CUL-DE-SAC

There’s a blizzard of info-nonsense that blows across cyberspace all day that takes the name Twitter. And I try to monitor some of it with a software thing called TweetDeck. In TweetDeck, I not only have a column that shows tweets from people I’m following. It also has columns that show categories of tweets.

I can search the Twitter universe for certain words or phrases. This can be handy if you’re a reporter who’s waiting for some news to break. The minute some expected event happens – Supreme Court ruling, whatever – somebody out there with an Internet connection will tweet and spill the beans so you can follow up.

One search term I have programmed into TweetDeck is “light rail.” I’m not expecting any big news, necessarily. But I figured I might hear about some interesting studies, stories or developments that I can turn into news.

It turns out the stuff I got in my light-rail column was a lot more interesting.

It’s not news. Far from it. It’s a collection of gripes and trivial observations made by people who use light rail. The first thing I learned as I started to look at this stuff is people really do call light rail light rail.

I thought that was an expression only academics and transit wonks used, while real people called it the trolley, the train or something like that. Nope. The people who ride it call it light rail, and when they complain about the loud drunk they had to sit next to as they were headed downtown they talk about the guy on the “light rail.”

Not all of the tweets are from San Diego. They have light rail in Minneapolis, Denver, Boston, Sacramento, Phoenix, Portland, etc. Most of the time I can’t tell where these people are. I just know they’re using light rail.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

–Oh god someone just brought delicious smelling curry onto the Light Rail train! Just remind me how hungry I am, Indian Diaspora! Thanks! :p

–@Ned_Miller some random nigga who got on the light rail lol

–Barely made the light rail and accidentally left 50 cents at the pay station. I prolly just made a hobo’s day today. #GoodSamaritan **

–Why is this lady cussing her reflection out on the light rail? #werido

–On this ghetto light rail with crack heads and ratchet children. Smh

–We are riding the light rail for the first time!!! http://t.co/zDjXnGAT

Every day brings a new collection, all of them connected to a photo of the correspondent. And while the details change the substance remains the same. I sometimes wonder why I keep the light-rail search tag. Why do I enjoy reading these pointless, aimless, often-profane tweets?

Maybe it’s the beauty of small talk. Somehow, it’s comforting to hear people broadcasting their small rants, stories and enthusiasms.  Put it all together and it paints a perfect picture of everyday life.

And… come to think of it… life is the very thing these tweeters are observing. I’m sure I’d be less interested to read the tweets of people who rant about something they saw on TV or something they read in a magazine. But put someone in the midst of humanity, riding in a light-rail car? Now THAT’s something I might want to hear about.

Meanwhile I’ll try to tweet more. I guess someone out there will be interested in hearing what I have to say, as small as it may be.

It helps when the weather tells you it’s Christmas. This year we had temperatures into the 30s at night and a week of rain, on and off. In Southern California, wet and chilly conditions give a sufficient feeling that the weather had become bracing, and it’s driving you inside a comfortable home that’s colored by a Christmas tree.

In my family, the holiday comes with a blizzard of gifts, thanks to some compulsive shopping and numerous grandparents buying for not many grandkids. The streets of my neighborhood had a generous offering of Christmas lights. There are displays of elves, reindeer and Santa wearing shades as he rides in a hot-air balloon. These blowup figures sound like vacuum cleaners as you walked by them.

A few blocks away, one house has a statue of the Virgin Mary with a halo that lights up at night. It’s not bad, but you can’t see the figure too well when it’s dark so it looks mostly like a stray circle floating in front of the house.

We decided this year to buy a Christmas tree from a tree farm in the country… something we’d never done, and it turned out to be a mistake. It started with long arguments about what kind of tree to get, and ended with us buying the worst Christmas tree I’d ever owned. It had many gaps in the foliage and fungus growths on the branches, and it was so lopsided it broke my tree stand.

The next day I bought one of the trees in the parking lot at the mall.

This Christmas I received a historic gift: A bike. OK, to say historic is laying it on a little bit thick. But seven years ago I also got a bike as a Christmas present, which, a year-and-a-half later, got flattened by a car as I was hit on the way to work. I wasn’t flattened but ended up in the hospital with TBI and had to go through three months of rehabilitation.

I had barely ridden a bike since then, the one exception being a cheap folding bike I briefly had. It was falling apart and got stolen from the front of Von’s at my urging. See this blog post from a year ago for more on that story.

My son has an active fantasy life about living in a place that has cold and snow. So for Christmas he asked for (and got) a sled, snow pants and winter gloves. Strangely, his dream came true on New Year’s Eve when we drove 50 minutes to mile-high Laguna Mountain. We found several inches of snow had fallen and there were plenty of hillsides to sled on.

I worked during Christmas week, though like Bob Cratchit I had Christmas Day off. The holidays were otherwise similar to ones past, with visits from in-laws and nagging children to write thank-you notes.

Finally my wife and I are mailing Christmas cards, covered with photos of the family. This is when we try to recall whom we’ve known over the years and to also remember the last time we’ve gotten in touch.

It’s a sad exercise that reminds me that friendships are not forever and they fade with time spent never seeing one another. Do we send a card to Jeff, whom we haven’t spoken to in God knows how long, or would that be ridiculous? Maybe one of these days I’ll look for him on Facebook.

Christmas is great and it’s a hassle, and now it’s done. On Saturday I’ll leave my two trees on the curb to be picked up as green waste. I’ll pull the Christmas lights off the roof gutters and put them back in a box. The days are short, spring is a long way away and it’s time to get back to ordinary life.