Last night I took the 24 Divisadero, a San Franciscan orange behemoth of public transportation, to my boyfriend's house.

The 24 traverses a rich mix of neighborhoods, from placid Noe Valley houses overlooking glittering downtown lights, to the infamous gay men's mecca known as Castro, to the Western Addition, where gentrification hasn't strangled the predominantly African-American neighborhood yet. This gives it an assortment of riders who rarely meet, much less talk about the weather.

I'd forgotten how unsettling the mixture can be.

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