Twister on the Bus

On Tuesday I traveled for 14 hours, which includes a layover in Texas and a bus ride from Portland to Boston.

I woke up at 9 and watched some Olympics on the couch, playing guitar instead of eating breakfast. I did drink some orange juice.

It was raining, so I did the driving down to Portland. There's a pecking order when it comes to driving in my family, and if my dad isn't in the car, I drive. It probably has more to do with the fact that everyone hates driving. It took us a little over an hour because of the rain and highway construction.

I liked taking the bus from Portland. I'd been to the Concord station several times, picking people up and dropping them off, but I'd never ridden myself. I only had a Camelbak with me so I didn't have to store anything under the bus. The front of the bus was occupied by wicker baskets of bottled water and pretzels, or maybe chips. I didn't want either.

The bus driver thought he was a comedian. He was trying to sound like Steven Wright I think. Talking slow and monotone, sounding miserable. He was bald but he looked more like Bob Newhart with a beard. I sat in a seat in front of one of the televisions, nearer the front in hopes that I could sit alone. It's often the case that the backseats fill up before the front ones, on account of people hoping to sit alone and not eyeing the back of the bus till they're back there.

It looked like everyone had loaded and I'd be sitting alone but then an old man sat down next to me. He had a tweed jacket on and a stupid fisherman's cap. He held a book of Short Stories from the New Yorker which he never opened. He fell asleep almost immediately and slept most of the trip. His face was blotched red and his mouth was wide open. I tried not to look at him.

The in-bus movie was Twister. I'd never seen it before. I used to think Helen Hunt was hot until I had a teacher in junior high who looked like her. The movie was formulaic and predictable but I liked some of the music. The final tornado scene was exciting but I bet it pissed off meteorologists. Just like the archaeologists whom were offended by the Indiana Jones trilogy, saying it wasn't realistic archaeology. Of course, Indiana Jones made archaeology exciting, I'm pretty certain Twister didn't inspire kids to start studying storm patterns.

It's 26 dollars for a ride from Portland to Logan, one way. You get free snacks and they show you a Helen Hunt movie. Not a bad deal, though I would have gone with Project X. The rest of the day was dull. Sitting on a plane, eating a breakfast sandwich, reading a book.