amen sister. amen.

passed solly's...notice the sunshine diner appears to be moving across the street soon. past macdonald. now my attention is turned almost completely to the stops and starts of the bus, and their direct impact on my bladder. or rather my experience of my bladder.

the weirdo kits fade out towards arbutus. i am beginning to breath yoga-style. i'm considering how to focus my body on other things. look at the sky. look at the buildings. think about something else. think about something else. jerk. bladder. wow. this is overwhelming. i hate that i can't just get off. this is stressful.

i take my hat off, because i feel my head getting warm. i sort out my hair, put my hat back on, and decide to avoid any and all movement from now on. i am sitting in the aisle seat, last row before the horizontal-to-the-bus rows, so i can lean my head back on the weirdo plexiglass. this is excellent, because it allows my body the partial non-bend. i.e., i am leaned way back-ish, and my wasit/butt is more forward on the seat. i have never been more thankful to be in the aisle seat.

kinko's. i am now remembering the only other time i can think of where i hadtopeesobadthatithoughtiwasgoingtodie. i was on a plane, flying from godknowswhere to godknowswhere, (i find almost all airplane experiences, much like the normal b-line, blend into one kind of sountrack-memory, single distuinguishable portions of rides/trips might stick out, most do not)...so the plane was preparing to land, and i was like, damn, i have to pee. but the seatbelt sign had just gone back on. i basically spent the next 10 minutes regretting every second that i hadn't gotten up the second before to just go. i felt as though the 'preparing for landing' business had been called pre-emptively, and there totally would have been time for me to go. but no one ever says 'we are landing in 12 minutes'. or 'we are landing in 22 minutes'. so i held it. i thought i was going to die, but i think i actually did make it all the way into the terminal. i remember thinking i was going to die, but somehow it diffused.

granville. this is not going away. what am i going to do? i can't get off the bus. i suppose i could tell the drive i needed to get off the bus and he'd have to let me off. i'd have to say something like 'i'm having a panic attack'...that'd do it. why don't busses have toilets? i wondered how often other people around me are silently, motionlessly freaking out at any given moment...i'm beginning to sweat. it occurs to me around the memphis blues house/meat fries place that loosening my belt (possible, thank god, in that i'm wearing a nylon belt) would release some pressure. i do this and do not care if anyone notices.

i am beginning to have visions of myself actually having a spaz. i wonder what this would look like. would i stand up, pissing and flailing and screaming? and do some kind of possessed dance and start foaming at the mouth, in the area beside the door which is painted yellow? for .5 seconds i entertained what it would be like to just maybe pee a bit but i knew this would NEVER WORK. and would never go unnoticed. i am beginning to doubt my ability to even stand up, and am now actively planning my move to the busdriver and my premature exit from the bus.

the full-on clamping of my vaginal muscles is tricky, because to apply the DON'T PEE muscles, is sort of also to apply pressure on the whole bladder deal, so i do as best i can. i shut my music off. movement is tricky. i cautiously take my headphones off, and kind of watch my arm move in front of me, grab my bag and pull it up, like as if my body was running off of muscle-batteries, backed up somewhere else, and it wasn't affecting the current extremely tentative balance of my body.