The Time Difference

I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between New York and Los Angeles in terms of simple things like getting from one place to another. Of course there’s the obvious difference between driving and riding the subway; but it’s not just that – it’s the issue of figuring out your planning. In LA it’s all about time.

For example, when someone asks you, “How far is it to Disneyland from here,” the answer is always given as a unit of time: “Oh, about an hour.”

I’ve discovered that people who are not from Los Angeles give me a funny look whenever I answer a question this way.

“But how FAR is it?”

As if I know.

In Los Angeles, the actual distance between two points is completely irrelevant information. I used to live 7 miles from my office, door-to-door. If I could travel between the two points in less than 45 minutes, it was a banner day.

The reality is that most people don’t care how far away something is; they really just need to know how long it will take them to get someplace. Generally so they can figure out what else they can accomplish in that day (the answer being, not much, when you live in LA). In Los Angeles there is a general rule of thumb: It takes an hour to get anywhere. The corollary to this rule is that being late is a way of life. There’s nothing you can do about the traffic and being late is not only acceptable, but expected and not even worthy of comment.

Now that I’m in New York City, I have another option: public transportation. And I say, Thank God for the MTA! I love that I can get anywhere with such ease, and I love that I don’t have to be the one making it happen. I can read, I can play games, I can sleep – and I STILL get where I’m going! (And for my Angeleno readers, I don’t have to drive the 405, so nyeah, nyeah, nyeah!)

But here’s the rub: with the vast availability of transportation options, if you are planning to be somewhere at a certain time, you damn well better be there. Being able to create a viable schedule and keep to it is a skill that I’ve brought with me from LA to NYC. Or at least I thought so.

After six months here, I’ve come to realize that I am woefully ill-equipped to deal with time commitments. I’d become inept at figuring out how much time it takes me to do something because I never really had to be somewhere when I promised I would. Now, if I don’t walk out the door by a certain time, my whole morning is shot – we miss the bus to school and the drop-off period, I miss my train and have to catch a later one, I get a later start on my day, I stay late at the office and I wind up missing dinner, and often the kids’ bed-time.

So I’m finally learning how to truly tell time. That’s right peeps – when someone asks you about distance, a unit of time does not answer the question! I’ve gotten the morning down to a science now, segmented into short time slots with doable tasks assigned to each, and we haven’t missed the bus in over a month. Now I’m working on getting my timing down for the rest of the day so that I stop missing evening activities as well. I finally understand why New Yorkers eat dinner so late…

Thanks for sending me the watch, Mom!