Wednesday, March 14, 2012

DRIVING ON HELL'S HIGHWAY

Uh-oh. Red wine depression alert. Good thing it is sunny today. Perhaps a walk later will take the down off.

I had a meeting yesterday with Iris to talk about a possible pitch for an educational publisher. I thought I would drive as it is really not very far, about 10 east coast miles, and then I wouldn't have to worry about moving the car for alternate side parking (also known as street cleaning).  Although Queens is actually physically close, there is just no direct way to get there. Well, what many of you don't know that is Hell is a road called the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway ... not a thing "express" about it).

Everyone knows about traffic, so no news there. Just that there was so much at 11:00 in the morning. And there are not very many on or off ramps, so you are really really stuck. As a California girl who grew up with, is deeply and instinctively accustomed to good, well-planned freeways, this is insanely frustrating. What! No options! If you were to take surface streets, be advised that streets are crazy crowded and streets don't necessarily run in any consistent direction. As far as I can tell, Brooklyn-Queens is not as arbitrary nor were they designed by spiders on LSD as were most of the roads in New Jersey. The BQE is almost always under construction, and the Kosciusko Bridge had a lane out that held up traffic for 10 or 15 miles. Next time I drive it, I'll try to photography how ugly it is from that highway, notwithstanding a view of the East River and Manhattan.

Why the diatribe? Oh why not? I suppose I can move back into tales of woe rather than anecdotes of frustration.

I think I will just get on with my day. I'm not sure that writing right now, inasmuch as I look forward to our time together, will lead to either peace of mind or productive job hunting.

And hey, I am almost to the point of getting paid for the adverts on this page, so if any of you click on anything, I might well be getting a check for $10!





3 comments:

  1. Yr. driving tale reminds me of the last 2 times we drove through Las Vegas (where we'd never go except Hwy 15 is the only direct route to SLC, Utah, where our daughter's going to school). The first time, rush hour traffic. apparently, at 3:30 pm, totally stopped because of an accident. Ambulance unable to merge onto the fwy, & no exits or frontage roads in sight. The second time, another accident stopped traffic & we would have loved to sit it out at a coffee house but again, no exits. The first time we visited the school our Jeep broke down...in Las Vegas. We got off at a likely looking apparent frontage road, and IT had no exits! Did finally get to a cross street, repair shop, coffee shop. Who designs this stuff!?

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  2. ps: I've tried 2x to add a profile pic here, but nothing happens. I'm not trying to be incognito...

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  3. Well, it only took me a half hour to get here. On the way, got a text from a student to say she'd missed her bus and would be late. No story here. I read a bit of a story on Pixar's Brave, thinking, oh Sally should be on this project. But since I hate Pixar animation even more than I hate regular animation, I'm only sorry that you're not making the money. No ads on this page except one for going back to school which is the last thing I need to do. Maybe I'll click it anyway. I couldn't figure out why brave's princess was named Merida (Spanish or Mexican city name) when she was Scottish.

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