Social Isolation and New Technology

I took the bus to beautiful Downtown Burbank.  Had a really good meeting with Todd Hampson and Sean Copley of www.timbuktoons.com (who will hopefully be hiring me to score their cartoons in the near future – fingers crossed).  After a nice meal at Granville where I had the Thai salad with peanuts and mango and just the right amount of spiciness and some bread on the side with a refreshing glass of Arnold Palmer, I went back to the bus stop.  (I recommend the Thai salad).

Found a seat at the stop, put my headphones on to practice my intervals with Music Theory Pro app (available from Apple's app store and highly recommended for music students and pro musicians alike), when an older gentleman approached me...

I took my earphones off, looked at him expectantly, his mouth opened slowly in that faltering kind of way as if he got nervous or plain forgot what he was going to say....

I broke the silence with, "How are you?" hopefully shaking up his hesitation.

"Good," he seemed to sigh with a little smile. Then he asked slowly, "Do you happen to know the definition of the word minutia?"

Turns out we were catching the same bus and we talked all the way to my stop.  He told me he asked me about minutia because I looked intelligent.  I asked if my glasses made me look intelligent, and he insisted it's something else that he can just tell about a person.

When I asked why he was curious about the word minutia in particular, he said that his ex-wife was a very articulate woman and would use words like that.  "But, oh, did she have a temper.  She took prescription drugs, and the drugs had steroids.  And, of course, steroids can give a person a mighty temper."  They eventually divorced, and she is now passed away.  Henry works as a janitor somewhere in Burbank.

In case you were curious.

It was such a random question for him to ask me.  I suspect that he just wanted to talk to somebody, maybe in particular to talk to someone about his ex-wife.  However, he also said that as a janitor, he works alone.  "And what's the hardest part about working?" he asked me as if the answer were obvious. "Other people!" he answered.  Did he really mean that?  Does he really want to avoid other people when he seems to miss his ex-wife enough to talk to a stranger about her?  When he seems ready to start a conversation with a total stranger on the pretext of being curious about the definition of a word he happened to be thinking of?  I wonder if he came up with that question only after his faltered attempt at starting a conversation which I saved by asking, "How are you?"

Maybe like all of us, he's had some bad experiences with people and is grateful to have a job where he works alone, but, at other times, he feels the need for connection.  And, what do we have that can be a good starting point for a conversation?  What's a good piece of common ground to randomly ask a question about?  Language is one thing, I suppose.  Then again, I wouldn't ask anybody a question like that because I have a smartphone.  And if you have a smartphone with internet for all your questions, why talk to anyone?  Right?

Averting Public Altercations: More guns or Less guns?

Did he have a gun?  Or any other weapon?  Did anyone else have a gun?  Is it legal to carry a gun on the metro, or is it more like airplane travel just without metal detectors?

The man causing the problems on the underground train was drunk and getting very bold with an unfortunate young lady traveling by herself.  He began by displaying his strength doing pull-ups on the overhead handrail directly in front of her.  He was already too close for comfort.  My seat was right next to and perpendicular to the girls'.  In his slurred Spanglish he complimented her looks, but only succeeded in creeping her out further and drawing threatening words and looks from a few intimidating young men in our car.  I had remained silent, but I was ready to join the more verbose onlookers if need be.  Serious warnings, violent threats, and some insults continued coming at the guy.

In light of all the gun talk recently, I wondered,"What if this guy gets angry and it ends up that he has a weapon, a knife or a gun?"  I know for sure I want a law against him in particular from having a right to bear arms.  But, if he's a bad guy, he might have a gun illegally anyway.  If so, then I might hope that someone else has one.  I might later hope that I had had one.  I'd hate to see things escalate with more than one gun, but I'd also hate to see one, angry, drunk guy take control and cause havoc with the only gun.

Turns out he was unarmed.  The only real action took place when the girl hit him in the face and a couple of us grabbed the drunkard forcing him to sit until his stop.  No guns, no one hurt, conflict averted, and after the drunk left, all of us in the car felt a sense of camaraderie for having been ready to protect a young lady.