The sister came over and fixed a fabulous meal despite the fact I broke her garage door.  Well, actually, I pushed the automatic door button, and it broke.  Reason #2032 why she hates being a first-time homeowner.  All of her disposable income now goes into fixing things like garage doors instead of exotic trips around the world.  She has never had an affair with her house.  I have had several passionate love/hate relationships with several houses over the years.    I can’t imagine not having owned the home I was living in until I moved to California.

For half a million dollars you can buy a house in a very average or less outer suburb in the Bay Area.  Of course, your car will end up with a nice yellow sooty color from the oil refinery crud blowing through the air.  And, if you are lucky enough to work in San Francisco, you can drive 15 minutes to the BART (light rail) station and hope they have room for you to get on in the morning and to work on time.  Commuter time:  2.5 hours per day.

Here in Sacramento, there is a small science I’ve developed in deciding where to live.  With Interstates 80 and 5, Highway 99, Business 80, 160, and several other options to get here and there, you’d think it would be easy.  But, these days, they are all jammed.  I did three test runs last week and was stunned at how much my commute increased, despite my best scientific calculations.  Sacramento also has a sorry ass excuse for public transit, but then, I’m not inclined to take a bus anyway.  So, I’ll just roll back the alarm clock another 15 minutes and get less sleep than I do now. 

I’m really looking forward to the day when everyone telecommutes and I can work in my PJs.

There’s a sense that people who telecommute are more flexible, … They can combine their home and work life, and they will go the extra yard when needed because they’ve been given the opportunity to better manage their time. ~ Dana Gardner

It isn’t so much the length of my commute that troubles me. At an average of 45 minutes to an hour I suppose it’s not too bad by modern standards. No, I’m afraid to say that it’s the people.

Until quite recently it wasn’t too bad. You see I catch the number 38 bus from Clapton Pond in East London to the centre of town, and since my stop is the first, when the vehicle was an old fashioned route master bus, I was pretty much guaranteed a seat at the front of the top deck. From there I could daydream the journey away, enjoying the London scenery.

Even back then, there were, of course, a few alarming incidents. Like the time I was joined by a woman who spent most of the journey singing dreamily and cooing at her crack pipe as if it were a baby. And the time when a gang of youths relieved me of my personal possessions. During office party season there would also inevitably also be someone hanging off the rail at the back heaving up his guts, making my exit onto the street fraught with danger and bad smells.

However, it would be churlish to complain – especially since the journey was so blissful compared with what I have to put up with now.

You see, thanks to the advent of the new bendy buses, all the focus of the journey is now turned inwards. There’s no view out the windows and no escaping my fellow passengers. The best thing that can be said about whom (as the residents of London’s loopiest borough Hackney) is that they are never boring.

They are, however, far too many in number, far too lax in personal hygiene and far too ill-mannered when it comes to keeping I-pod volumes low, letting people in and out of the doors and making room for old ladies.

So far so similar to most other commuting experiences around the country, I imagine….

What sets my journey apart is the constant –and often realised – threat of violence coupled with the sheer madness of a small but very vocal minority of the passengers. These I have labelled in my head as The Woman Who Throws Bread At Me, The Man Who Shouts About Jesus, The Man Who Just Stares (scarily), The Man Who I’m Sure Stole My Wallet Once, The Man Who Sweats and The Woman Who Shakes. I think their titles give an idea of the kind of challenges they present on the way to work. They’re also sometimes accompanied by a very frightening person who wheels a rotting old doll around in a pram, lying on a bed of plastic bags, and a young city-boy who snorts cocaine from his Oyster card and says “oh fuck” every time he does so.

The heat and the psychic pressure built up by this combined mass of bodies and madness has also driven me to the point where I worry that I too am as crazy as the rest of them. Only the other day I heard someone crying in anguish “Will you please just give me a fucking break…” only to realise in horror that it was my own voice.

I think I should probably start cycling.