[PREV - SUM_ISOWHITE] [TOP]
TRIANGLE_RUN
June 15, 2011
One weekend, on impulse I walked out of
the house and did what turned out to be The three
a triangle run, using public transit to sides:
hit two different neighborhoods before 14-38-24
returning home.
Just going out for coffee didn't J-town
seem ambitious enough, so I rode _______o_______
the Mission Street bus up into | 38 . 38 ^ Central
Soma, where I bought a Thinkpad at | . ^o Comp.
Central Computer. Then I walked | 22 . /
to Market Street, and then took \ . /
the Geary bus west to Japantown, \ . /
because I couldn't think of 24 \ J . |
anywhere else I wanted to be for \ . | 14
lunch. And after my usual rounds \ . |
there, I took the 24 bus back ^o^ ^^^^
home. Home
The reason I'm sketching
out this story: I think
it shows some things
about what public transit
does to your life.
But it's not easy to make this
story interesting: I went out,
bought something, went somewhere
else, ate lunch, shopped around
a bit, then came home.
But you know what John Cage
said about things that seem
boring.
Originally, I was going out just because I
felt the need to go out... my first thought
was coffee at Muddy's, but that's not much
different than what I do on weekdays, with
much commute time spent sitting on trains.
So I tried to think of a more useful
errand, something I could do that
would help get me "unjammed", and My laptop had been in the
advance some of the various projects "needs repair" category
I'd like to do... for ages, and just buying
another would cut that
I went with a Thinkpad particular knot.
(despite the evil inside
that goes by the name of
Intel), on the assumption
that they're so common I It turns out that thinkpads can
didn't need to check linux contain different kinds of wifi
hardware compatibility widgets, and I got stuck with the
lists. worst of the bunch, a "realtek"
whose drivers have some odd
kernel version restrictions.
With the latest Ubuntu I'd
installed, I'm never going
to get this wifi working.
Perhaps: downgrade
to Ubuntu 10, the LTS
release... or upgrade
the wifi widgetry?
But I'm never
desperate for
wifi... I've got
no problems with
jacking in,
loading up, and
working isolated.
So walking east, I passed by
the J Church line... I hadn't
checked "nextmuni.com", This in itself is an odd
but somehow it didn't seem (perhaps "weird") subject:
likely one was coming soon. what are the cues that make
me feel like a line is dead?
I kept going to Mission
Street, where the slow, It helps if there are a few
but frequent 14 bus line people waiting, but it's
took me up and over to worrying if there are too many.
within a few (long) blocks
of my destination... Seeing a train going in the
opposite direction is a good
Central computer was the obvious sign: it let's you know that
choice for this: it's the only the entire system hasn't
computer joint left in town, really, gone down.
and I've always thought it was an
okay place... and a much smaller biz
than the dreaded OffalMax and the
like.
And so, I stroll out with my impulse
purchase under my arm; it was a wet,
drizzly day, but they had no plastic Throughout the
bags large enough to protect the box afternoon I felt
so I just winged it and lucked out: weirdly ostentatious
no heavy rain while I was out. lugging this flat box,
with lettering that
screamed "!*ThinkPad*!*
I was getting hungry, but I had
trouble thinking of a part of town
I wanted to be in besides Japantown
(a common problem for me of late).
So I walked over to Market, and
(eventually, after quite a wait) snagged
the Geary Street bus west and ascended
the stairs to Peace Plaza. After some (Stairs? Isn't it
blundering around (May's Coffeeshop was more like a ramp?)
out of red bean Taiyaki already! Oh,
the hardware store is open, I shouid
check what they have before they close!)
I settled down in the secret, second (And now, Mifune
location of Mifune, which I often use is three.)
for backup.
I then made my usual rounds... manga
at kinokiniya; banana/black sesame
gelato crepe a few doors over; and
then back to Peace Plaza to sit down
in the shade with it.
A little black girl was immediately
fixated on my ice cream, going into a
cute act to try to impress me, a young
woman smoking at the next bench smiles
at my predicament, checks to see how I
take it. Actually, I am not amused.
On the way home, I need to wait at
the Fillmore 22 stop for awhile --
some b-boys in droopy white t-shirts
go by and one says "Hey, do you want
that?" (I realize he means the
thinkpad box under my arm) his friend These were *white* b-boys, by
comments "Yeah, I was thinking we the way-- for some reason I
should just grab it--". specified the race of the
little black girl; and now I
feel the need to make it
clear this is not a story
about being hassled by black
kids on Fillmore Street.
(And isn't it interesting
that I didn't think it
necessary to mention that
When the 22 finally showed, it was the young woman smoking
packed, completely overflowing. I looked white?)
wasn't going to squeeze into that with
a box under my arm, so I bailed, and
scurried over to the nearby 38 stop,
where I nearly immediately caught a bus
heading further out west.
I transfer at Divisdero for the 24, and
after waiting a few minutes (a nextmuni
display at that stop makes it clear it
won't be too long) I ride on home
through the Lower Haight, the Castro,
and Noe Valley, hopping off a block
from my house.
On the bus I was sitting near some
local teenage girls-- a blonde with
nose ring talking to a butch
dickensian street urchin-- The
blonde commented knowingly on The
Independant (which I still think of
as "The Kennel Club", though that's
going two names back): "I've been
there". She went off on a long
story about it, the real point of
which is that the guy she was with
was paying for her that night.
And now, a third time through
the triangle, in retrospect:
With public transit, I feel there's this
sense of being un-encumbered, you can
wander in any direction without having to The way the freedom of The Car
constantly find your way back to The Car. really works: "Should I just
walk over there? I'm already
half-way there. But if I *do*
But on the other hand, walk there, I'll have to walk
this story is also a twice as far back, so maybe I
good example of many should go pick up The Car again
problems with public and move it closer to where I'm
transit, at least going..."
present-day public
transit: Unreliable I gather that the way the world
arrival times, over- looks to car people is: "I can't
crowding, a constant take the *bus* there, I'll be
need to revise your trapped! What if an emergency
strategy... comes up and I suddenly need to
get to ___?"
It also illustrates the
contact-with-strangers so And so they
many people dread, e.g. the get stuck
guys "joking" about stealing Or for that matter, dragging the
my laptop. eavesdropping on ball and
some teenage girls: chain.
I guess that most people stylish, but without
with the resources to buy much of interest to
computer equipment would say.
not do it using the bus...
if you didn't own a car
to lock it up in, you'd
take a cab and run it home
immediately.
There are some other transit life-style
effects in here as well: I hit Central
Computer in part because I don't frequent
malls and big boxes as seems natural to
car people.
And a little more subtly: I'm
someone with a lot of his free
time tied up in a bike-train
commute, and that conditions
how I spend time on the weekend.
It would've been faster to do this Another personal oddity is on
run on bike, but I do so much biking display: I don't carry a
during the week, I'd rather not. smartphone, so I can't check
the nextmuni.com site on
I prefer that sense of drifting around impulse. I have to remember
town on bus, letting your mind go to check it before I leave,
where it will: when you're The Driver (though I can still make use
or The Rider, you have to focus on of the public displays which
the trivia of getting down the road. exist for at least some stops).
But then, that's also an
oddity of San Francisco.
I gather most cities don't
yet have the equivalent of
a "nextmuni", certainly not
New York.
It's an obvious amenity to
add in a computerized era
when public transit usage
is on an upswing.
--------
[NEXT - MULTIETHNIC_JAPAN]