On Taking The Bus At Night

I wish I had taken the bus home last night, because that would have saved me a couple thousand steps. The night bus is always a lovely experience. The only light comes through the little red filter on the fluorescent strip on top, everyone is extra quiet as we zoom by houses and businesses in the dark, just the clatter of the frame, the whirr of the air conditioning, and occasionally the gentle TriMet announcer voice telling us where we are (but not often enough because it's easy to miss your stop if you aren't paying some attention at night). Even for familiar paths, it’s easy to forget the destination and stare at the passing houses with no focus on the goal of eventually getting off the bus to walk the rest of the way. And, maybe I'm especially prone to missing my stop if I’m not prompted by the disembodied voice announcing street names or snapped out of my trance by an alert on my navigation app. 

I think there's something magical about taking the bus at night, though. It's $2.80 to escape the fatigue of walking and get on a magical fast route to wherever you're headed. At night, the normal relationship between driver and rider is warped because you can ask the driver to stop their huge metal creature between the normal stops. Rarely does anybody do anything weird on a night bus. 
I think the strangest thing that I saw was on the night bus back from the theater on SE 82nd when I saw Barbie (2023) last summer. A huge group of teenagers hopped onto the bus, one paid their fare, and then they stayed in a group. Mostly, they stood in the middle of the bus, swaying from side to side as the bus moved, holding onto the handles and planning their next destination. I thought they were so beautiful and coordinated since I was alone at the time and feeling romantic about humans, as you kind of feel after watching Barbie (2023). I want to do a proper night movie some Friday or Saturday night, but I can’t watch a horror movie that late, so it would have to be some big theater showing a PG-13 movie late for sad 20-year-olds who like to stay up late like me. I think that emerging from the movie in the human-augmented darkness would cure some of my ails.