How Hazardous Driving Conditions Are Good for You, or Reflections on a Des Moines* Driving Experience

*actually, it should be Windsor Heights/Clive, Iowa driving experience to be geographically correct, but Des Moines Driving sounds better :)

I like to think of myself as a "seasoned" driver. I was taught how to drive in late fall in central Wisconsin. This included several stints of white-knuckled driving (and white-knuckled front passenger seat riding) in winter complete with snow, ice, freezing rain, hail, the works.

Receiving my driver's license (on my second attempt) in early February I was still in Wisconsin. The first time, in true Wisconsin fashion, snow had blurred the painted lane dividers and during my road test I was instructed to make a left hand turn. I did as instructed, feeling confident, until a truck pulled up on my left hand side, alerting me to the fact that I was not in the left hand turn lane as anticipated. After that I honed my driving skills in Connecticut, land of windy roads carved into mountain sides. And I rounded it out driving in downtown Chicago.

Though I have yet to drive the lawless roads of LA I am confident that I could handle whoever decides to cut me off having born witness to my friends' driving.

But driving in Des Moines can spoil a person. Although the strictly enforced speed limits, which rarely exceed 35 mph have reduced me to squeaky indignation, one gets used to it. I am a self-confessed speed demon, but I am also a creature of habit. And having been warned of law enforcement's hard-nosed approach to speed limits I have caught myself mildly panicking when I exceed 45 mph. This is from a person, who under any other driving conditions usually takes the posted speed limit and adds 15.

Also, in LA, where every third person is trying to make a left-hand turn on a two lane street, left hand turn lanes are rare and left hand turn signals a luxury. Therefore, one must often inch one's way oh so cautiously into the intersection and pray that oncoming traffic will at least be courteous not to swipe your bumper as you wait for the light to turn red. At that divinely appointed, or at least culturally accepted moment, you can crank the wheel, stomp on the accelerator, and make the turn that you've been waiting five minutes to make. Here in Des Moines, where I am spending my last full 24 hours, there are left hand turn lanes everywhere!

There are even those sections of road that are sectioned off in the middle of the road, reserved for traffic that is coming from either direction to make a left hand or a right hand turn into a shopping center. As I am not a traffic engineer I don't know the technical term for them. I do know that they are rare in LA.

And don't get me started on the number of left hand turn lights Des Moines has en masse. Oh that LA could install a few of those! Maybe Angelinos could DRV HPY.

There are even green *right hand* turn lights. I almost weep with pleasure when I see those as I know I won't be sideswiped by some jerk trying to run the light. The law is on my side! Nevertheless, the paranoid city driver in me still checks before inching into the intersection.

As much as I love these traffic conveniences and the fact that they are spoiling the heck out of me, that is also the downfall. I have opted to use the children's storybook characters the Country Mouse and the City Mouse in lieu of and to not directly offend any homo sapiens. I would argue that the City Mouse is a "better" driver due to conditioning. S/he is used to the perils of driving as s/he is faced with them every time they get behind the wheel. (This is assuming that there are cars correctly proportioned for mice. As Stuart Little had a car I would argue that there are. There's your random pop culture reference for today's post.)

The City Mouse doesn't have an illusions about his or her fellow driver. S/he knows getting on the 5, the 110, the 101, or any road for that matter, there's going to be some one who's driving distracted- be it texting on their phone, yelling at their kids, fumbling with the radio dial, etc., *Chances are the City Mouse is doing the same things too* Though not this City Mouse. Speed is my only vice. Unless of course I am employed by a city or state agency. Then, I will be the paradigm of law-abiding citizen!

Roads are also more crowded in the city making space more limited. Therefore, one has to be more aware lest one scratch that $100,000 Maserati that is ahead of you. Beautiful as they are, it is better to look not touch lest one wishes for one's auto insurance rates to skyrocket to the stratosphere.

