A Catologie: Metrically Writing Ordinary Travel A collection of the ways people ride transit, the way they occupy moving interiors, will be constructed through producing “Metric Writing.” Ride the transit route you take everyday for a period of your choice. Write a single sentence which exhausts a single person on the bus/streetcar/subway. You must choose a different person each time you transfer. Collect all sentences chronologically. This body of work will catalogue deportment, letting the dross of descriptive detail fall away while modeling configurations. Tuesday Someone seated looks out the window while leaning, shoulder against the glass, with every jolt looking up towards the front or down towards the grey strip of transfer paper in hand or at the black and red bag on the ground, shifting it slightly to jam its bulk under the seat. Looking towards a phone while also seeing to a small coffee takes up this person’s time, balancing the white paper cup against the continual start-stop jolting while keeping the phone steady at just below eye level in line of site, the same level as the aforementioned coffee, smiling at the screen content with knees slightly spread to provide a platform for a black-and- grey bag, braced against the metal back of a built-in seat on which one forearm rests. AM Tuesday Knees, then olive canvass bag, then book is the sequence stack that this reader produces, engrossed in a large book which contains small print, attention drawn away at the call of streetcar stops towards the LED screen at the front. PM Wednesday Due to the presence of both a top- loading bag and large, square-end duffle bag, this person occupies two seats in total, resting the backpack against the back of the seat next over to the right and the duffle bag on the seat to the left above the damp floor; meanwhile, white earbud headphones play sound, jammed under a tight toque. Leaning against the window to the left reading a hardcover book which still is protected by a colourful, yellowed, dust jacket; this person rests the book against a scrunched-up amorphous bag which rests on knees held close together, right foot placed before the left and slid slightly under the preceding unoccupied seat; the person is engrossed in the book but looks up at every stop towards the back doors. AM Wednesday The interruptions of travel would not dislodge this person from this single stance: eyes forward looking through the window’s top pane; left hand in the pocket of a puffer jacket, the other hanging at ease; body near the pole but never touching it; weight shifting from leg to leg, compensating for the start-again-stop-again; overloaded bag hanging from the right shoulder. PM Thursday The bag balanced on this person’s knee is perpendicular to the plastic guard which infills between sections of tubing, kept stationary through compression between the knee and guard, head stationary looking down slightly to rest on a large scarf, body stationary, hand stationary grasping the right backpack strap, earbud headphones hidden behind the fur-trimmed edge of a large hood. Crossed legs facilitate eating as this person rests the right forearm, right hand and a screw- top Tupperware on a shoulder bag which is rested upon the topmost leg of this crossed-leg stance, remaining in place after the Tupperware is emptied and an apple takes its place, after a quick rummage in the bag, to be bitten into at close intervas with head turned slightly toward the interior while leaning left against the exterior wall; the left hand, meanwhile, is occupied with a travel mug which is held low, resting against the crossed leg as a phone occupies the space between the apple-holding hand and travel mug. AM Thursday This person leans towards the window while listening to something through earbud headphones; the left leg is v’ed out to touch the wall while the right is kept in line with the rightmost edge of the seat. PM Friday Sitting down does not prevent this person from still wearing a flat, file-folder-style bag while browsing content on a phone, body centred in the seat and looking up to check the stops as they appear on the LED screen. Sitting, elbows on splayed knees, overfilled bag placed in the adjacent seat, head turned left to monitor the LED sign as stops appear; this person moves restlessly. AM Friday Squashed between the window and another, leaning to the right and talking then listening then talking again to another who sits sideways on the seat, turning around to face the pair. PM Saturday One foot held up on the wheel bulkhead, the other hanging down off the seat’s edge, foot nearly touching the ground, leaning left; this person gestures to another seated adjacent who leans in to listen. Two sit shoulder-to-shoulder parallel: legs kept parallel, feet kept parallel, bodies kept stiffly parallel, heads facing forward; however, the left person rests a large gift bag upon the parallel knees, arms crossed behind. AM Saturday Asleep, this person’s head rests against the window, body slumped over with knees touching the plastic barrier which caps off a small bulkhead; a bag rests atop both knees and leans against this barrier. PM Sunday A newspaper is rested on the seat nearest to the window and is being flipped through by this person whose body is rotated slightly and whose head is turned slightly down to facilitate reading; the left hand moves from under chin to grasping the page’s corner between index finger and thumb, turning it. This person’s bag occupies the seat nearest to the window while they are seated next to it with left leg crossed over right and hands resting on both thighs; this person looks straight ahead. AM Sunday This seated person is on the phone looking down at the screen while quietly, closely talking into the microphone assembly of earbud headphones one of which is placed in the left ear; the person hunches over the phone and smiles. PM Monday This person browses on a phone held at chest height, seated with a bag occupying the space between splayed legs, wireless headphones visible in ears below the edge of a toque. Sitting, with a purse on this person’s lap they stare ahead out the front window, once raising the right heel to flex the right toes, raising the knee in the process and moving the bag strap which hangs down the right calf. AM Monday A plastic tote bag hangs from this person’s right index finger and occupies the space between splayed legs while the left hand holds a large hard-cover book; both rest on each knee as this person leans forward, engrossed in reading, pushed forward by the bag, still worn despite being seated. PM Tuesday This person sits and stares ahead out the window while clutching a thin file folder with both hands; it hangs down between this person’s calves while both hands are held between both thighs. This person sits, looking ahead, head turned slightly to the left toward the window, both hands atop a leather bag atop both thighs, feet kept close together below while earbuds occupy both ears; the cord runs down towards the right jacket pocket, negotiating a large scarf on the way. AM Tuesday This person stands, body pressed up against the pole with a gloved hand, the right, clutching it while the left holds a phone from which a pair of earbud headphones connect up to both ears as the person shuffles to the right at each stop to finally take a seat, hunching over the phone and shifting a bag onto the now flat surface of both thighs. PM