When Is Friendly A Little Creepy?

An empty car. Riders usually sit in the same car and same general area.

People are creatures of habit. On the train, people not only sit in the same car each morning and evening, but many often sit in the same seat, or at least in the same general area. Because of this, you get to know people who ride in your car. Among friends and acquaintances, it isn't uncommon to hear, "You weren't here yesterday, did you drive?" or "Did you take the later/earlier train?" Among strangers, it can be unnerving. You generally notice who is on the train and who isn't, but you don't usually point it out to a stranger. I once overheard a woman say to her friend, "We can sit next to him because he gets off in Solana Beach. Right?" She asked him. Then, "You think I don't notice."

Another time a man made a comment to a young student-looking guy who was eating a big sandwich on the train ride home. The man said something like, "That sandwich looks good" (which is a normal thing to say). But then a woman he was with said, "He has a good dinner every day on the train home." The young man just made some comment about how he saves his lunch for later, but seemed a bit weirded out. I would be, too, if I knew that somebody noticed what I was eating every day.

So I guess the moral here is to realize that you will get noticed in this micro-commuting world, but that there is a fine line between being friendly and creeping someone out.

All in the Family

My Mom and me on the Coaster together.

In my Coaster commuter world, there are two sets of regulars on the train who are couples: an older couple who sit quietly and read the newspaper in the morning, and a young couple who bike to the train station together and work at UCSD. I am also part of a commuting family group, although the dynamics are a bit different. One day per week my Dad rides the Coaster to see his grandkids, and another day my Mom rides the Coaster, also to see the kids. They share a Coaster pass, and so can't ride together. Plus, the point is to help my sister out with her two children, so she gets help from either Mom or Dad twice per week.

My Dad and me during our morning commute.

On those mornings, I get to ride with one of them half-way to downtown. (They get off at an earlier stop.) It's a nice way to spend the time in the morning, plus I know that some annoying person won't sit next to me. They take an earlier train home, so I don't see them in the afternoon, but, those two days, I look forward to talking to them during the morning commute. I wonder how many other people are part of our elite group of family commuters.

Where I Begin and End

San Diego Santa Fe Station, on the National Register of Historic Places.

To give you a sense of place in my commuter world, I begin in Oceanside in the morning and end in San Diego. The trip takes me almost exactly 1 hour. At the end of the day, I do it all over again (but starting in San Diego). The San Diego Santa Fe Station is a historic landmark, or something important like that.

Oceanside Train Station, not on any sort of historical list.

Oceanside doesn't have any type of cool designation, but it does have free parking in an enclosed garage, and connections to buses, the Sprinter (train going east), and trains going north (Amtrak, Metrolink). It is also two blocks from the beach, and smells of ocean air.

And so my work days begin and end.

Fashion It's Not

My "commuter" shoes.

Anyone who has walked along a busy city street on a weekday knows about the tennis shoe fashion rule. This rule states that if you walk to work or walk from public transportation to your place of employment, you are allowed to wear comfortable walking shoes, even if it looks ridiculous. I'm not sure what fashion guru Tim Gunn has to say on the subject, but I, as a general follower of fashion trends, think it's a necessary fashion faux pas. That said, most people who ride the Coaster don't do this. Generally, I've noticed, they wear practical shoes to begin with—no stiletto heels for these casual So Cal office workers.

I, on the other hand, like to wear heels or otherwise not-so-comfortable-but-fashionable shoes to work. So, I am one of the few Coaster riders who wears "commuter shoes." I don't wear tennis shoes but unassuming black slip-ons in colder weather (see photo), and flip-flops when it's warm. I find it strange when I see women in heels on the train, and wonder how far they have to walk in those things to get to their office.

The best part about wearing commuter shoes is the end of the day when I can take off my office shoes and slip on flat, comfortable shoes to walk to the train. Ahhhh.

Train Delays: Still Better than Traffic

The train schedule, which, barring a disaster, is pretty accurate.

Long delays on the train are rare, but they do happen. And when they do, after getting over how totally annoyed I am, It actually makes me appreciate the train more for getting me to and from work, on time, almost every time I ride. The four major delays that occurred while I was riding were all the result of a major event that directly affected the rail line: a fire, a "flood," an earthquake, and a train crash.

The fire happened in the afternoon, at about the middle of the train route. I was excited because I was able to leave work early that day and catch the earlier train. That proved to be a moot point, since we sat at the station for about an hour waiting for the fire to be put out. This meant that two trains were now combined into one, and I didn't get home any earlier.

