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Hi. This is Me.
Feb. 1st, 2002 08:10 am[2/1/2002 5:10:55 PM ]
Got through my last day at work today! I am going to miss those people, but it was also good to be finished with a job, and know that it was well done. They were all over themselves saying I was fine, really. They...were just looking for a *permanent* person...I reflected ruefully, while I was still recovering from the fired part, that even when I try to tell myself I want to settle down and put down roots and all, people still see the gypsy and I'm just lying to myself. Fuck. But I can still go to the February party-- they invited me-- twice. That was nice.
But just for awhile there, if they'd asked me to stay....
Driving in Portland is the *weirdest* experience. I have never seen so many slow drivers occur in a metropolitan setting *ever*. What are they doing?? The street is four lanes wide, with just two lanes to drive in--we can't pass and these people are going 30 MPH, slowing before every light, whether it's red or not, and braking if it so much as turns yellow. After four miles of this on a morning commute I start to worry that they will actually hear my screaming, because my car is now three inches from their back bumper, and my face is pressed so close to the windscreen that a quick stop would break my nose.
Perhaps in response to this, I have also encountered in Portland some of the most aggressive drivers I've ever been cut off by or been bright-light blinded by. It's actually harder to deal with here than in New York or Atlanta, because there it's all a pattern and you know how to react. You know that everyone you encounter is focused with a needle-like precision on arriving at their destination in the smallest number of microseconds and the fewest millimeters that can possibly be contrived. In New York, you *know* that if you slow down just a little at an intersection, the other car is going to go ahead. Here, it's like a kind of automotive staring contest, the opposite of chicken. The other car may slow just as you do; each generously waiting for the other to go. Eventually you both come to a stop, and you can sit there at a polite impass for confusing moments, all cars behind you steadily, stoically beepless, before one of you finally breaks and goes first. It drives me nuts.
Got through my last day at work today! I am going to miss those people, but it was also good to be finished with a job, and know that it was well done. They were all over themselves saying I was fine, really. They...were just looking for a *permanent* person...I reflected ruefully, while I was still recovering from the fired part, that even when I try to tell myself I want to settle down and put down roots and all, people still see the gypsy and I'm just lying to myself. Fuck. But I can still go to the February party-- they invited me-- twice. That was nice.
But just for awhile there, if they'd asked me to stay....
Driving in Portland is the *weirdest* experience. I have never seen so many slow drivers occur in a metropolitan setting *ever*. What are they doing?? The street is four lanes wide, with just two lanes to drive in--we can't pass and these people are going 30 MPH, slowing before every light, whether it's red or not, and braking if it so much as turns yellow. After four miles of this on a morning commute I start to worry that they will actually hear my screaming, because my car is now three inches from their back bumper, and my face is pressed so close to the windscreen that a quick stop would break my nose.
Perhaps in response to this, I have also encountered in Portland some of the most aggressive drivers I've ever been cut off by or been bright-light blinded by. It's actually harder to deal with here than in New York or Atlanta, because there it's all a pattern and you know how to react. You know that everyone you encounter is focused with a needle-like precision on arriving at their destination in the smallest number of microseconds and the fewest millimeters that can possibly be contrived. In New York, you *know* that if you slow down just a little at an intersection, the other car is going to go ahead. Here, it's like a kind of automotive staring contest, the opposite of chicken. The other car may slow just as you do; each generously waiting for the other to go. Eventually you both come to a stop, and you can sit there at a polite impass for confusing moments, all cars behind you steadily, stoically beepless, before one of you finally breaks and goes first. It drives me nuts.
