illusionofjoy | Library, libraries and electricity (Reply)

Last night was interestingly surreal. Actually, my whole weekend was fairly surreal, come to think of it. In trying to remember what I did, it all blurs together into a collage of unrelated images. To think, I was only drunk for a few hours and these are the results I'm getting? Perhaps the girl is correct and I am suffering from the onset of schizophrenia.

Thus, you, dear reader, will have to suffer through the horror known as a "stream of thought" entry. These are great fun for me, because I can be as loopy as I want to be in pixilated form. However, they tend to give an audience a reason not to return to reading my tripe. I'm like to think that I'm weeding out the weak ones.

The image coming to my noggin at this particular moment is my ride out to West Library. Pittsburgh's trolley line is actually laid out in the form of an upside-down "Y" in relation to true north. The two arms of the "Y" are actually two different routes that merge in such a way that both eventually lead downtown. The 42S is the westerly route, leading to South Hills Village, a terminus that is flanked by a shopping centre. The easterly route is the 42L. This leads to a municipality known as Library. As I had never been to this place, my curiosity caught the better of me and I decided to take a ride and explore the great unknown.

This decision actually came to me after a long day and night of sleep periodically interrupted by the girl, masochistmonkey and his boyfriend. Each time my phone rang, one of them would try to convince me to come out of my cave to partake in some sort of activity - usually one that would have entailed dealing with large groups of other people. I successfully fending off these offers with a vat reserve of bodily willpower...in other words: I just wanted to go back to sleep. Around 3:00AM, masochistmonkey convinced me that I should get out of bed and hang out with him at his apartment. I agreed to go over after I spent a bit of time making myself look presentable (no sense walking the streets of Dormont naked and unshaven...particularly unshaven). I went over to the apartment only to have an intoxicated masochistmonkey pass out on the floor five minutes after my arrival. Ultimately my night was spent with his boyfriend and introspective conversation.

By the time I left the apartment, Saturday morning had arrived and I could not get back to sleep. It was past 5:00AM, meaning that Pittsburgh's mass transit system had been roused from its four-hour nightly slumber. Thus, I made my way to the trolley station with the intention of killing some time.

It took nearly an hour for a 42L to grace the station with its presence, something the 42S did thrice in the interim. When it did arrive, I boarded and settled into a seat next to the window, to better behold whatever wonders that may pass.

It should be noted at this point that Pittsburgh's trolley system is a bit unique in that the stops are divided into what are known as "high level" and "low level" stops. High level stops are usually surrounded by full stations, complete with wheelchair access, fare booths and a park and ride lot, more often than not. The main set of double-doors on the trolley opens at these stops, and one needn't worry about climbing up or down a set of stairs when boarding and disembarking from the car. Conversely, low level stops are just as the name implies: they are at curb level, with no booths, and are not wheelchair accessible, as a special door connected to a staircase on the trolley opens so that passengers may enter and exit the vehicle.

I rode the 42L with the full knowledge that the final high level stop on the line was the one labelled "West Library." Although this was not the end of the line, the actual final stop was a low level that was noted as "discharge only" on every system map I had ever seen. If anything, once out in the great unknown, I did not want to risk being unable to make it back to civilisation.

The trolley passed by Washington Junction, which is the border between zone one and zone two. There was no turning back for me at this point. If I got off at any stop now, I would have to pay the 50 cents required for travelling in a zone not covered by my monthly pass. The lines diverged to their separate terminuses, the 42S arching towards South Hills Village's mecca of suburban capitalism, while the 42L on which I rode rolled to certain adventure.

Once the lines diverged, I immediately noticed that the metal wire supports that power the trolley cars had been replaced by wooden telephone poles. Furthermore, the arcs of steel that I was used to seeing holding the contact junctions were now sparse; threadbare one could call them. The tracks themselves now had weeds growing between the ties and were a reddish-brown colour where I had only previously seen silver. The stops also looked neglected: wood and asphalt in place of the well tended moulded concrete that was inside of the city limits. Fewer houses could be seen, and trees dominated the landscape. There was even a creek that passed close to and under the tracks at several points.

I exited at the high level stop that is West Library. True to its description, this stop was at a high level - the main doors of the trolley opened so that I could exit onto it. The platform of the stop itself was only as wide as the entrance to those doors before it tethered down as a ramp to street level. I walked down this ramp right into...

...Northern New York.

Or what may as well have been Northern New York in any case. West Library is a very small municipality made up of a couple of convenience stores, banks and gas stations, a church and a smattering of houses with pickup trucks in the driveways. I wandered around long enough to kill some time before catching the trolley inbound to downtown Pittsburgh. Once safely out of the country and back on the car, I decided to ride it all the way to the other end of the line, where I would be surrounded by tall buildings.

I spent my time downtown hunting dinosaurs and then by checking out the branch of the Carnegie library located there. I still like the one in Oakland best, however. True, the one downtown is a beautifully decorated and opulent building, but a 30-minute restriction on internet usage is far too brief for my purposes. The branch in Beechview is nice as well, but the computer terminals are crowed close together in a corner and one often has to deal with small children. Despite the distance from where I live, I frequent the one in Oakland because I can usually find a computer to sit at peacefully for hours on end if I so choose sans interruption in an environment I find quite agreeable (the Music & Art department). It's a shame that libraries in Pittsburgh are facing a similar financial fate as mass transit in Pittsburgh.

After my tenure at the library, I decided to give the girl a quick visit. This was followed by a trip to masochistmonkey's apartment to hang out for most of the night. I ended up going to bed around 8:00AM yesterday morning.

My alarm clock woke me up at 7:30 in the evening, only to be abruptly cut off by the power going out. I shrugged and set my little battery-powered alarm clock to wake me up at 8:00AM. Outside a severe storm was raging - I could hear the wind blowing hard against my windows and tearing at the branches of the trees. I wrapped myself in my blankets, hoping that the electricity to my building would be restored before I had to get ready for work.

As it happened, the power came back on right before my little alarm clock went off. I reset my digital clocks, so as not to be assaulted by the dreaded flashing "12:00AM" for the rest of the evening. I got ready for work, and headed to the trolley station.

Usually the train that brings me downtown and to work on time comes at 8:53PM, give or take two minutes. One that comes at 9:12PM, again, plus or minus two minutes, follows this train. I was standing on the platform at 8:45, patiently waiting for my train to arrive when an outbound trolley passed. This was of little consequence, but what did catch my attention was that once it cleared the grade crossing, the red signals did not cease flashing. In fact, they continued to run until a Port Authority maintenance vehicle drove up, and two workers got out to adjust the breaker box.

By this time, I had seen five outbound trains go by but nary a sign that an inbound was about to do the same. I began to wonder if it would be prudent to call in and tell my supervisor that I may not make it into work.

At about 9:30, an inbound train showed up on the horizon. I prepared to flash my pass and board when the driver caught my eye and motioned to the rear of the vehicle. Confused at first I thought that I was being instructed to enter the set of doors towards the back when the train simply passed me by without stopping. At this juncture, my hope was that I had actually been instructed to catch the next train...though that didn't make much sense, as the train that had just passed wasn't even filled.

I was able to catch the next train that passed minutes later, and I attributed the weird behaviour of the trolley lines to being another consequence of the power outages in my area. I arrived at work a half hour late, but was able to make up my time by staying until 6:30, rather than 6:00AM like I usually do.

That wasn't a stream of thought as I assumed it was going to be. Maybe I should have randomly mentioned that I made myself scrambled eggs this morning when I got home from work and that I took the 500 bus to get to the library where I currently find myself. Not that would be stream of thought.

I think I should go home and go to bed now.