The Country Mouse, bless those that still exist, often still harbors the notion that people, or in this case, "mice," are inherently good. That everyone else is driving just as carefully as s/he. And while one should always drive defensively, other drivers are not going to cut you off arbitrarily because everyone drives nice, right?

Two minutes on any big city road will vaporize any belief in other drivers being inherently "good." Someone's going to merge into your lane without looking, someone else will be riding your bumper like you're playing Bumper Cars, a third driver is merging onto the on-ramp without regard for the other cars that are already there. And if you're lucky all three conditions will converge at the same time like a traffic Bermuda Triangle.

Therefore, the Country Mouse is snapped out of his or her revelry that s/he was able to indulge puttering around in his or her small town accelerating or slowing at a whim, not bothering to signal lane changes This does occur in big cities too. But such actions do not go unnoticed. Many a driver anoints him or herself a traffic cop and is more than happy to tell you what you did wrong complete with hand gestures, colorful language, and commentary on your ancestry.

While I'm not advocating that we should all drive like the self-centered jerk that wants to be unleashed from our id, I do hypothesize that a little hazardous driving conditions isn't always a bad thing. Just like Midwestern winter weather driving conditions as sucky as it is to have to deal with it, given enough exposure it could save our lives. (think how vaccines work, same concept). Drive into that big city Country Mouse, you'll thank me later.

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same)

Looking for a job my how-to-get-a-job books recommend that I define what I want in a job. They don’t recommend vagaries. So, I’ve been thinking of what I’d like to do ideally/where I’d like to live and what reality might be able to provide.

When I was young I wanted to be an artist- sleep late, have people pay me to paint, travel to lands far from the staid but comfortable Midwest in which I grew up. I also wanted to live in a big city, with exciting things to do at night, which would be waiting for me after I rolled out of bed. There would be cultural events at my disposal. Ideally, it’d be a big creative city brimming with artistic people to chat with over coffee, watch good-not-boring foreign films with, and contemplate priceless works of art together. Also, ideally my dad's last name would be Trump, Rockefeller, or other titian of industry.

Some things remain the same- in a perfect world I’d prefer to sleep late, be paid to paint, and travel. But I know that nowadays it’s next to impossible to eke out, much less make a proper living as a painter. Therefore, I’ve realigned my sights for something more realistic. I’ve always wanted to have a job that would make a difference in the world. And as much as I believe in the power of art I don’t think that a painting will solve world hunger. Mona Lisa’s been around for about five hundred years and she has yet to put a dent in the issue of international famine.

I also think that problem-solving and liaison with multiple parties is something that I’d like to do and would be great at. Ideally, I’d work in an education or sustainability-emphasis capacity. And I’d definitely like to have new challenges every once in a while. I did go/am at planning school. But I am 95% confident in the hiring potential probabilities in the planning realm. All I hear about are people being laid off. However, I get most of my planning news in California. Now is definitely time to start expanding my horizons, especially those that could provide an optimistic boost.

Regardless of where I end up, being in a big city is still very important to me, and especially one that has creative areas. Again, with the utopianism, I’d like to stay in LA. The weather is perfect about 360 days out of the year, there’s always something interesting to do, and we have a vibrant, active creative community. Even if some of them pay too much for clothes that they could pick up at Good Will for 200 dollars less, same look.

However, I have a mental list of places that I’d like to live in before I settle down somewhere for a really long time and Texas is one of them. I’ve lived technically in the four parts of the US. They’re not the true cardinal points. But it is definitely the four major regions of the US= the Northeast (Connecticut), the Southeast (Savannah), the West Coast (California), and the Midwest (Chicago, Wisconsin). But I haven’t lived in Texas, which I consider a country unto itself. It’s certainly big enough to be. And guys that say ma'am like George Eads of CSI fame make me weak in the knees. Granted, that wasn't terribly professional, but it's true. I also visited Charlotte, North Carolina over spring break last year and I loved it there. It reminds me of Savannah, where I went to undergrad, but there is more to do.

