PlatKat.com

Believe it or not, there’s such a thing as public transportation etiquette. Even though no one practices it 100 percent of the time (myself included), it’s good to know the rules. Similar to my partial listing of the Gym Rules They Don’t Post, here are some idiocy-inspired guidelines for a calm, uneventful journey. (Note: The Gym Rules They Don’t Post are also applicable to the bus, and pretty much anywhere members of the public congregate.)

Find a seat promptly.
Now is a good time to practice thinking on your feet. It is likely that there are people behind you who are also attempting to board the bus and find a seat, and they’d rather not stand behind you while you perform a cost/benefit analysis of whether it’s best to share a seat up front, or find an empty row near the back.

Hold on tight.
Now is not a good time to relish in your vertigo. Move to the first row of seats quickly so you can make use of the handles at the back of each chair and steady yourself so as not to slam into those around you when the bus lurches forward. You may be taken by surprise, but remember, the bus isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s moving like it’s supposed to. If you’re flailing about due to this undiscovered revelation, you’re just a jackass with no self-control.

Don’t ask questions.
If you’re already on the bus and it’s moving, it’s fine to ask the driver for clarification on the stops he makes. But if you’re some tool on the street who didn’t map a route to his destination before leaving the house, the bus driver is not obligated to do it for you on the fly. In fact, you can call Metro’s Rider Information Phone System and talk to someone who’s job it is to answer your questions. So pick up a phone and quit wasting everyone’s time.

Shut the fuck up.
This rule applies mostly to commuter buses. These types of buses transport regular working people like me to our place of business. We make use of our time on the bus to catch up on e-mail, read books, and mentally prepare for the day ahead (or relax after a full day’s work). While it must be super to work on a rotating schedule, please spare the rest of us of your boisterous ramblings as the result of your fabulous mid-week bender of drinking paint thinner and sniffing glue.

Avoid using your cell phone.
See previous rule, “Shut the fuck up.” Sometimes it is necessary to make or take a call in order to inform your boss, coworkers, or family of your whereabouts and ETA. However, it is not appropriate to engage in a long emphatic conversation in your shrill native tongue with an entire bus full of people as your captive audience. We also don’t need to hear your flight plans for next month, how good your mom’s casserole recipe is, or whether you think it’s going to rain tomorrow. (FYI: Yes, it’s going to rain tomorrow, and the day after that.)

Don’t sit by me.
I’d prefer this to be a no-exceptions rule, but when the bus is crowded, go ahead. (No fatties.) Nothing irks me more than some asshat who gets in my space when there are a million empty seats to choose from. Even when one person occupies each row of two seats, I hate being the first to give up my spare seat. It makes sense that a seat by me would be preferred; I’m female, so I’m generally smaller and I smell better. I don’t partially commute by bike, so I’m not hauling around a gunny sack of shit everywhere. Still, the extra three inches of room doesn’t mean it is my destiny to be rubbing thighs with you for the next hour. But speaking of commuting cyclists…

Rack your bike right.
I can’t give specific directions on this because I don’t ride a bike and then change my mind part-way through and decide to take the bus. If you do this, learn how to use the bike racks at the front of the bus properly to avoid long interruptions that inconvenience the driver and his passengers. If you must “learn by doing,” start practicing on a bus that isn’t en route at rush hour with a zillion commuters on it.

Pay quickly and disembark.
Many buses in Seattle are pay-as-you-leave. If you happen to work for one of the handful of companies in the city that don’t offer a Flex Pass, have your money out and ready to deposit when you reach the front of the line. It goes without saying that the driver can’t make change, so don’t ask. Once you’ve paid, swiftly exit the bus and stay the hell out of my way. Thanks!

Two things, most important first:

1. Wildfires killed three people in Ordway, Colorado, which is located in one of the counties I supported when I was working at Hart. Having spent countless hours at the County Clerk’s office, I got to know some of the ladies there pretty well, and I hope they’re all okay. I feel silly admitting this, but I kind of want to call them, just to see how they are and tell them they’re in my thoughts. Nice as it sounds, it may also be really inappropriate. I don’t even work for Hart anymore, and neither do most of the people who were there when I left. In fact, at the rate it’s being run into the ground, it’s quite possible that Hart no longer exists, and the folks in Ordway forgot all about us anyway. So it might be a bit odd to receive a phone call from me, some old hired hand who hung around and made sure their election equipment didn’t fail. Okay, it’s settled then. No phone call.

2. BluWater is the place in Kirkland with the good carrot cake, which I’ve dragged many a poor soul around the K-land waterfront desperately seeking. I discovered the true location of the notorious carrot cake by accident yesterday. Funny how downing six glasses of wine during one’s first time in a city can cloud the memory. Anyway, once seated, I quickly learned that carrot cake is a seasonal item at this establishment, and they don’t have it right now. So I guess I’ll just have to wait until carrots (?) are back in season.

