Tearing the house apart today. Made me feel sick, the dismemberment. And it was that. I thought about it while the entrails of neatly compartmentalized household scattered in odd heaps and juxtapositions.

I will unplug the computer after uploading this entry.

Last minute shopping of course. I strode out into the morning slack tide headed for Namdaemun market to buy four dulsot (stone bowls), determined to return in less than two hours. I was waiting for the walk signal to turn green when my bus passed through the intersection on the other side of the road. No way to catch it; have to wait for the next. And that's all I thought about it. When the light finally turned and I walked across the road, I saw the same bus still waiting at the stop. Traffic was at a standstill and apparently the bus hadn't moved at all in the last few minutes. I ran to catch it.

As I hopped on, dropped my coin in the box, I noticed that the driver was a woman. Her hair was hidden up under a camouflage army cap and she peered through dark aviator glasses. She was screaming at the traffic and as soon as I deposited my money and walked past, she got up out of the driver's seat to see what the hold up was. She returned momentarily yelling something about the taxi up ahead being stopped for no apparent reason. Indeed, that's what it looked like, and what I thought, as I was running toward the bus just a few moments earlier. No apparent reason. Then I thought the reason must be so that on one of my last days in Seoul I could ride a bus with a woman at the helm. They're rare - the kind of rarity featured specially on TV shows. She dressed herself like a man because people 'round here think women can't drive as well, think women shouldn't drive at all, etc.

The taxi drove away and the lines of cars started moving again. We moved too, lurching dodging threatening swerving. She was swearing and cutting people off and I thought she was more aggressive than the average bus driver... in effort to prove herself maybe? Or maybe she just loves to drive... or hates to drive. Whatever the case, she was getting us there fast and furious and just the way I love it on a Seoul city bus. At one point I looked toward the front where I could see her face reflected in the rear view mirror. Thickly penciled eyebrows stated themselves between the rim of her hat and the dark planes of the aviator lenses. At that moment, with the carriage of the bus rattling and all the bodies bouncing in their seats , the speakers in my ears sang:

faster than the speeding light
she's flying
trying to remember
where it all began
she's goddess of a little piece of heaven....