I’m open to moving anywhere, that is the perk of moving around a lot as a kid. Just nowhere with wretched amounts of humidity and within reasonable driving distance of a major metropolitan area.

I'll keep you posted on what unfolds! And where I end up. :)

How Far Is Too Far?

I am getting a new apartment in Los Angeles this weekend, actually, hopefully, ideally, renting a room in a house that rents out all of the rooms to individual tenants- and USC grad students only if everything goes according to plan.

But the age-old question of location, location, location had me thinking- how far is too far? Points A and B being your place of residence and your consistent destination- work, school, your kid's school, your place of worship, your favorite protesting spot, whatever.

For some of you who know me, I have lived in 11, soon to be 12 places in 26 years. And for the most part my family and I have selected our dwellings within reasonable proximity to our locations that we would frequent often i.e. work, school, and church. When I say reasonable proximity I mean about 15-20 minutes. We never lived in any big, big cities, so traveling times were pretty consistent, with weather being the only variable- black ice? add at least 5 minutes for safety.

It threw us for a loop when we moved to Connecticut and people lived in different towns, but knew each other as if they were in the same zip code. Like I said, we lived in small towns and yes people from Wausau knew people from Merrill, but they went to different churches, their kids to different schools, etc., To live in Avon, but to go to church in Canton was very strange to us. The Connecticut way of life still remains very strange to me. I'm surprised no one has spontaneously combusted yet.

When I moved to Chicago on my own it took me a good hour to get to work via public transportation- bus + the Red line, not counting delays due to linework, which was a constant in the summer of 2006.

Sometimes I took my car, but during the holidays working retail in Lincoln Park made it impossible to find a spot for my car, so I relied on the ease of the public transportation. And when my car was damaged beyond repair my prior experience using public transportation made the journey less of a hassle and more of just a part of my going-to-work routine.

When I moved to the suburb of Naperville I chose an apartment whose location was only ten minutes driving time away, but unfortunately was not located on a road that was safe enough to get to on foot.

Now it takes me about half an hour (on foot) to get to my current job. Some people are horrified when I tell them how long it takes and more than three people have offered to pick me up on their way to work. But my walk not only gives me exercise, it also gives me a chance to wake up and really immerse myself in my surroundings.

But my latest relocation had me thinking. The champions of New Urbanism argue that our auto-dependent society has allowed people to live farther from their jobs- not necessarily a bad thing at the end of the day- but not great for the environment either when you consider how many emissions and pollutions one can accrue over simply a five-day work week when mass transit is possible.

Note I didn't say plausible as many people in the suburbs can attest to- I don't even want to know how few suburbs even have a bus line running through or within reasonable walking distance of the major sub-divisions.

Unlike say, Chicago (how I love their transportation department!) where one is hard pressed to find a major neighborhood that is not near some form of public transportation. And New York? Fugghedaboudit! In one ill-planned trip I managed to get from Wall Street to the West Side to midtown with the help of the NY subway system and my own dogged determination.

We have family friends who live up in the Bay Area and the father commutes two hours-each way! each day to get to his job. This is beyond crazy to me. Yes, I understand the need to have your kids be in "good schools," "safe neighborhoods," etc., But Dad has to schlep two hours each way each day? Oi. . . This is not uncommon for people in the Bay Area- my housemate's dad, when he (my housemate) was growing up- would ride his motorcycle- come rain or shine between the lanes of stalled cars (think the opening scene from Office Space)- two hours to get to his job.

I have no doubt that this is true for families across the country, especially in bigger, non-mass-transit oriented cities, especially in the South like Atlanta and Charlotte. But I think that it is a time for a revolution.

Hopefully as part of the "green" movement more funding will be devoted to mass transit, and innovative forms of it- light rail, anyone? And two hour one-way commutes will become a thing of the past. Here's hoping.