Caterwauling

I’ve lived in my beloved new abode for exactly one week. It hasn’t changed much, as I’ve been pretty tired and busy and not very much in the mood for manic unpacking and arranging, but that’s OK. The mad dash to meet deadline is over. As long as I can keep affording the rent on this joint, I have all the time in the world.

Truism: I have driven to work in one week as many miles as I would put on in an average DAY doing the D.C./Maryland/Virginia trifecta. I’ve used a half-tank of gas, whereas I would normally have used a tank and a half. With gas at $3.16 in my ‘hood (yay D.C.), well, you do the math.

Not to mention: eight hours saved, all told, for being able to sit in moderately light traffic and still make it home within 20 minutes of leaving the office.

What have I been doing with my extra time? Working. Blogging. Sitting on the floor and staring at the TV that’s also on the floor. I never promised I was going to save the world with my extra time.

My only complaint is that I have to make a lot of left turns, and some without traffic lights/green arrows. And that there’s one left where I do get an arrow, and it only lets Two Cars Through. Yes, two. When you’re eighth in line, well, it’s a tad frustrating. But there are alternatives, which I never had before insofar as Highway A had to lead to Highway B so I could get to Highway C.

I might be nuts but … I admit to missing the interstate drive. Not for the near-death experiences or the traffic jams or the ridiculous repetitiousness of it all. But it was a scenic drive, one that allowed me to listen to about 20-25 of my favorite MP3s and allow me to get lost in thought for the better part of the drive. I made a lot of phone calls during that odyssey as well — I knew I had an hour to kill and I sure as hell didn’t feel social when I got home.

For the sake of sentimentality, I took these photos during my last commute from work to my apartment in Virginia. It’s too bad they’re from a camera phone, but it’s OK. They’re of I-395 South, heading out of D.C. toward Alexandria.

These were taken while I was driving at the speed of light, so I apologize for the distortion.

What I don’t miss? Alexandria’s plethora of “No Turn on Red” signs. Bugged the fuck out of me. Actually, the only time those brought me joy were when I had someone behind me who didn’t see the sign and who would scream at me to move. I would sit all serenely and shit and watch them go postal. I had to get my kicks somehow — that always did the trick. Lord knows I had my own meltdowns on the Beltway, so it all evened out!

Dear Memorial Bridge Traffic,

Dawn

Before my f’in ROKR punked out in mid-trip, this was the song that came on while I was parked by the Pentagon. Enjoy!

I’ve noticed that the metro D.C. area seems to have more than its fair share of short buses. Like, I pass tons of them any given morning. TONS. All of them heading north into D.C. proper, to boot. Are the buses carrying the chief bumblefuck and his hapless cronies to the Oval Office?

Confidential to those who decide on my compensation package, after Thursday’s commute from hell, Amy raises a point of consideration:

And as my female readers will tell you, when you have to pee you HAVE to pee. It hurts and it drives you to the point that you do desperate things to relieve yourself. Now, I’ve never found myself in the despearate situation dear Dawn did, but she gets major huge props for talking her way into a secure mental hosptial to use the facilities. That, my friends, is pure brilliance. …

And as if all that weren’t enough, she survived this episode only to get back into traffic and almost be hit by a truck. Dawn, we salute you. Your dedication to your commute to get to your job either qualifies you for one hell of a raise or you really should go back to NIH permanently.

Thanks girl! I’m surprised NIH didn’t keep me there for observation. …

Subtitle: ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’

Apparently the traffic jam from hell made national headlines. I’m surprised I wasn’t the one making headlines — if there had been shots of me on a traffic cam, howling and crying and screaming, y’all would’ve known EXACTLY who it was!

Anyway, I could tell you about all the existential pondering I did during that three-hour joyride, or I could tell you the funny side of it. Because like my one colleague said, I don’t just have stories — I have STORIES.

I was calm for the first 90 minutes. I had trouble merging onto the Beltway, but going from a two-lane GW Parkway to a five-lane Inner Loop of the Beltway usually alleviates the waiting in line thing.

Usually.

So I got on the Beltway and immediately merged behind a lumber truck. And it scared me so I shot over to the far left lane as efficiently as I could, given the gridlock. But hey, I’m only on the Beltway for four miles — I figured it wouldn’t be THAT bad.

So an hour and a half later, I’d gone MAYBE two miles. I’d been listening to my headphones so I figured, hey, maybe I need to turn on a radio. So I flipped on 99.5-FM, just in time to hear the DJ saying that she hopes everyone’s having a good day, unless we were in the mess leading up to 270 ’cause it was closed, in which case we were screwed.

And thus, I was screwed.

And I really, really had to pee. Like, hence the howling and pleading with the universe to throw a girl a bone or a catheter or a miracle or something. Mercury went into retrograde with a bang today, I say. Jeebus H.

Anyway, I started debating pulling over to the shoulder and just voiding my widdle bladder on the medial strip, but I feared my big white ass in the air would start redirecting satellite traffic. And I really didn’t want Cingular or XM’s waves bouncing off my butt, so I thought better of using the highway as my toilet.

Unfortunately, I’d just scarfed down a huge bottle of water during my captivity, and I was miserable. Like, psychotically miserable. So, armed with the knowledge that NOBODY was getting onto 270, I had to figure out an alternative.

So, I hopped all the way back across the Beltway to the far right lane. Local yokels know that the left lanes go to Rockville/Frederick (where I was headed) and the right lanes go to Bethesda/Baltimore (and all the way back around the Beltway). I figured, nobody’s going to be going THAT way, right?

Wrong again.

So I headed up the way I don’t know very well and could see the mess on the 270 spur (the overturned truck and cop cars and the last remnants of the wreckage), as well as the mess in the other exit that leads to Rockville. The line was about five miles long. I sat in it for a minute before driving ON THE SHOULDER and merging left again, bypassing all of it.

We’re at hour two-and-a-half-plus at this point, and I’m jaundiced.

I took the Wisconsin Avenue exit — seemed safe. No one was in line for it anyway. I figured, just get me to a powder room and maybe I can figure out where the fuck I am and try to either get to work (which was just a couple of miles away) or just pack it in and go home and work from there.

So, I figured, Bethesda is a pretty urban area — there are grocery stores and gas stations and toilets everywhere, right? How hard could it be?

So I saw a sign for the hospital and I think, yay! Hosptial! Hospitals have bathrooms! They treat crazy people like me who have mascara and tears streaming down their cheeks and the onset of psychosis from the claustrophobia of sitting still on the Beltway in a tiny sports car for three hours, no?

This is where the story gets good (yes, finally — shut up).

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