Today Washington State's road's became a little less safe, I got my driver's license replaced. I lost my driver's license in Taipei so I've been unable to drive until today. So a few hours ago I found myself behind the wheel of one of the most deadly machines in the world. I was wondering if it would be weird or difficult to drive again after nearly a year of pedestrianism, but it's like riding a bike, only less pedaling.

The weirdest thing was the sense of ease and my renewed tremendous range, I had a full tank of gas and the rest of the day to go where I wanted to go. I ended up going to Best Buy and looking at those new Blue Ray players, with no intention of buying them. I was curious how much a Blue Ray drive would be for my computer, $119, not too bad, but I don't need one. After that I found myself in some sort of rush traffic, sitting behind rows and rows of red tail lights spacing out, my brain having that numb feeling where it knows it can't fall asleep but it has nothing to do other than keep it's foot on the brake and watch for the read break lights to go dark then proceed forward. As I sat there in traffic, a word I had hoped to forget, I reminisced about my old life: it's been almost a week since I've walked the streets of Taipei. In Taipei I would have still had almost two hours of day light left, and in Taipei I wouldn't be alone in a car behind hundreds of cars I'd be on a side walk, bus or an MRT behind hundreds of human beings.

But which is better? My car was quiet and smelled like a not new anymore car and a heater, my car has a comfortable non-stinky smell, at least in my opinion (I have a habit of not eating in my car so that it doesn't smell weird.) But if I was on a sidewalk in Taipei I'd smell all kind of weird things, some of them really good, but lot's of them kind of weird or not good, like stinky tofu or temple insense, those things smell bad. Crowds of people stuck in a small MRT train usually don't smell very good either, although I wouldn't say that the MRT smells bad.

My car was nice and quiet too, the sounds outside muted, muffled, and overridden by soft cello music playing in my car's CD player. That part I liked, the peacefulness of my car. But then again it's kind of lonely in there too, kind of sad. I looked out at the hundreds of other cars waiting for the light to change, pulling out of parking lots, quietly making left turns next to me, all insulated from each other by windshields, turning lanes, and 2-second braking distances. Here we were, hundreds of us, on our ways home, or wherever we were going, together but alone.

Of course I realize that I didn't really want to see all those people, I didn't want to look at them, avoid eye contact them, hear them yell at their kids or talk on their cell phones. Their kids probably wouldn't stare at me though, since I'm not a foreigner here, maybe that's another reason why it wouldn't be any fun. Of course on the Taipei MRT almost half of the people pretend to sleep, or maybe they really are, maybe sleeping is the urban transit way of isolating yourself.

I think I've decided that I'd rather be a person than a car though. A person among people, because then I have the option of staring at someone, smiling, or maybe even actually talking to someone. In cars, as comfortable as they are, I'd have to roll down my window and yell, and they probably wouldn't hear me anyway. Do people ever roll down the window and yell "Excuse me!" or "Sorry I didn't see you there." or "Thanks?" Do kids ever get to see funny looking foreign guys with big noses (like me) when they are sitting in those child seats in the back seat of an SUV? I also can't make faces at those same little kids either.