2 posts tagged “commuting”

Most of the time, when Katie and I get to the MUNI stop at Casto and Market, there is a large crowd waiting on the platform.  Sometimes the train is late, and sometimes we just arrive at the ass end of the schedule, and sometimes there are just a lot of people who want to take a MUNI at 9:30 in the morning.   Whatever the reason, it is almost always very crowded on the platform while we wait for the next train.

We wait, and it is crowded, and I don't like it.  People don't look at one another, and it is eerily quiet because nobody talks, not even to the people who they are with.   When people do talk, it feels like everyone is watching and judging them, so I whisper to Katie things like, "I hate people" and "Oh my god, I think my ebola is really kicking in now."

And then the train arrives, and the train is crowded too.  I can always see as the train whizzes into the station that all the seats are already filled and there are already people hanging on to the overhead bars.   But when the doors slide open, everyone in the station piles into the train.  They pile in to the middle of the car, and to the end of the car.  Then they pile into the doorway, past the yellow TO NOT STAND PAST THIS LINE line.  Most of the time, just as the doors are about to close, a few more people leap into the train, pressing themselves up against the already crowded crowd. 

The door alarm rings because someone's backpack or coat sleeve is blocking the door, and people inside the train grumble and people at the door try to scoot just a half inch closer so that the door will close and seal them in to the train with all the other people.

Katie and I stand on the platform and watch this happen almost every day.  The train zips out of the station, and two minutes later, another train zips in that is virtually empty.  And almost every single day, I turn to Katie and ask her why more people don't just wait, because without fail, it is always worth it.  Neither of us have a good answer.

We moved this weekend from a "luxury loft" in SoMa, close enough to my office that I felt like I went home, to a house on a hill in Bernal Heights.  We have three bedrooms now, and a garage, and a small, paved backyard in which my dogs have already shit.  Up the hill in either direction is a nice park where the dogs have also plied their trade, and there are coffee shops, restaurants, and a grocery store called The Good Life.

Indeed!

This morning, Katie and I commuted to work for the first time.  We took the 24 Muni from the corner of our street, up and down 2 very large hills, and into the Castro.  There were rainbow flags and gay men walking their tiny dogs.  We got off on the corner of Castro and Market and transferred to the underground Muni.  It was not very crowded on the train at 9, so I took some time to do some Muni Vinyasas, a subject about which I will blog in the future.   Katie scolded me for not respecting the personal space of my fellow passengers.  We got off at the Montgomery Street station, and then we walked 2 blocks to my office.  There was coffee on the way.  It took 50 minutes, and I got to see bridges, lesbians, gays, dogs, hills, fog, subways, and people of all shape, size and color. 

It made me very happy to see these things because they made me feel as if now, finally, I actually live in San Francisco instead of the southern annex of the CNET Networks corporate ofice.  I'd still rather be in Austin, but hey, I'll settle for this.