6. Be Memorable

Lesson: Since your alive, you might as well leave a lasting impression.

Every so often I have to take the UCSF shuttle. I hop on the Grey line at the Parnassus campus and take it to the Mission Bay campus. Then I hop on the Green line from Mission Bay to the Minnesota building. The Green line only takes 6 minutes to get to the Minnesota building (but 20 minutes if you walk) and usually nobody is on it.

Now there aren't that many black people in all of S.F. The bus driver (on the Green Line) was black. I'm black. And there was nooooo body else on the bus, so we had talk to each other. That is an unspoken rule of the black people- you must acknowledge each other when you are in areas where there are not many other black people. Its the rules. I ended up talking about my favorite living thing- my dog Mittens. I don't think he cared that Mittens gets blueberry facials or that it always rains when it is time for her to get a bath. I don't think you care either.



Anyways, I mentioned that doggy baths are much cheaper "back home". And he said, "That's right, your from L.A."

First thought, I might as well give my address, phone number, and social security to everybody- I tell people too much about myself.

Second thought, I am a memorable bus rider. According to my memory, I've only ridden with this bus driver once before. Kind of creepy he remembered that. He is not the only one though. There is one trolley driver, on the F line, who remembered me from the one and only other time I was on his trolley. There is another driver on the 35 bus that always talks to me. They are all black, hmm...

Once, I was at a 33 bus stop waiting and I started talking to this girl who was also waiting. We departed once the bus arrived at our different stops. I went home about 8 hours later on a nearly empty 33 bus. Not really paying attention, some chick sat next to me. My first thought was you could have sat anywhere on this bus, but you had to sit right next me? Once she spoke to me I realized that she was the same girl from earlier that day. Oh, she wasn't black and she remembered me, hmmm...

I'm memorable (so I'd like to think), but I don't remember people that well.

The bus system builds communities. Talk to somebody... just don't tell them where you live. The little conversations with people I statistically will never see again sometimes make my day. If it doesn't brighten up  my day, then I say something kind and brighten up their day.

That is how I choose to be memorable.