May 12, 2006
living in the city and giving bad directions

Living in the city has made me unable to give effective driving directions. It's because I am so rarely in a car. I travel underground like a gopher, emerging into the sunlight to immediately hop on a bus. Street names aren't important; station names are. I know infinite permutations of numbers for bus lines, but that only makes it easier to ignore the actual names of the streets the busses drive on.

When someone asks how to get to my house, talk of freeway exits only confuses and frightens me. My directions invariably start with, "First, go underground." When I do suggest routes, my directions often shadow the MUNI routes for the same area. I figure, if anyone knows the quickest way to my neighborhood from the Sunset, it's the N-Judah.

But soon I will be a driver again. Will I get lost, and end up desperately following the MUNI wires, like Hansel and/or Gretel and their bread crumbs? Will my inability to navigate become my downfall?

No. Inability to find parking spaces will be my downfall.

Posted by sean at May 12, 2006 11:31 PM | TrackBack
Comments

you're getting a car? why for? is that really how you pluralize 'bus'?

Posted by: michele on May 18, 2006 08:33 AM

i looked it up. 1 or 2 s's is acceptable. when i see 'busses' though i think you're talking about kissing. like, "she bussed him on the cheek" or "busses are loud, smacking kisses".

Posted by: michele on May 18, 2006 08:42 AM

My mother despises "busses" as a spelling. Whenever we'd go to disneyland, without fail she'd make a stink face at the sign designating one lane for trucks and "busses."

Even after hearing it was an acceptable spelling, she maintained that it was a mistake wherever it was used and in any circumstance.

Posted by: Simon on May 18, 2006 10:07 PM

You know what this means, don't you? EAST BAY FUN!

Posted by: Cassie on May 19, 2006 02:41 AM

For the longest time whenever I had out-of-town guests at my old house in the sunset, I always urged them to use the N-Judah just a couple of blocks away to get to downtown. This advice of course, offered without *ever* having taken the N. (I've since taken it successfully downtown, after many assurances from my guests that it got them there and back in one piece.)

As for parking in SF -- and particularly in your neighborhood -- easier than you may expect. I'd give anything to have similar ease-of-parking for where Danny & I live now.

Posted by: claudine on May 19, 2006 11:34 AM

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