Well, there goes another month, as infrequently as I can make the trip, I’ve returned to jot a little something down. Lately I’ve been suffering from separation anxiety. I’m separated from Hotel by 26 miles of freeway (the ultimate misnomer) for eight hours a day, which kinda makes me miserable (oh! woe! is me! I should be so lucky right... a small commute to be sure) compounded by job separation anxiety due to tough economic times (yeah, I know we all are starting to feel that way of late. C’mon, let’s sing Kumbaya). Then there’s all sorts of other forms of separation anxiety, some of them I’ve caused, some of them inflicted upon me, but rather than feel miserable I have, for the most part, put forth a rosy attitude in spite of the changes, the sense of impending job-related doom, the unbearable drive through Downtown Los Angeles. You've gotta hand it to a guy like William Mulholland. Here’s a guy who had a million great ideas on how to move water from one place to another in rapid fashion (save for the St. Francis Dam). Couldn’t the mandarins of early Los Angeles freeway design have taken a tip from him?
Anyway, I escape all of this by traversing the freeway in the opposite direction from the dreaded Downtown during the week after Thanksgiving. I ramble on down the desert highway, at my leisure instead of stalled in rush hour traffic, and it's off to Las Vegas for a little vacation.
It’s a safe trip, there and back again, avoiding radio, playing The Cure’s Disintegration and chasing the rain across the Mojave Desert. Rest and Relaxation... my favorite hotel gets a sushi bar and Irish pub... I gorge on Guinness and Spider Roll. During this time, my country ‘tis of thee wins a war, sorta and a Beatle dies leaving no chance for any reunion of the Beatles... ever. And that was the news, oh boy...
Then Monday comes and it’s off to do eight hours for pay. I take the 110 in the morning, the sky-high architectural wonders glinting with orange slivers of sunshine and a bright, new day. I round the bend in Chinatown that separates Elysian Park and the Chavez Ravine from Bunker Hill and the Downtown districts, In bumper-to-bumper traffic I bump, ever so lightly, into an Infinity Qwhatever and the morning drive is pretty much downhill from there. It’s the law of averages... if you travel the fearsome freeways in Los Angeles often enough, you will eventually get to know someone under less than pleasant circumstances.
So, now it’s the turn of our insurance companies... stand back-to-back, take ten paces, turn and fire... but since it was a minor accident I doubt there will be much money shed to the aggrieved party. I didn’t leave a scratch, dent or dimple... not even a flake of paint! So, the guy then bitches to his company about crushed foam in the bumper... my company’s gonna tell him to spoon a goose... and life goes ever onward as does the road.
Everyday drive it there and back again, and stayed trapped in traffic for hours. These are the times that try my soul, the times they make books-on-tape for I assume, the times I’ll never get back... so I turn inward as the CD player plays whatever (Oh-No! Not Talking Head’s I Want To Live!), keeping a wary eye on the moron I don’t know in front of me, while keeping an eye peeled on the rear view mirror and the jagoff I’ve never met who will plow into me given the chance... paranoia and physics keep me at a crawl in the lowest gear and I move forward ever so slowly, millimeter by micrometer.
Some evenings, I try relaxation and Zen, making my mind work for me and making time and distance contract by imagining myself always at the starting point, which is the end point and home... Sanctuary. But if you get too Zen and zone out, you end up hitting the moron, and the jagoff is sure to follow with their own nice to meet ya... bam, crash, bonk!
To each side of the car it's a prison... it’s entrapment and you wait and you signal and you cajole with handsigns in your protected environment and no one gives a damn because they’re all trying to do the same thing at exactly the same time. And you crawl forward, ever so slowly, nanometers add up to miles (or, more correctly, kilometers), and miles to Sanctuary.
The more I drive the freeway, the less free I realize it is. The carpool lane beckons teasingly to the lone driver. The fast lane becomes an object lesson in absurdity. It’s the opposite of going nowhere fast... because you’re always going somewhere, slowly.... slowly and ever more slowly, and when it loosens up a bit, like some gastronomic flood of bile shooting through intestine, it only becomes a more dangerous situation, because ultimately there is the complete stop for no apparent reason coming your way, unbeknownst you to every time it happens. And you brake... just in time and hope the mambo line of automotive mayhem behind you does the same.
