begging for change. The people doing the drugs.
Driver: Well, you can look at every war--the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WW II--and soldiers have it rough coming back.
Rider: I was talking to someone a while back and he was saying that the rate of alcoholism is higher than after other wars... and the rate of bi-sexuality is, too.
Driver: What? I don't see...
Rider: It's like too much time in the jungle, or something.
Driver: I'm not sure that...
Rider (holding his hands up): I'm not saying I believe it. Just telling you what I was told.

Seriously. Does the jungle drive otherwise straight dudes to bisexuality? I was so adrift listening to it I couldn't figure out of he was being racist or was hitting on the driver or what. It was weird. I had a newfound respect for bus drivers everywhere who have to put up with the gibbering of riders all day, every day.

I got home and noticed that my phone was blinking blue... it normally blinks green, but when I have a message (txt or voicemail) it blinks blue. I checked my txt messages and there were no new ones. Which meant one thing: I had at least one new voicemail.

Any time someone calls me for a non-work related item, I'm flattered. I know they don't have to take the time to do it, and 9 times out of 10 I'd like to talk to them. What I don't like? I don't like voicemail. I am impatient with voicemail and I don't like listening to it, and as a result it builds up. Days of voicemails become weeks of voicemails. And I feel overwhelmed and I just don't check them.

With my old phone I could easily tell who had recently called, but in spite of my clearly superior intellect (rooted in my near-superhuman humility) I can't consistently figure out who called me when. Someday I'll figure it out, but not now.

So a word to the wise: send me a txt? I'll respond very, very quickly. Send me an email or a MySpace message? I'll be back quickly, as well. Leave me a voicemail message? It's probably not going to get responded to or ever heard in time to do anyone any good.

After I looked at the blue blinking light I decided to take a nap. I love naps. They allow me to function on fewer than six hours of sleep a night, and I almost invariably am getting fewer than six hours of sleep a night nowadays.

I napped and returned a txt message or two. Cooked a frozen pizza. Watched some NBA playoffs. Cleaned about 35% of my bedroom. Started reading at about 9:00, thinking I'd be asleep by 11.

Of course, because I'm me, it was nearly 1:00 by the time I turned off the light and I was half-aslep until at least 1:45... my attempts to sleep were not aided by the nap I'd taken six hours earlier nor by my sinuses deciding to perform "operation shutdown" and turn me into a mouthbreather for the duration of the night.

I woke up with an incredibly dry mouth, covers scattered everywhere, and feeling exhausted. I'm going to endeavor to not nap this evening and see if it helps.