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This is an urban bus system we’re talking about, so we won’t try to sugarcoat it: Maggie Morris has devised three separate routes from her NoPa apartment to SFSU, where she majors in art history, but none of them are all that dependable. “To get home, I take the M Oceanview to Castro and transfer to the 24,” she says, “but one day I had to wait 40 minutes. I’ve walked home from Castro three times in just this past week.” Then there was the time the 43 hit a BMW on Cole—at least it felt that way to Morris and several others, though the driver disputed it—and the day the N Judah slammed to a halt so quickly that Morris and her fellow passengers fell out of their seats. The vibe on the bus isn’t always fun, either. “The late-morning buses are pretty mellow, but on the way home when it’s crowded, people are pushy and rude. If you’re nice, you’ll get walked over.” Late at night, when she’s schlepping her guitar to a gig at Beale Street or House of Shields, though, sweeter moments emerge. “People always chat if you have a guitar. It’s a conversation starter.” So does commuter conversation ever lead to romance? “It rarely goes beyond eye contact, since everyone’s in their own little bubble. The other day, this cute boy was reading the same book I was—Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But it turns out he was 18 and living at home. I was like, ‘All right, you have a good day.’ Still, it’s always nice to talk to people, even just for a moment.”
This is an urban bus system we’re talking about, so we won’t try to sugarcoat it: Maggie Morris has devised three separate routes from her NoPa apartment to SFSU, where she majors in art history, but none of them are all that dependable. “To get home, I take the M Oceanview to Castro and transfer to the 24,” she says, “but one day I had to wait 40 minutes. I’ve walked home from Castro three times in just this past week.” Then there was the time the 43 hit a BMW on Cole—at least it felt that way to Morris and several others, though the driver disputed it—and the day the N Judah slammed to a halt so quickly that Morris and her fellow passengers fell out of their seats. The vibe on the bus isn’t always fun, either. “The late-morning buses are pretty mellow, but on the way home when it’s crowded, people are pushy and rude. If you’re nice, you’ll get walked over.” Late at night, when she’s schlepping her guitar to a gig at Beale Street or House of Shields, though, sweeter moments emerge. “People always chat if you have a guitar. It’s a conversation starter.” So does commuter conversation ever lead to romance? “It rarely goes beyond eye contact, since everyone’s in their own little bubble. The other day, this cute boy was reading the same book I was—Kafka’s Metamorphosis. But it turns out he was 18 and living at home. I was like, ‘All right, you have a good day.’ Still, it’s always nice to talk to people, even just for a moment.”
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