When Commuting Can Drive You Insane : Highways: Lengthy repairs to Topanga Canyon Boulevard turn even the most casual trip into a frustrating trek.

The day begins before dawn when the alarm goes off and my husband starts chanting, “I better get going. I better get going,” as if the words themselves will propel him out of bed.

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No, he doesn’t punch a time clock. And his boss is no early bird himself.

It’s that Caltrans shuts down Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway just south of Topanga’s town center for daylong repairs at 7:30 a.m., thanks to the recent storms that washed away two parts of the mountainous road. It stays closed until 3:30 p.m. and shuts down again from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

So if you’re a canyon resident bound for West Los Angeles--or worse yet, Downtown Los Angeles--and wheel up to the roadblock at 7:31, trying to drive, drink a cup of coffee and finish dressing at the same time, you are condemned to a roundabout trip through the San Fernando Valley.

That means facing the dreaded Ventura and Hollywood freeways, the ninth circle of commuter hell, the edge of the Earth, where lurk the dragons of stop-and-go.

It’s not that we Topangans are hopeless snobs (well, OK, some of us are) who recoil from the idea of even passing through the Valley. It’s that driving to the north end of the canyon instead of the south is, frankly, like the difference between Malibu and the euphemistically named Sunshine Canyon landfill. Instead of dolphins frolicking in the ocean, and picturesque sailing yachts heeling away toward wherever rich yacht owners go on a weekday morning, the view is pure suburban sprawl, carved down the middle by a line of red brake lights.

A 50-minute commute becomes a two-hour commute, tap-dancing on the brakes all the way. The agita begins even before you arrive at work.

I know--because I can’t leave the house until Alma, our baby-sitter, starts at 8 a.m.

“Oof! It’s bad today,” comes her morning traffic report, with just a hint of satisfaction.

I’m sorry, West Valley dwellers, but can’t you people just call in sick every day for a few weeks?

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I mean, we Topangans have got to get through this mess, do you understand? Not all of us stay home weaving tapestries and chanting over our crystals. I don’t care about tofu and tranquillity, just GET OUT OF MY WAY.

These past few days I’ve been taking Ventura Boulevard past the San Diego to Sepulveda or Van Nuys, and then get on the Ventura Freeway.

The boulevard route offers a visual social history of the Valley, I try to tell myself. From Monty’s Steakhouse to City Wok, Solley’s to Starbucks.

By the way, I’ve counted no less than five Starbucks between Woodland Hills and Sherman Oaks. Do they reproduce by splitting like restless amoebas or what?

I can use the time to think, I try to tell myself.

Sure. I think of how much time I’m spending in the car.

I think about how stress causes cancer and how sitting too long promotes cellulite. How I’ll be a stranger to my son, whose enduring image of me will be that of a grimacing woman waving through the Volvo window.

I read a vanity plate in front of me one morning: ALLIS1

So true! I thought, with anything but Zen-like calm. From a little rain comes a washed-out road, which brings us a dysfunctional family.

There’s no respite once I finally get to work.

My friend and fellow Topangan, Ann, messages me electronically: “Well? How was yours today? Mine was only one hour, 15 minutes.

“So when’s the road going to reopen?” she has asked me and every other human she knows, daily. It’s sort of like people in Bosnia asking when the truce begins; any hopeful answer will cheer our day, even if we know deep in our hearts that it’s not true.

Some Topangans have reportedly surrendered. Ann says she knows a lawyer--who can’t be late for work or the trial judge can find her in contempt--who has simply moved into a Westside hotel for the duration.

The day ends as stressfully as it begins.

One evening, rushing home to relieve Alma, fearing that she might abandon us, my husband found the entrance to Topanga Canyon blocked at PCH because of a new repair schedule allowing work after dark.

He had to drive 34 miles to Malibu Canyon Road, go over the mountains in the dark to the Ventura Freeway, loop back eastward and enter Topanga Canyon through the Valley.

I found him later that night at the dining room table, head in his hands, muttering: “New York’s looking better and better.”

Weekends have been no better. The drawbridge goes up at 9 p.m., making jaunts to a movie or restaurant on the Westside hardly worth the long drive home.

Ann’s comment: “Caltrans did what my mother never could--set a curfew for me and and tell me which friends to hang out with. Valleyites are OK, but forget those Westsiders.”

Then, hopefully, she asks: