Monday, 30 July 2001

I'm hoping this weekend was the last I'll have to borrow anyone's car for the rest of my life, but who can say? On Friday I drove my mom home from work so that I could keep her motorized cloud in order to be a little less dependent and perhaps breathe reasonably fresh air, as opposed to fumes coming from the radiator. I read somewhere recently that air pollution in the Raleigh-Durham area has surpassed that of New York City, which seems pretty incredible, but maybe there's more to that statistic. Don't go spreading any nasty rumors just yet.

In a couple hours my friend Myke will fly back to Chicago, though it feels like he already left. His visit ends when I've seen him the last time, not when he actually goes. When he came on Friday, he brought with him a collection of paintings on black canvas that he rolled up and kept in a long triangular box. He thumbtacked his work to the walls of record stores, and he introduced me to a friend of his, who told me a funny story about his friend selling a Range Rover to Gene Simmons. On Saturday a few of us sat on the lawn of the art museum and watched Nosferatu on the side of the building to music played by an orchestra behind us. I feel like I've talked and talked this weekend and I've been reminded that sometimes friends can be made rather quickly.

***

Today I was towed for the fifth time in two months, this time with my mom's car. It was a three-and-a-half-hour ordeal, making my evening both really long and really short.

Sunday, 29 July 2001

I don't understand how it's Sunday, how another weekend slid by so quietly and carefully and that I am left merely with the vague summary my memory produces, like some four-minute video on MTV. When you're in the middle of it, it's rare that you take note of it. It's next week, next year already, and I keep looking backward rather than forward.

Thursday, 26 July 2001

Martin's car has it in for me. Apparently before I started driving it, it was running as well as it ever does. For some reason, though, since he's loaned it to me, things have started to go wrong. This morning, for example, as I was driving from Raleigh to Durham in the brake light-glow of steady rain, she began to hiss at me and blow poisonous antifreeze vapors directly at me; it looked as if someone was smoking a cigarette from somewhere inside the dashboard and was French-inhaling (exhaling?) through the grating of the vents. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the windows on the car don't come down, unless you simultaneously press a lever with one hand and push down on the glass with the other while balancing the steering wheel with your knees. It was already cold and wet, and I was nervous about turning on anything that wanted to share the vents with the dragon in the dashboard, so I settled for the little triangular window between the driver's-side window and the windshield. At least with that window I could breathe, even if it meant holding it open with one hand (the wind knocks it closed), cold air, and rain running down my bare arm. That's not to say I don't appreciate the car…Martin has generously offered to go without so that I can make my daily commute. I just find the car to be an unusual beast whose problems still catch me off-guard. It seems that expected problems are somehow better, regardless of the fact that I am able to repair neither.

***

First, they got married, then they started getting pregnant. Another old friend announced she's expecting. I feel happy and alien.

Wednesday, 25 July 2001

My three-year-old nephew confessed to me that sometimes he pretends he's me. (At the time he was insisting he be called "Ingo.") I wonder what he does when he's me, exactly. I'm guessing he doesn't surround himself in gray cloth walls in a 5 x 8 area, staying virtually motionless for 8 hours, or that he doesn't sit face-to-face with an illuminated box, clicking and dragging and opening and closing. Perhaps in his world I do much more active and exciting things, such as drive a dump truck, throw the line at a railroad station, or build an enormous sandcastle. It's strange that what we find appealing as a kid we often don't find appealing as an adult, and vice versa (though I suppose my feelings toward cubicles haven't changed much).

Monday, 23 July 2001

Tonight Richard made "Obstacle Stew" for me, so named for the plethora of ingredients included underneath its peat-colored liquid. The theory is that almost no one likes everything included in the stew, and therefore certain ingredients are to be avoided, depending on the tastes of the individual. I counted three obstacles in my bowl; the rest was great.