Whoever said getting there is half the fun? (well... it was on the road to and back from Vegas, so my rhetorical query is mostly in jest). Driving used to be a joy before it was a chore, but then that’s how most of life seems to be going. The bloom is off the rose and everything new seems old again.
Xian
Anyway, I escape all of this by traversing the freeway in the opposite direction from the dreaded Downtown during the week after Thanksgiving. I ramble on down the desert highway, at my leisure instead of stalled in rush hour traffic, and it's off to Las Vegas for a little vacation.
It’s a safe trip, there and back again, avoiding radio, playing The Cure’s Disintegration and chasing the rain across the Mojave Desert. Rest and Relaxation... my favorite hotel gets a sushi bar and Irish pub... I gorge on Guinness and Spider Roll. During this time, my country ‘tis of thee wins a war, sorta and a Beatle dies leaving no chance for any reunion of the Beatles... ever. And that was the news, oh boy...
Then Monday comes and it’s off to do eight hours for pay. I take the 110 in the morning, the sky-high architectural wonders glinting with orange slivers of sunshine and a bright, new day. I round the bend in Chinatown that separates Elysian Park and the Chavez Ravine from Bunker Hill and the Downtown districts, In bumper-to-bumper traffic I bump, ever so lightly, into an Infinity Qwhatever and the morning drive is pretty much downhill from there. It’s the law of averages... if you travel the fearsome freeways in Los Angeles often enough, you will eventually get to know someone under less than pleasant circumstances.
So, now it’s the turn of our insurance companies... stand back-to-back, take ten paces, turn and fire... but since it was a minor accident I doubt there will be much money shed to the aggrieved party. I didn’t leave a scratch, dent or dimple... not even a flake of paint! So, the guy then bitches to his company about crushed foam in the bumper... my company’s gonna tell him to spoon a goose... and life goes ever onward as does the road.
Everyday drive it there and back again, and stayed trapped in traffic for hours. These are the times that try my soul, the times they make books-on-tape for I assume, the times I’ll never get back... so I turn inward as the CD player plays whatever (Oh-No! Not Talking Head’s I Want To Live!), keeping a wary eye on the moron I don’t know in front of me, while keeping an eye peeled on the rear view mirror and the jagoff I’ve never met who will plow into me given the chance... paranoia and physics keep me at a crawl in the lowest gear and I move forward ever so slowly, millimeter by micrometer.
Some evenings, I try relaxation and Zen, making my mind work for me and making time and distance contract by imagining myself always at the starting point, which is the end point and home... Sanctuary. But if you get too Zen and zone out, you end up hitting the moron, and the jagoff is sure to follow with their own nice to meet ya... bam, crash, bonk!
To each side of the car it's a prison... it’s entrapment and you wait and you signal and you cajole with handsigns in your protected environment and no one gives a damn because they’re all trying to do the same thing at exactly the same time. And you crawl forward, ever so slowly, nanometers add up to miles (or, more correctly, kilometers), and miles to Sanctuary.
The more I drive the freeway, the less free I realize it is. The carpool lane beckons teasingly to the lone driver. The fast lane becomes an object lesson in absurdity. It’s the opposite of going nowhere fast... because you’re always going somewhere, slowly.... slowly and ever more slowly, and when it loosens up a bit, like some gastronomic flood of bile shooting through intestine, it only becomes a more dangerous situation, because ultimately there is the complete stop for no apparent reason coming your way, unbeknownst you to every time it happens. And you brake... just in time and hope the mambo line of automotive mayhem behind you does the same.
Whoever said getting there is half the fun? (well... it was on the road to and back from Vegas, so my rhetorical query is mostly in jest). Driving used to be a joy before it was a chore, but then that’s how most of life seems to be going. The bloom is off the rose and everything new seems old again.
Xian
posted by Xian at 10:22 PM
