Los Angeles; or, Descent into the Seventh Circle of Commuter Hell

It doesn't really matter where you are trying to get to in Los Angeles; you are bound to spend at least an hour in your car (aka the iron coffin). Ask an Angeleno, "How far away is it?" and you will get the answer in terms of minutes, not miles. If you insist on knowing the distance, all you will get is a blank stare, and some half-hearted attempts at guessing. No one ever knows distances to anything in this city, but people are remarkably good at estimating how long it will take to get there.

"You need to go to the grocery store? 45 minutes."

"But...it's just down the street..."

"It's rush hour."

"It's 3pm!"

"Rush hour is 6am-8pm."

"But...but that's all day!"

"What's your point?"

Basically, there are two rules of travel when within the environs of Los Angeles: 1) assume traffic, and 2) assume traffic will be really bad. If you do that, you will help to decrease your road rage levels just a little bit, because you won't be at all surprised when you find yourself going 0-5mph on a three-lane street or a six-lane highway. You'll do what I do; namely, put one side of your iPod headphones into one of your ears (not both, because that's definitely illegal, whereas one is only marginally so!), and sing along to music. You might also call lots of your friends. (And if you are huffing and puffing about people driving while on their cell phones, believe me, you need to experience LA traffic every single day--you'll start using your cell phone in your car too, because it's probably the only time you'll have to talk to your friends anymore. Besides, how unsafe can it be? You're only going 0mph.)

There really is so much you can do while "driving" 50 mph less than the speed limit. Over the years I've seen people reading the newspaper, shaving, brushing their teeth, etc. Maybe you'll write a book. I bet you could write a whole novel in the time it would take you to get from Pasadena to, say, Westwood on a Friday night. (You could write two if you take the 405.)

Distance and time are so out of sync in this town, they might as well get together and form a ragtime band. On Saturday night, I drove to Ventura, which is about 70 miles away from my house (and I only know that because Mapquest said so!). It took me a little over an hour, which is perfectly reasonable. Now, compare that to last night, when I left work at 6pm and it took me an hour and 20 minutes to drive to my piano teacher's house...12 miles away.

Sigh...

Oh well. Happy Friday, everybody. Here's to the weekend at last! It couldn't come fast enough for me...but that's probably because it got stuck in LA traffic.