a tale of two commutes

So yesterday, I didn't want to talk about it.  Today I am willing.

My trip home from work is approximately 23 miles, and can be divided into four rough segments:

1. from my office to the Parkway to 295 to the through-the-city exit:  14 miles.
   
2. through the city to the on-ramp to 395:  about a mile and a half.
   
3. down 395 to my exit:  6 miles.
   
4. from my exit to my home:  about a mile and a half.

Part 1 has one light in it and ends at another.  Part 2 has two lights.  Part 3 has none; part 4 has a long light at the end of the ramp, and another at the intersection at the bottom of my hill.  In no traffic and hitting every single light, I suppose I could make the trip in about 35 minutes.  This would never happen.  Going to work normally takes 40-45 minutes; getting home about the same.

Following is the normal period of time to travel each of the segments detailed above, with parenthetical notes, followed in bold and in square brackets by the amount of time that segment took me last night.  Note that yesterday I left work at about 5:15, and that today after dropping ellen_fremedon off at the metro I began my actual route home at about 5:45.  This half-hour is not one that should make a substantial difference.

1. 20 minutes, depending on the light [1 hour]
   
2. 3 minutes [1 hour]
   
3. 10 minutes (between South Cap and the 14th Street bridge there is always an unpleasant amount of traffic, but once you reach the bridge things move along -- provided you cross the bridge after 6pm, when the HOV lanes open to all traffic and thus clog up) [9 minutes]
   
4. 2-6 minutes, depending on the lights - today I spent four minutes sitting through two cycles of the red light [2 minutes]

You read that right, DCfolk:  half an hour on Howard Road and half an hour on South Capitol Street.  NOT OKAY.  And unless I'm counting wrong, next year, Halloween will be on a Friday.  NOT A CHANCE.  I'll either Metro or take a fucking vacation day.


In better news, I got a package today.  I thought it might be my eBay goodies, but it felt wrong -- and it turns out to be my new, happy, brand-name prescription.  Hurrah!  I anticipate that my moods will swing as they've been doing a couple of weeks from now, but when the pills I'm on now are gone, I'll go back on the better ones, and I trust it will all be sorted.  Yay.