traffic | Mostly Bright Ideas

Browsing All posts tagged under »traffic«

Dealing with a Wait Problem

September 12, 2014

I’m seated in my car. There is another vehicle in front of mine, a Toyota Corolla with a small dent just below the left tail light. The word Corolla on the back of the other car reminds me of corona, which is the fuzzy glow around the edge of the sun. I’m pretty sure it’s also […]

Ebb and Flow

April 24, 2012

I hate talking about the weather. And that’s a problem, because where I live, what’s happening in the atmosphere tends to form the basis for most conversation. The temperature, the lack of rainfall, the blueness of the sky, the level of frost in the ground — it’s incessant, and for me, somewhat bewildering. For one […]

Don’t Think and Drive

December 20, 2010

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the car, sitting at red lights mostly — but with holiday traffic, also at green lights and yield signs, and trapped in parking lots. I sometimes imagine that I’m going to miss Christmas entirely, marooned at the mall and staring at the back bumper of a Toyota […]

Why We Should Love Traffic Jams

October 23, 2010

Okay, I don’t love traffic jams. In fact, I hate them. They make me late, they make me tense, and they make me smack the steering wheel and hurt my hand. But traffic jams are an example of a phenomenon that is everywhere in our lives. And without it, we wouldn’t exist. It’s the tendency […]

Are We All Getting Dumber, Or Is It Just Me?

October 8, 2010

At some point in my formal education I was taught that humanity was an integral part of the evolution of the universe. Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher, said that through our collective consciousness, we are following a path toward what he called the Omega Point, a place of intellectual and spiritual godhood. Teilhard believed […]

Driving Myself Crazy (Part 1)

June 7, 2010

Our son turns sixteen this summer, and I’ll be sliding over to the passenger’s seat as he begins the lifelong process of learning how to drive. Over the past few months, he’s been asking a lot of questions whenever we get into the car, so I’ve been taking note of the amusing habits of other […]