I got an invite in my inbox, more than once, for a free election night gathering at the Hyatt in Century City out here. So far, OVER ELEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE have RSVP'd. So while, on the one hand, I think it would be cool to go to a huge Election Day thing instead of sitting in my apartment watching it on TV, I don't know where eleven thousand people are going to park.
(Also -- and this is just a practical observation -- by the time this election thing starts, at 8 Pacific / 11 Eastern, the result is awfully likely to have been known for hours, taking pretty much all of the suspense out of such an eleven-thousand person gathering (except the parking suspense) and making it merely a celebration (or, on the off chance it turns out the other way, a riot). Neither a celebration nor a riot sound like nearly as much fun as a tension-packed watching of election returns with 11,000 people who each care a lot about what happens, and don't yet know the outcome.)
I hate that living in LA has turned me into my parents, in one mildly annoying and frustrating respect. I grew up pretty much being the first person anywhere, getting everywhere early, leaving all sorts of extra time for traffic and parking, regardless of any legitimacy to the concern that there would be traffic or difficulty with parking. As I got older, I realized that my family spent too much mental energy worried about these things, and while I was still early to everything, because I didn't have a car (in law school, or living in New York afterwards), and didn't have to drive anywhere, I could pretend that I wasn't governed by these same mostly-overblown concerns. Except now in LA, I completely am. I leave insanely early to get to meetings (which I should, because there can definitely be unexpected traffic -- but, still, I'm probably on average 40 minutes early, leaving an hour and ten minutes or so for an expected-30 minute trip, or just about 2 hours for something I think should take a little over an hour), and if something isn't a meeting, I find myself too often weighing the thought of traffic against how much I really want to do whatever it is.
I realized very early on in my time in LA that I am very bad at looking for parking spots on crowded streets, and if I'm in a situation where I have to parallel park on a street with traffic behind me, and I will have to hold up traffic in order to back into the spot, my brain will suddenly forget how to park and I will screw it up enough that I have to pull back out and start over, and by that time the line of cars behind me will be so long that I will feel bad and give up and keep driving until I find an easier spot. So, armed with that knowledge, I now just park in the first reasonable spot that's easy to get into, within, say, half a mile, and walk from there. I was visiting a friend, on a residential street last weekend, but in Venice, where parking is often a problem. So I got to where I was like 9 blocks from his house, saw some easy spots on the street, and parked. This wasn't, as it turned out, the area of Venice where it is difficult to park, and I could have parked right in front of his house. Leaving me feeling slightly stupid for parking 9 blocks away. But healthier, because of the walk. I actually do find that 95% of the time, my parking strategy works, and relieves me from the worry that I'm going to accidentally hit another car while I'm distracted looking for a spot, or that I will have to make scary u-turns or end up in unnecessary traffic or have to parallel park on major thoroughfares, or have to pay money to valet park. And all it means is I end up walking a few blocks anywhere I go. Which isn't a bad thing.
How did I get started on this? Oh, yeah, the election party. My concern is that with 11,000 people, the closest spot I will find is the one I'm parked in now, 4 miles away at my apartment.*
*Yes, the bus exists, but not very well, and especially not at night, when they pretty much stop running. So that's not a solution.
**I'm exaggerating things for the purpose of this blog post. If I want to go to the thing, I'll go to the thing. And if I don't want to go, it will be because I don't want to stand around with 11,000 people in a hotel lobby, not because I'm worried about finding a parking spot.
***Except maybe I'm not exaggerating things, because, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't think there's any chance I'm going to end up going to this thing.
Ballot Device Election Systems and Software agrees to pays city of San Francisco $3.5 million settlement after problems with AutoMARK lead to prolonged hand counting of votes.
