psychology, traffic,evolution, bmw's, new jersey

the agony and the joy of driving a bus has come and gone. been overnighted twice last week, once in new york, but stayed at a hotel in secaucus, new jersey, the land of the little more than strip malls that ever i see when i am in jersey... and the room was surprisingly pitiable, small, no amenities, nothing nearby the hotel to walk to. it felt like being on a deserted island surrounded by the seas, but this was only the seas of traffic and roads that are inhospitable places for anyone on two feet, and surprisingly, maybe? not as luxurious as the overnight stay in utica, places to walk to, a wendy's next door for my junk food dinner experience, plenty of parking, the barge canal a five minute walk to stare into at sunset and think of my dad doing the same things as i when he stayed at hotels. he would get up early in the morning and take a walk somewhere and discover the town in its prisitine, quiet expanses. utica was an experience and the train/bus station was as a mini grand central, having been designed by the same architech, vaulted stone ceilings and pillars and murals.
there's a certain psychology to traffic and the passing of cars and the flows and ebbs that comes with it. it's like a large game of chess that you can look down on, literally as you are in a 10 to 12 foot high bus and study the interesting next moves of the cars in front, the merges, the cut offs, the accelerations and the turns. it gets predictable, you know that this pontiac grand am will pass the mercedes and then the mercedes trying to regain a bit of lost honour will cut the next smaller car down on the food chain off. its all a game of evolutionary proportions and being in a bus you feel like a brontosaurus, not very fast, but certainly large enough that few people want to fuck with you and when you want to merge into a lane, you just start and someone will have to let you in for fear that you will simply flatten them into a pancake against the retaining wall. tempting, yes... but hardly acceptable. but there is also another aspect of this passing game that works noticeably on the thruway and it resembles the ole bigger fish eating the smaller one and a bigger fish in turn eating that one and it is pretty basic as far as the fastest, biggest, baddest vehicle gets to pass. when you start signalling and change lanes the game begins and if you begin slowly and the prey catches the scent of what is to come, it will inevitably run, accelerate a bit faster, but if you are still faster than they and you begin that slow inexorable moment when you catch up to their bumper and then they usually give in and just begin to fall back. i think people unconsciously ease off the gas pedal then and begin slowing down and they disappear down the gullet of the bronto... i call this a psychological game and it is all about power and control and yes, i'd like to think that i am beyond that, but no one really is as far as driving goes. driving is pretty basic when its boiled down to its innate construction. its a huge, 'i've got a bigger dick than you,' wrestle on the playground in the hunt for the pecking order on the highway.
quiet passengers make me nervous. usually people talk amongst themselves or the poor unlucky passenger next to them, with the exception of morning commuter runs to new york when i expect people to sleep on the way there, but when people are quiet, it makes me nervous, because i'm wondering just why they are quiet, are they nervous? angry? about to slit my throat? its not what so much is wrong with them, but what do they think is wrong with me? but a good healthy amount of chatter is a good thing. its white noise and helps me to relax while driving. its just something else to tune out and deal with and so that gives the ole brainbox something to deal with and not just another ok, i've driven this part of rte 17 how many times? ah, you can probably do it with your eyes closed... bet you can't. bet i can. bet you can't. yeah, i can... ok, prove it... sort of experience... i do want to live beyond my 33rd birthday. and why is it that every new jersey driver seems little more content to sacrifice his life, his front bumper and a good insurance rating to be first in line (if there is such a thing...) on rte 17? i hate to make up stereotypes, but it seems as if rte 17 is the only major thoroughfare in jersey. even the turnpike and the garden state doesn't get this sort of, lets get to ikea now traffic, but i guess that that's the problem, traffic and shopping together can put anyone in a trance with a lead foot.
hey, i've discovered a source of fresh drinking water at the port authority that doesn't cost me a dime. a clean water fountain that doesn't look like every heroin addict in five boroughs has put his/ her lips to it, spat on it and pissed in it! its a new source of joy for me, like when tom hanks found wilson the volleyball on the beach in castaway. a whole new reason to not hate the concrete slab that i'm stuck on six days a week. at least i get to go home most nights and i have a day off unlike that poor fed ex guy.