Bus Report #244

This evening I took the 1 California bus home from downtown, after watching the film Once. It was a sweet film and definitely worth seeing.

Downtown San Francisco at night always looks like a movie set to me. It's so quiet and empty, the opposite of it's character during the day.

The bus came and I sat in a window seat as we rattled our way up Sacramento Street.
Chinatown always looks so beautiful in the fog. The lights and neon look fuzzy, the streets actually look clean. There must have been a funeral or a church service somewhere: There were tons of men in suits and ladies with flowers walking down Grant Street.
One elderly lady ran for the bus with her tub of cut flowers. A few flowers fell out. A moment later, a little girl came by and picked up the flowers. She gave them to her mom.

When I got back to my neighborhood, the fog was rolling in thickly. Sheets of it uncurled themselves over the streetlights.

The fog makes the familiar feel unfamiliar and spooky, and it makes the unfamiliar seem dreamlike and foreign.

Two people walked towards me.
Under the light coming from a nearby apartment building, I recognized a woman I ride the 38 with sometimes.
I mumbled a hello to her before the cold, damp weather set me off coughing.