The flood was the result of heavy rains that lasted for more than a week. Since the train rides through a pretty extensive wetlands area, rising water can occasionally be a problem. This time was also on the train ride home, and we actually made it to the second station. There, we waited for about an hour while a crew came in to check the tracks. I was with my friend and co-worker Shirley, so at least I had company. And they let us leave the train, so Shirley went to a near-by deli and bought us a six-pack of beer. We shared with a few others around us, and generally enjoyed ourselves, even though Shirley had to cancel a dinner date.

The earthquake, although not large, was apparently pretty jarring. None of us on the train would know, though, because we didn't feel it. It happened about 5 minutes into our ride home. We knew it happened because people's cell phones started ringing and the news quickly spread. We again made it to the second station, and waited there while they checked the tracks. This took about 30 minutes.

The train crash was more dramatic, as it involved riders actually getting off the train and being shuttled on buses. After getting on the train one morning, an announcement was made that we would go as far as Sorrento Valley (about 30 minutes into the 1-hour total ride) and be shuttled to the last two stops by bus. We weren't told the reason at the time (maybe they said "cars on the tracks"), but we later learned that a freight train (no passengers) had jackknifed off the tracks the night before in an area that only has one set of tracks. Many people, upon hearing this, got off the train, presumably to drive or maybe just ditch work. I stayed, since I didn't want to deal with traffic and then parking downtown. The ride was typical except that the train was pretty empty, since many people made other arrangements. At the Sorrento Valley station, we were all herded off the train and into about 10 waiting buses, which then got onto the freeway (into morning traffic) and drove us to the last two stops. This made me about 30 minutes late, but it actually wasn't too bad. The train was back to normal for the commute home, and the derailed cars could be seen on the side of the tracks for the next week or so.

Despite these four pretty serious delays, the train has been good to me. I don't have to deal with car traffic every day, two times per day, and I get to relax and read or sleep to and from work. That's a pretty good trade-off, I'd say.

I Only Read Dostoevsky in the Winter

Some light reading for the train.

As a general rule, people on the train don't comment about what other people are reading. We all go about our business, ignoring others as best as possible. Most people read the newspaper in the morning and the latest spy novel or cheap paperback in the evening – generally no-brainer stuff that doesn't require much thinking. (I can't account for the handful of commuters who read e-books.) I usually ascribe to this rule, although I'll occasionally pull a "classic" off my bookshelf that I never got around to reading to see if it's worth all the hype.

To this end, I recently started reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov – a tough read at times, especially after a long day of editing, but altogether a good book. As with every other book I've read while on the train, I didn't expect anyone to comment on it. So, I was quite surprised when I got not one but two comments in one week, and rather odd ones at that. My favorite comment was a man who said, "Dostoevsky, huh? I only read him when I'm depressed." Another man said a few days later, "I like Dostoevsky, but I only read him during the winter." What?

I have two theories about why I got more comments about Dostoevsky than all of the other books I've read combined:

1. Maybe more people have read this book and so there is more of a probability that I'll get a comment about it (although I didn't get any comments when I read Mark Twain).

2. Or maybe people want me (and others around us) to know that they are just as into the classics as I am, and are bragging a bit.

Either way, the comments I got cracked me up. I think I'll pick another classic for my next book to see if the trend holds.

Big Brother is Watching (or not)

I am being watched.

My first week of work, I noticed that there were cameras in the hallways of my building. A little creepy, but not unheard of. Then I noticed that there were cameras "concealed" in little domes in the ceiling of my actual office. A little creepier. Later I noticed that there were cameras at every Coaster train station. The station where I get on in the morning, in fact, has about five that I can see, and I'm sure there are more.

My first thought after becoming aware that I was surrounded by cameras most of my work day was of CSI and how they solve crimes using surveillance cameras; if something should happen to me, they could use the cameras to discover my where-abouts. My next thought was, between the train stations and work, my every move is being tracked. Again, kind of creepy.

After working from home for years, this whole camera thing caught me off guard. I had never even noticed security cameras before, and now I see them everywhere. Not really sure what this means. Maybe that an alien race is watching us to learn our habits and will soon take over the world. Or possibly that I just get out more now.

My paranoia was put to rest, however, after I read in a news article that in some big city (London maybe?) about one-third of the cameras don't work. Budget cuts have caused them to fall into disrepair. So maybe I'm not being watched after all. Or maybe I am...