Offline edition: On resisting the optimization impulse

Several months ago, around the time that I deleted everything from my phone, I decided to start taking the LA Metro to my therapy appointment for a while. This required biking to the station, as well as a train transfer. Because of how traffic is in LA, it wouldn’t take vastly longer than it would to drive. But it did add some time, not to mention some unfamiliar logistics.

The first time I got on the train, I happily texted an LA-based group chat about how new and clean the trains seemed, how the stations were actually pretty nice. I’m comparing and contrasting New York, where most of the train cars on most lines are in rough shape and don’t even have digital signage to tell you what stop you’re arriving at. The friends immediately filled the thread with warnings and lectures about the Metro’s “problems”, which mostly seemed to be about the prevalence of unhoused people. These are, I must stress, staunchly progressive friends.[^1]

This setup makes it sound like it will end with my own comeuppance of how actually scary or dangerous the LA Metro was. I hope this does not disappoint, and truly I am no hero for this, but I had a great time, and still do when I take it. The LA Metro kind of rocks. The bike trip there runs past a park. The station I leave from is charming as fuck, with an entrance that’s a set of ramps enrobed in foliage leading up to a station shaded by metal sculptures in the shape of large-leaved trees. The trains are practically silent, compared to the construction-site sounds of any arriving train in New York. There is space to lock up your bike. Instead of having to merge a car five lanes across and then back again every time I exited onto a new highway, I could settle into a seat and peacefully edit printouts of my book. I read. I watched out the windows. I signed someone’s petition for a housing measure.

True, it wasn’t the hermetically controlled journey that is driving a car. There were smells. I had to carry my bike up and down some stairs. There was (gasp) an unhoused person here or there. That first trip was when a man called me, in passing, “lesbian Vanessa Hudgens.” To the presumable disappointment of my LA Metro FUD friends, I bravely survived it all. Now I have a wonderful story about being called lesbian Vanessa Hudgens that I won’t soon forget. I went the long way. I had a proper adventure.