Oh, SoCal

Yesterday my friend Karl, whose home is in Berkeley, drove me to my daily radiology appointment in Burbank. This is the same road I drive every day to work: about 5.5 miles of light traffic at that time of day, a few trucks, sometimes in the commonplace clumps, and the usual assortment of texter/suicides, dreamers, drifters and the Intent Ones. In other words, no big deal. Karl was unphased by it all, but as I've learned recently, his is not necessarily a common reaction to LA driving by non- LA drivers. I should mention here, for the sake of full disclosure, that I am one of those LA drivers whom you could and probably should, for your own safety,classify quickly and confidently en passant, as "that stupid jerk!" or "Hey buddy, where's the fire!" or simply "A___HOLE!" Like a great chef on the cooking channel, the burners on my cooktop are either at full blast or completely off. Only, its not a cooking show, and I'm not a chef, much less a great one, and the best dish that could come out of any demonstration I'd be doing would be something curdled.

Now, because of having had a seizure, I am prohibited by California law from driving for six months. There's got to be some sort of bizarre punishment in other countries that could correspond to being prohibited from driving in LA. Nevermind, though. I am happy to be temporarily relieved of driving duty, and perhaps six months of passenger seat living will knock some sense into me.

And meanwhile,as I started to say at the beginning of this post, I'm learning something about the depth and variety of driving consciousness on the asphalt surfaces of this wonderland.

I'll post this now with a "to be continued..." and also with heartfelt thanks to the wonderful friends who have offered to ferry me around these days.