Sunday, 22 July 2001

When I was younger, I can remember my friends saying that they'd never do certain things when they got older. Most of it was related to things they saw adults do that they didn't like or understand, or things that they thought were simply wrong. I can also remember never making those pledges myself. It's not like I necessarily planned to do the things they opposed; I just didn't want to make a claim that I would later revoke. Recently I've noticed that I still adhere to that policy. Though for the last few years I hadn't planned on getting a cell phone, I was always careful not to say that it was an impossibility. Anyway, I bought one on Friday. Of course I have reasons (car problems, long distance bills, petty social excuses), though I'm not sure why I feel I need to justify my purchase. I guess it's just a slight shift in self-definition that I have to get used to, and that no one else really notices. It doesn't look like I'll be using it all that much anyway, if this weekend is any indication. So far I've called one person, and no one's called me. (See? No one noticed.)

Yesterday felt like Summer, and felt like Saturday. I hiked in the woods, found a tick on my leg, held a crayfish, bought new flowers for the kitchen table, grilled out, watched a movie next to an open screen door, and stayed up half of the night. And today was a formula Sunday: be lazy, eat things that don't constitute a full meal, then do some cleaning. I haven't actually done the cleaning part yet.

Thursday, 19 July 2001

Today is the last day of high school, one hour before the end of the day, and I'm sitting in study hall. That's how it feels, at least. What I would do if my time were my own—well, I've got lots of ideas, ideas that only make sitting here more painful.

I might not have considered e-mailing anyone today, but then I couldn't, so of course that's what I wanted to do. Apparently a train derailment in a tunnel in Baltimore is responsible (it "cut a major fiber trunk servicing many telephone and data carriers in the Southeast"), yet somehow that explanation seems too remote to be satisfying. The result was that Internet was neither awake nor asleep, it just flickered unevenly, like a dying candle, keeping me interested enough to waste my time hitting "refresh."

***

Tonight an opossum visited our porch, upsetting the felines. The stray let out a big yell, and Emma, the remaining kitten, increased her volume by puffing up her fur and standing sideways and arched, like a Halloween cat.

Wednesday, 18 July 2001

Last night Stef and Martin tag-teamed my hair and did this.

Tuesday, 17 July 2001

Three days ago I'd swallowed the fact that I wouldn't be driving my car again, that I'd have to get used to the foreign buttons and misplaced switches of some new road companion, as if making a transition between college boyfriends. I was even prepared to go into debt for a couple of thousand dollars so that I could drive something slightly younger and equally unreliable. On Saturday I drew circles all over the classifieds, called lots of strangers with Hondas, and ended up test-driving a 1974 Beetle. To my surprise, that alien group of humans who understands automobiles suggested that I simply repair the car I have. So that's what I'm doing; this week my car's getting a new engine. Forget the melodramatic thing I said about my car seeing its last tow truck. There will be many more calls to AAA, I'm certain.

Sunday, 15 July 2001

Between the ages of 8 and 11, I had wheels attached to my feet almost every Saturday morning, racing around in a pointless circle to music by Men at Work and Rick Springfield. My friend Nicole would usually go with me; we'd put on matching skates and Izod shirts and leg warmers and each wear one braided-ribbon barrette that pinned up one side of our hair. Though there was an element of socializing at the rink, and probably some vague social hierarchy linked to skating ability, I think most of our drive to skate stemmed from just wanting to be good at something that required some coordination, to be able to showcase a practiced skill while bleeding some of our young energy.

Last night I revisited that place that I'd forgotten existed, really. It wasn't the same rink, but it might as well have been. Of course the music and fashion had changed in the last 15 years—I heard lots of boy-band music, the t-shirts had more glitter, some people wore in-line skates—but it still had the same feel, the same rituals ("Coupleskate!"), the same ratio of show-offs and rail-huggers. I didn't fall, but I'm definitely less fearless and more awkward than I was in 1985.

***

For the past two days, the father of the kittens has been hanging around, trying to coax mother out of the house for another go at parenting. She seems pretty convinced, but I'm certainly not about to let her out of the house. It's strange, seeing him, after getting to know his offspring rather well. Of course I can't be certain it's him, but he looks distinctly like the gray striped kittens, and he seems to have a undying affinity for their mother. I took a few pictures of him through the screen door before he noticed me and ran away. By the way, the last of the kittens was given away today. I'm still housing one, and the mother is still homeless, but that's one step closer toward where I was at the beginning of April.

