The roads crisscross the soul, seeming to open up all kinds of destinations but, overcrowded, under construction, whimsically closed for unstated reasons, pretty much block your way to wherever you might be thinking of going. The freeways, which in name conjure hair-blowing convertibles, were not planned for a population this size.
The arteries are clogged in the old circulatory system. The hair does not blow. I live in this soul-crushing web of lies. By which I mean that my job forces me to drive at least twice a week from Los Angeles to Orange County, and then back again during rush hour.
Just to be clear, and for my Southern Californian readersβor anyone fond of old Saturday Night Live jokesβthis means I drive 20 minutes from my house to the , and take that mega-road in virtually unmoving traffic to the 5, and then maybe get on the or the or both, one after the other , depending on which is sort of vaguely moving, and then, always, onto the fearsome, capricious, cruel , for many a long, harrowing mile. The whole trip of about 50 miles takes anywhere from one and a half to three hours.
This is the place where people tell you always to have a full tank so you can get out in case of an earthquake. No one is getting out. And you feel trapped. Sometimes, while rereading the license plate ahead of me for the th time and thinking about the futility of switching lanes, I call to mind an aborted alternate terror plan of the San Bernardino Christmas-party shooters.
They had an idea that they would launch an attack on the 91 with pipe bombs and machine guns. Obviously not that familiar with this particular road, they included an unnecessary first step: They would drop tire-ripping glass shards and nails from an overpass to stop traffic before beginning the assault.
