car-less, I mean car-free

It's funny how much I depend on my car, despite taking public transportation to and from work when my work is in Gone West. I used to live here without a car, and I did fine. It took more time - many of my evenings were devoted to walking to Trader Joe's and taking the train back - and I did fewer hiking sort of things, because it was hard to get to the meeting point, but I functioned.

I dropped my car off at the mechanic early this morning and I felt somewhat unexpectedly anxious about how I am going to survive without my little car.

I logicked myself, though. The real reason it makes me anxious is not because I have a day without the little beast. It is because there is a chance that they will need to keep it over the weekend and then I will have to consider things like not hiking tomorrow and riding my bike a long way to an event tonight. 

(I just looked up the public transit to the hike tomorrow. It would require an hour and a half, at least, to get to the meetup point. That is insane. I would have to be on the (walking) road by 6:20 am.)

The train stop was only a couple of blocks from where I dropped my car off, so I walked to it after I handed over my key and possibly my first-born child, depending on what they found when they opened up the hood.

It was just before 8 am, close to the beginning of the line, and the train filled with commuters and students as we trundled along the tracks. 

I always find it interesting to see who sits next to whom, and how they do or don't interact. The research says that people tend to sit next to people who look like them - white women tend to sit next white women, black women next to black women, etc. I was sitting next to the window, so I could just watch other people pick. 

I got off near where I lived when I first moved to Gone West seven years ago. I walked through a park and over the highway, looking down at the traffic slowing down as it got to the interchange with the other main highway in town.

By 9 a.m., I was back in my house, carless.

I will probably spend my weekend without my car, it seems, since it is almost 5 pm, but in good news, I am getting the timing belt and water pump and some seals and other belts replaced, so my little beastie should run like a charm when I get it back, and I can wait a few more months on that front strut that is making noise every time I go over a bump.