Friday, 13 July 2001

Until last night, I hadn't been to a drive-in movie since I was very young. I'm not sure when it was or what I saw; I can only remember snapshots of the parking lot and the concessions building, the little alien heads of the speakers sprouting up through the dirt. There is a drive-in not that far from where I live now, but for some reason, last night was my first visit there, for a special showing of Superfly. I went with a few friends of mine, including Esther, who's visiting from Germany; we stuffed my car with people, lawn chairs, pillows, a cooler, and a radio, and arrived in time to see an unorganized costume and pimp-car contest (my car wasn't in the running.) We spread ourselves out on the lawn at the base of the movie screen, and watched the film to a soundtrack of Curtis Mayfield and treefrogs. The theater was equipped with a concession stand and (non-working) speakers for each car, just like I'd remembered from before, and it even had a gun shop, just in case Esther forgot what country she was in. By the end of the show, we were all perplexed as to why drive-ins have become so scarce.

On my way home from the theater, there was lots of smoke and staring at gauges and pushing and waiting, and, as it turns out, my car has seen its last tow truck; the head gasket was, in financial terms, the fatal wound. If I had the money to do it, I'd keep getting it fixed until there was absolutely no more life in it, but I know it doesn't make sense to do that. I just don't want any other car.

Today I'm sick (no, it's not related...I've been working toward it all week). Since I'm at home, I've decided to close off Jane (my long-term cat) in a room by herself, and let the two remaining kittens and mother cat have reign over the house. It's good they're getting a change of scenery, but I'm afraid I will too, as I can hear them knocking anything they can from any shelf within their reach.

Ingo sent this drawing from New York, in honor of today.

Tuesday, 10 July 2001

My drive to work isn't particularly exciting. It's mostly straight, six-lane highway of braking cars, lined with sort-of bushy green. The trees don't really stand out individually, but look almost as if they were painted by Bob Ross and merge into one big clump. Sometimes the sky and the clouds arrange themselves to look like the Simpsons' intro; for some reason I only notice that about the sky on my way to work. What stands out the most to me on the drive are the patches of kudzu, how it snakes up the trees to form bizarre but purposeful shapes, as if a topiary gardener had guided it. To me, it looks like vegetation that could be found on another planet, or what it would look like if zoo animals were covered in small green leaves. I had always assumed the vine was native to North Carolina; I was disappointed when Martin told me otherwise. It's strange how something so out-of-control and destructive can look so appealing.

This morning my commute was a little more eventful than usual. Ten minutes after leaving home (which is one third of the way there, on a good day), I heard the flack-flack-flack of a broken belt whipping against the car; a second later the battery light came on; ten minutes later the temperature gauge began to rise. When I turned off the car, I heard a thumping noise coming from underneath the hood, as if some poor creature had gotten caught in there and was trying to get out. I came home from work $144 poorer than when I went. It's beginning to look like I work in order to drive to work, but maybe I am being pessimistic.

Monday, 09 July 2001

Today I spent too much time in front of the computer, too much time online. I feel kind of like I've eaten nothing but M&Ms all day, and now I need some real food, some substance. Maybe I'll schedule in some sunshine and take my new copy of The Sun with me, out into the humid fog. It doesn't look foggy out there, but it feels like you would think foggy should feel (well, how I think it should feel).

Sunday, 08 July 2001

This morning I picked up my parents from the airport, at the end of their two-week rushed coverage of the Southwest. The last time I saw them they had lots of energy and looked eager and half-ready. Today they looked different, the way people look at the end of a trip—their excitement a little muted by wisdom and directed at the past rather than being channeled in anticipation. My dad had grown out some white stubble that made him look something like Clint Eastwood. Apparently the people at Wendy's thought it made him look like a senior citizen, offering him, on a few occasions, the official discount.

I just saw the film Memento, and I've got a nagging movie hangover, the kind where you can't piece together what you just saw, can't make any sense of it, and you adopt some of the neuroses presented to you during those two hours. Right now I'm having slight memory problems and I feel rather confused. I recommend the movie, if you don't mind the psychological aftermath.

