1. 61 to downtownwhich allowed me to mark the 59U as "!" and knock off two more bus routes (56E and 55M).
2. 56E to Homestead
3. 55M to Century III
4. 59U to Squirrel Hill
The 55M is actually rather pleasant -- it's a long and winding route through two different cemeteries and multiple suburbs, from which I can tell you that the gateway to hell is the border between Munhall (older, sidewalks, attractive dark red street signs) and West M*ffl*n (newer, no sidewalks, ugly brown street signs), and the ninth circle of Hell is the obscenely sprawling Century III mall complex. CIII itself is small and pretty scuzzy, but the real horror is the appalling smear of big-box shit, broken only by enormous unexplained piles of dirt and gravel, which surrounds it. The result is something that manages to combine the worst elements of a mall (a sea of parking, the sudden heart-palpitating karma loss that results from spending more than five minutes inside one) and the Homestead Waterfront (having to walk long distances between big boxes, nauseatingly slow roundabout bus service).
However, I must admit that even the 55M route itself is not without its own sources of Angst. And I am not speaking of the seven-block jog to make the negative-2-minute connection between the 56E and 55M in Homestead: I was Fearless White Pedestrian Freak: I steamed up the sun-blasted streets in good spirits.
The tedious replications of the suburbs, such as multiple Pizza Huts, combined with the winding bus route to create a fear that the bus was going in circles and would never arrive at the Ninth Circle of Hell (i.e. the Century III Mall): the second cemetery was an echo of the first, we went by the Wal-Mart only to circle by it again, and when I finally reached the nauseous center of hell, the mall map looked exactly like the South Hills "Village" map. Both malls, you see, are run by the same company ("SIMON"), and so the maps are in the same style. So are the banners in the mall parking lot, which proclaim "SIMON", as if anyone gave a damn what stupid company runs these stupid malls.
These replications are perhaps the root of the suburban horror: the exact same thing appears in two places, contrary to nature. The effect was made more dreadful, in this case, by the Century III's universally dyspeptic and fourth-rate ambience: it was truly the pale and broken-down shadow of South Hills "Village", right down to the local transit (procession of diesel buses instead of the T) and the exceptionally filthy restroom (strategically placed, of course, as far from the mall entrance as possible, to maximize one's time in hell).
I was so tired and distressed by these phenomena that I disembarked from the 59U far down on Murray, and walked home from there, immensely relieved to be back in Squirrel Hill, where there are multiple bookstores multiple carpet stores multiple multiplicity but no replications. Even the two Giant Eagles on Murray are sufficiently different so as not to evoke the same dread.
I find it remarkable that US society has not broken down completely, given the number of people living in the worst suburbs, and all the attendant karmic drains they experience.