I’ve been pretty good about timing it so I can catch the DASH bus to work, which cuts my walk time in half and only costs a quarter. I wait in front of the Las Palmas Market, observing the new posters on the wall (Fat Nano ads this week), and watching the traffic in front of me and the way they interpret the stop sign at the intersection. This morning was a crazy parade of weird stuff going on inside the cars: a plastic bag dangling out under the passenger door of one car, a notepad and GPS suctioned to the windshield of another, someone driving while eating something out of a mug with a spoon, pretty much everyone on the phone, and a girl with an iPod strapped to her arm, as though she had gone running and then driven to work without changing.

When the bus came, it wasn’t the bus, but instead, a “Hollywood Trolley” with a simple printout taped to the windshield: “DASH.” Wooden benches, frilly windows, and lots of stares followed. In order to avoid last week’s debacle where I missed my stop because no one was waiting to board there, which had always been the case in the past, I pulled the ‘stop request’ cord, which made an actual bell ring up front. Very authentic.