Friday, 06 July 2001

Last night I went bowling with some friends and it turns out I did remember something from my college bowling course, besides what to do when you forget to wear socks to the bowling alley (which is, of course, wrap your feet in toilet paper). I think my good game was a result of not thinking much about it; whenever I concentrate on my game, I end up choking. The alley where we bowled is an artifact; there is no electronic scoring, just pencils and a card, the balls are chipped and bruised, and the shoes look like they've been in use since the 50s. Just behind the lanes there's a diner that sells grease and cheap beer amidst a congregation of mismatched furniture and wall art. There's a pronounced streak worn into the diner's countertop from PBRs being slid down its length, into the cupped hand of a patron. The alley is usually pretty vacant despite its old world charms.

Wednesday, 04 July 2001

It's official: Jane hates you.

Tuesday, 03 July 2001

We walked into a bar into the middle of a story being told by the barman. He joked with us, he gave us directions, and then several people in the bar elaborated on those directions. We went to a local grocery store and spent way too much money, but it was the first-time shopping splurge, and therefore somewhat justified. So we had piles of groceries and no where to put them, ran out of bags, ran out of space. The people who worked there were oblivious and curiously unhelpful.

We went to the beach on the south coast, where there were waves and sand and throngs of people and, just behind the sea grass, a flat paved field filled with cars. Then we drove for 30 minutes to the north coast, hidden away behind thick trees and a hilly climb down. There were steep cliffs, a gentle swish of water that lapped at the shore, and pebbles and sticks and seaweed where the sand was supposed to be. The sand was instead hiding behind us, being held hostage in a vertical wall.

We saw several deer standing along the highway, standing quietly in the middle of residential roads, standing among armies of lightning bugs. And we saw overused roads, a network of bridges and the pounding of relentless traffic. Souped-up SUVs, people in need of dental work, greasy food, expensive and elegant fish. Long Island seemed to me to contradict itself in a hundred different ways, though maybe every place has that element and it's just more subtle elsewhere. Now that I'm back, it seems even more pronounced.

Monday, 02 July 2001

Somewhere in America there is a group of people, by now thoroughly dispersed, united under an umbrella of disgust for Airtran airlines. I know, because I met several of this group last night in the Atlanta airport. It didn't seem to matter where people were going or where they were coming from, everyone seemed to be flying Airtran and everyone was delayed. I heard people muttering nasty things about Airtran, I saw people laying on their backs, cursing Airtran into the air above them, I noticed long lines of people at the Airtran counter, I met people buying each other drinks and striking up conversation, killing the time produced by Airtran. "Airtran? Yeah, me too. Where you headed?"

I wish I could say the trip there was easier, but I guess it couldn't have been…I was leading a dinosaur truck up I-95, driving Ingo's little Civic with my eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. It was slow but uneventful, until we got caught in a chaotic stream of traffic just outside of New York, spilling out of a toll booth and collecting as pool of metal on the other side. I turned around and exchanged a look of horror with Ingo, and that was the last I saw of him for the next two-and-a-half hours. While I was swerving to miss cars and potholes (and my exit), Ingo was driving under low bridges at full speed, screaming in fear, before he finally exited and meandered his way to the interstate. (His truck was 10'6", and at one point he drove, successfully, under a bridge that said 9'8".) Anyway, we got there Friday night, I was delivered to Raleigh last night, vehicles are in one piece, and I have my luggage.

Last night, just before the plane touched down at RDU, I heard the woman in front of me say, "Well there she is, beautiful Raleigh-Durham." To me, it looked like nothing more than any other town from above, just clusters of yellow and green lights that don't formulate recognizable landmarks. If I'm in the air and can see the ground, I find myself trying to figure out what it is I'm over. But without lines and words and a compass and distance scales, really, without a map drawn on top of the trees, I can't determine what it is I'm seeing, whether that curve of the coastline is the upper-half of a state or a mile-long stretch of beach. I wonder if she saw something I didn't, or if she was merely happy to be home.

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