A reply

I got several useful replies to my earlier post. Here's the best reply I could come up with.

Thanks to all of you. SF Mike, you asked a good question. I thought I was starting a little newsletter for a few of my friends. They hardly ever come here. Instead, I'm writing for people that I don't know. I'm not too sure what they find interesting.

What I find interesting is that I walk around the city for at least a couple of hours every day. I'll have to admit that your Civic Center blog has gotten me to pay closer attention to what I'm seeing. Another great SF photo blog is 'What I'm Seeing'. His pictures often appear on SFist. I walk around the same neighborhoods as you two, but I seem to notice slightly different things. Sometimes I wish I was taking pictures of them.

As far as writing about transit goes: It's not that I consider it a dull topic. It's just that I'm so involved in it that it would be like writing about my skin, or the air that I breathe or maybe even gravity. It's so close to me that I have no useful perspective. Also, Bus drivers are always saying that there is no way to explain our lives to non bus drivers. That's been my experience. I usually end up having to say something like, "Look, my job is the way my job is. You'll just have to accept that." This is particularly true of girlfriends, most of whom have never been able to understand my schedule.

In that sense, we're a lot like cops. We tend to hang out with other bus drivers and to talk among ourselves in bus company jargon. There's a very us and them feel to a lot of conversations.

I put a lot of effort into getting out of that little subculture and thinking about other things. I like what I do, and I value my relationships with other workers, but I try and come up for air pretty often. That's not easy, because a short work week is 60 hours. I usually end up at work for something closer to 65 or 70 hours a week.

Right now, I'm thinking I'll take some of my tax return and use it to refurbish an older laptop. I'll hook it up to a camera and try and work on the blog from the public library or some other public wi fi spot. Trouble with that is that I also need that time to exercise, to read and to practice my ukulele.

Right now I need to go to sleep.

Thanks again.