Fifteen days sober, and at least 15 more to go. I was scared that I’d be spending every evening in my tiny apartment, watching movies, reading books, and engaging in other spinster-like activities. But no, I’ve been just as busy as I was when I drank every night, and then some.

So the good news is that nothing has changed. The bad news, however, is also that nothing has changed.

I thought that by now I would experience some dramatically beautiful awakening where I realize how good I feel and how wonderful everything is. (My stomach never hurts! My skin is clearer! I’m 10 pounds lighter! The sun is shining! Birds are singing! All that shit!) But sadly, my life still is what it is. And I guess the most noticeable difference is my credit card bill so far this month.

Drinking is just one piece of the puzzle, I’m finding. I think another Master Cleanse is in my future, perhaps longer and harder than ever before.

Heh heh, longer and harder. Glad I’ve managed to hang onto my depraved sense of humor.

The weather has been so extremely gorgeous or extremely shitty lately (mostly shitty), that I struggle to develop a coherent series of words and ideas to constitute a readable blog post. More random thoughts, directed at people I don’t know:

It’s going to rain any second. Why the fuck are you wearing sunglasses? Sure, you can do whatever you want, it’s not hurting me. But still, I humbly beseech you, what drives a person to don a pair of shades as they walk through the Microsoft campus on a murky Seattle morning? Do you think you’re cool? Because you’re not.

Could your myspace page use an edit? Don’t answer that. Of course it could. Please send me a message or leave me a comment for a list of services. You may be able to find the latest viral video mocking Paris Hilton, and your glittery animated “Thanx for the add” gifs are unmatched by any other, but imagine being one of the elite myspacers who know the difference between “your” and “you’re”! For just pennies per word, you could give friends, acquaintances, and total strangers the impression that you’ve read a book once in your life, or could if you had to!

You could be my soul mate, a Rhodes scholar, a close relative of Brad Pitt, or an heir to the Gates estate—If we serendipitously met and hit it off, but you didn’t ask for my name and number, I am not going to feverishly read the Missed Connections section of Craigslist for weeks in hopes of finding you. I don’t care how widely accepted a practice it is here, it’s a colossal waste of my time when you consider how long it takes to say, “It was nice meeting you. Here’s my number. Can I have yours?” But if you’re content with accepting huge social losses under the guise of being shy, that’s fine. We’ll always have that spectacular moment! Just remember, you’re dead to me.

Thanks, QFC-in-store-music-selector, for Friday’s late-night Rickroll. I think I wet my pants a little.

When you’ve been playing cards for five hours, and it’s late at night, and everyone wants to go home but you, AND your opponent outstacks you 2-to-1, AND he offers to split the remaining prize money 50/50… just go all-in with your next shitty hand so he can stick a fork in your ass before he motors out with $400 and the only attractive girl within a two-mile radius.

This passivity is contagious, I tell you!

I walked a half-mile to the nearest convenience store to buy cigarettes, and smoked one on the half-mile walk back. Since I walked one mile more than I would have in a normal day, getting cigarettes wasn’t so unhealthy, was it?

Those little town blues were melting away. I was going to make a brand-new start of it in old New York. But I couldn’t make it there. Does that mean I can’t make it anywhere?

It is seemingly possible but not probable that I have a problematic lesion on my back that requires either a biopsy for further investigation or an excision which will rid me of concern for good (or at least the time being) but leave me with a big long scar. If I continue to waffle on this issue, which concerns not only my appearance but my health, should I give up on the idea of ever getting my beautiful seahorse tattoo altogether?

I had the chicken shawarma for lunch. But since shawarma is commonly made with lamb, would my shawarma have been tastier with that instead?

If someone ends their relationship with someone else by saying they want one thing when they really want something else, what argument can I make to assume things will be different when they say they want to end their relationship with me?

Certain forms of abuse turn me on, and when I get Rickrolled, I like it. Do both of these things make me a sexual deviant?

The perfect job for me is out there, I’m sure. Will I ever save enough money to allow myself to stop taking work in my current field in order to pursue it?

The NL Hold’em (No Rebuys) tourney is at 6:30. The buses run every half-hour after 8. Blinds increase every half-hour. If I’m short-stacked at the beginning of the fourth round, should I go all-in and save myself the mess of coloring up and waiting around during the break? (I already know the answer to this. I’m just making shit up now.)

I decided not to drink this month and it was a very good idea. Yes, it was.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Png-PC0ews]

I could use a pair… to make my life muy bonita.

The Athenian: I wanted Ivar’s, but your delicious eggs benedict would suffice.

Ivar’s Seafood Bar: I ate three breakfasts, so I will eat six desserts.

The Hunt Club: The fire was nice and I brought my own vicodin.

Driving Around Aimlessly: Let’s end this madness, please please please please please please.

