You're Either On the Bus or Off the Bus
Jun. 5th, 2026 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraMultiple errands took me to the other side of the river yesterday—which I like so much more than this side of the river. I have fond memories of living in the sleepy little town of Hyde Park. The local cottage industry is Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Though that may be changing. Hyde Park is also the home of the Culinary Institute of America, which has become pretty famous with the rise of food content programming across streaming networks. No fewer than three enormous resort-style hotels are going up in Hyde Park, all scheduled to open in the next three years. I can't help thinking that those investors misread the economic signals: Is anyone gonna want to blow five grand on a luxury vacation in fuckin' Hyde Park, NY, in three years? Is anyone gonna have five grand to blow on a luxury vacation anywhere in three years? I mean, apart from the one-percenters?
But I've been plenty wrong about those things before.
###
Among the useful things I bought yesterday were a knee brace and a weed wacker. I'm trying both of them out today.
I went across the river to have a fasting blood sugar drawn—so maybe that's why I felt so weak while I was shopping. I ate a banana, but honestly, I thought I might collapse at Home Depot. Of course, Home Depot—this cavernous warehouse with weak flurescent lighting, no air conditioning, and aisles and aisles and aisles of machinery and building materials—is one of my least favorite places in the world, so maybe that played into it.
Anyway, when I got home, I more-or-less collapsed. Yes, idleness is bad. But sometimes...
Rewatched Ghost World, which continues to be a brilliant movie.
That bus Norman waits for throughout the film. That finally comes for him at the end of the film, even though Enid knows the route was discontinued more than two years ago.
The bus is analogous to the symbol of the door in the wall in H.G. Wells' story of the same name. It's a story that's been a great favorite of mine since childhood. The door in the wall is what's in modern parlance called a portal. Ah! But a portal to where?
Is the bus a modern parallel to the mythological ferry over the River Styx? When Enid finally boards it at the end of the film, is this a code for her suicide? Is it a metaphor for the end of childhood? Or is it just a weird thing in a movie filled with weird things?
I still get goosebumps at that throwaway flash of a scene when Norman actually gets on the bus.
Though that may be changing. Hyde Park is also the home of the Culinary Institute of America, which has become pretty famous with the rise of food content programming across streaming networks. No fewer than three enormous resort-style hotels are going up in Hyde Park, all scheduled to open in the next three years. I can't help thinking that those investors misread the economic signals: Is anyone gonna want to blow five grand on a luxury vacation in fuckin' Hyde Park, NY, in three years? Is anyone gonna have five grand to blow on a luxury vacation anywhere in three years? I mean, apart from the one-percenters?
But I've been plenty wrong about those things before.
###
Among the useful things I bought yesterday were a knee brace and a weed wacker. I'm trying both of them out today.
I went across the river to have a fasting blood sugar drawn—so maybe that's why I felt so weak while I was shopping. I ate a banana, but honestly, I thought I might collapse at Home Depot. Of course, Home Depot—this cavernous warehouse with weak flurescent lighting, no air conditioning, and aisles and aisles and aisles of machinery and building materials—is one of my least favorite places in the world, so maybe that played into it.
Anyway, when I got home, I more-or-less collapsed. Yes, idleness is bad. But sometimes...
Rewatched Ghost World, which continues to be a brilliant movie.
That bus Norman waits for throughout the film. That finally comes for him at the end of the film, even though Enid knows the route was discontinued more than two years ago.
The bus is analogous to the symbol of the door in the wall in H.G. Wells' story of the same name. It's a story that's been a great favorite of mine since childhood. The door in the wall is what's in modern parlance called a portal. Ah! But a portal to where?
Is the bus a modern parallel to the mythological ferry over the River Styx? When Enid finally boards it at the end of the film, is this a code for her suicide? Is it a metaphor for the end of childhood? Or is it just a weird thing in a movie filled with weird things?
I still get goosebumps at that throwaway flash of a scene when Norman actually gets on the bus.
