Bus Girl

Last night I got closer to understanding my brother. I watched The Big Lebowski. Now one has visions that during his dreams, Jonny finds himself flying high above Belfast's city skyline.

Fingers crossed for some cooling weather. Sun is great, but there is only so much reading I can do in the back garden before my eyes need a new glasses prescription. At the moment Leicester have the Riverside Festival. Belfast hasn't got much. And my search for Liefmanns' beer has been unsuccessful.

Continuous job hunting and now interviews are appearing. I wish to make an impression. Primark will be consulted for smart clothing. Knowing perfectly well that Saturday's Primark scene is busy, I still nonetheless waited for the weekend to take the trip. Between children screaming and chavs arguing, I tried to busy myself by looking at clothes that are either crap, useless, expensive, not required and generally ugly. Only once did I have to say sorry to the chavs for sliding past them.

The big decision was between black shoes or navy shoes. I stopped one employee.

'Excuse me,' I said, 'but are you any good with colour?'

'Colour?' asked the girl.

'Yeah.'

'Kinda.'

'Do you mind if I test something out on you?'

'No, go ahead.'

'Well, would you believe these navy shoes would go well with these grey trousers?'

'Just be aware that black and navy clash. So the grey trousers would be fine.'

'Thank you, that's settled. You don't have a name,' I said looking at the blank space on her name tag.

'It's Ashliegh,' she said.

'Thank you Ashliegh, that's great.'

So on Ashliegh's advice, I've made the shoe decision. On my own initiative, I've got a bigger size of shirt. The smallest had a grip around my neck. Who else believes it's a good idea to be able to breath? Especially during an interview.

Treated like dirt on the bus by the driver. Why should he be pleasant? He's only in charge of a huge vehicle which carries a number of human beings from one place to another, and he has a job during a shrinking job market. This would cause much celebration. Except not in his case.

Sitting on a seat was a girl. She had eyes and a smile much like Zooey Deschanel's. Bus Girl I will call her. Her decision to even show me her smile with me felt beautiful. However I sat behind her and forgot all about her. When I stood up to catch my stop, the bottle of water I had between my legs fell down and rolled under the seat of the Bus Girl. She caught it, smiled and handed it to me. I return the smile, said, 'Thank you' as childishly as I could and felt a little flutter within me that hasn't happened for a long time. Now I had missed my stop, not making it in time for the ignorant prick of a driver's speed. So what's the silver lining? I get a teeny bit more exercise. And a chance to smile one last time at Bus Girl when passing the windows of the vehicle.

She smiled back.

(Someone may be right that I'm not totally gay. I'm learning, for myself and not as a concept, that it may be the person themselves I like, regardless of their gender. In that case, I don't want to identify as gay any more. I want to identify as Chris Gray - and not even he knows what goes on with the feelings he has. Or will have.)