Lombardi’s: Every dish could be a winner. I drank organic wine.

See Sound Lounge: It must be angry meathead night; I’ll return on Tuesday.

Lava Lounge: A retro place to hide and contemplate a hula dance.

Torero’s Mexican Restaurant: The waiter called us “amigos.” Why? He don’t know me.

Punjab’s Sweets: The mango shake is good. What are those other things?

Bacco Cafe and Juice Bar: You rocked my breakfast hard despite a lack of bacon.

Sawdust Coffee Company: I’ll mock your clientele while my bladder cries in pain.

Teaching Texas Hold ‘Em: We need more people and money to make this work.

The Satellite: Dominoes, stiff drinks, and Kat’s music make this place awesome.

“This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-PEW-PEW-PEW! PEW PEW!”

Last Sunday, I was playing dominoes with Jessica and a couple of friends at the Satellite. Jessica, who is infinitely socially graceful, is very good about casually “reintroducing me” to her friends who frequent the place, since I just moved to the area and am constantly meeting new people.

At one point in the evening, a young man I recognized sat down at our table. Without missing a beat, Jessica said, “Kat, you remember Brett, the filmmaker? Brett, you remember Kat, right?”

Brett and I had met at a mutual friend’s art show earlier that month. We spoke briefly, but nothing memorable came of it. Therefore, I didn’t mind that he’d forgotten who I was when we met again at the Satellite a couple of weeks later. Jessica reintroduced us, and he made sure to inform me that he knows someone else named Kat, but she lives in San Francisco. As you may have guessed, I found this news thrilling and wish to this day I had informed him that I had a crush on a boy named Brett when I was in the fifth grade, but we lived in Illinois at the time. This type of information is incredibly useful when getting to know someone, and should always be exchanged. What my name is short for also matters very much, since “Kat” is not a real name unless you know the complete history and background of it, and how one could call themselves something so blatantly preposterous.

After I delicately navigated that social trainwreck of a conversation, we ended up having a semi-interesting talk about his independent film projects, and every now and then I was able to get a word in edgewise. I’d say the conversation exceeded 30 minutes and took place well before midnight. He and I were each lucid and acting within reasonable zones of sobriety throughout our encounter.

We saw each other several days later in the company of Jessica, at the Satellite yet again. It was Easter Sunday, so no one was doing so hot, but I remember that he was there and that we’d spoken briefly about something, or at least tried to.

So, fast-forward to Brett’s invasion of our perfectly nice domino game and Jessica’s spot-on reintroduction. Not only did he forget my name, he didn’t even pretend to recognize me. To boot, after Jessica told him my name, he went through the same spiel as our second meeting.

“Kat like the feline?” he asked with slightly overdramatic incredulousness.

“Yes,” I replied, “And I believe we went over this when we met before.”

He replied matter-of-factly, “You just insulted me.”

Funny that he should be insulted when he blatantly disregarded having met me three other times, one of which included a lengthy conversation all about himself. I guess he was so wrapped up in discussing his latest film project that he forgot he was talking to an actual person and not into a tape recorder or microphone. Then instead of humbly apologizing for his bad memory (something I’ve had to do more than once, no doubt), he had to get all stupid about my not-so-unique name… again.

Everyone at the table was quiet. What do you say to that anyway? “It’s your choice to feel insulted” is probably too much reality for a person who doesn’t claim to know me, and “I’m sorry” would have been a lie. So, when in doubt, silence works best. He left pretty soon after that anyway.

I know this g00b is used to seeing things from behind the camera, but he could stand to brush up on his acting skills and at least pretend to be interested in someone other than himself.

Although the Valentine’s Day season is long-gone, Seattle is still rife with g00bs of all shapes and sizes! April submitted her run-in with one of Seattle’s finest g00bs, and you know the party hasn’t stopped on my end. Let’s get g00bin’!

I was outside of a venue in Ballard during a show when a sexy musician from the opening band approached me and struck up a really great conversation. We discussed our current projects and we were getting a little flirty—shuffling feet and standing closer and closer together. So promising was this encounter that he invited me to his next show in two weeks. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, saying something to the effect of “Hey, let me put that in my calendar.”

And then… something, uh, happened…? He replied, “Look, don’t get the wrong idea! I’m not asking for your number, okay?”

“Uh, hey… I’m just putting your show in my calendar so i don’t forget…? I really want to check it out!”

“Yeah, well, don’t get the wrong idea… I just want you to come to my show, nothing else. I’m not trying to get your number or anything.”

I laughed because I thought he must be joking, trying to be “West Coast ironic” or something. No, he then backed away from me like I was diseased, terrible-smelling, and/or carrying a gun.

What the HELL was that, PlatKat? Is it because of my pretentious iPhone?! HALP!

Addendum: No April, I can almost guarantee that the type of phone you carry is not the problem here.