My cube neighbors are loud-talking non-stop today and it is making me have really uncomfortable thoughts. It wouldn't be so bad if my iPod hadn't taken another crap on me. Fortunately, all of the inappropriate thoughts I have at work can be articulated by looking at Edward Gorey drawings. Here is my Edward Gorey Image of the Day. Please enjoy. Lather, rinse, and repeat if necessary.
I am in a bit of a shame-spiral this morning. I'm am the farthest thing away from being one of those PC wool sock-n-birkenstocks soy-based type lesbians, but I do feel this need to recycle my bottles and cans. It's a bit of a dirty secret - that I actually recycle bottles and cans. I like to get the PC lezzies fired up by telling them I take my recycling down to the harbor and dump it all in the water. The look at me with shock and disgust and I just tell them that I'm “creating a habitat” and that just makes them more angry. So why would recycling put me into a shame-spiral, you wonder? It's very simple: it's the quantity and quality of the cans and bottles.
Back in my high school and college days, I would have been proud of myself having so many empties out on the curb. Now, as a 33 year-old semi-formed adult, I feel deep shame. This morning is the bottle/can pick up day and I got up early enough to put all of my recycling out under the cover of darkness. As I went back to my alley to grab the 12th bag or so of empty beer and wine bottles, I swear one of my nosy neighbors was watch me and counting. It wouldn't be so bad if the bags were filled with standard items, like empty cat food cans or ovo-lacto free products from Whole Foods. I'd be like, “See how good I am?” Instead, I'm more like, “See what a booze hound I am?” And I'm not proud. I am sure my neighbors are thinking, “That girl has a problem. I wonder if she's on the he'ron too.”
In an attempt to spread out my shame, I put most of the bags in one pile on the corner and left the other bags in a pile closer to the alley. Granted, I have had help in emptying all those beer and wine bottles, but still. If you ever really want to get a good idea about where you are in life, without going to therapy, take a good long look at your recycling. And if you don't want to know, stick with sinking your empties in the harbor and tell yourself you're helping build an artificial reef. You'll feel better.
I have this unpleasant cube neighbor here on the cubicle ranch who has one of those magnet thingies with all the different facial expression on it. She has it clinging to the side of her desk so whenever you walk by, you know exactly what kind of mood she is in. She takes this other little magnet and puts a little magent frame around her current mood. Today she feels grumpy. Great. I wish I had one that said I feel gassy, just to see her reaction.
Being the surly freak that I am, I like to use the Gashlycrumb Tinies for indicating my current mood. I don't have magents for them though, but perhaps I should employ the help of some of my more creative friends on this one and make some.
Today I feel like Clara.
“Farewell, my Biscuit, fare thee well.
The elements be kind to thee, and make
Thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well.”
- William Shakespeare
After 9 years, 10 months, and 6 days of togetherness, I parted ways yesterday with my 1996 Toyota Tercel (a.k.a. the Poor Man's Honda Civic). Many of you out there know her as The Biscuit and some of you have even had the honor and privilege of driving her.
It's hard to know what to say or how to feel. In my everyday life, I try to operate as a person of reason rather than a person of emotion. Being reasonable is cleaner, clearer, and the shortest distance between life's dramas. When it comes to The Biscuit, however, I am an emotional mess. This may be hard to understand for some of you, but let me sum it up: The Biscuit has been the only constant in my life these last 10 years, so leaving her was like saying goodbye to a dear friend that you know you will never see again. When I left her yesterday, I got the same feeling I had when I took my 16 year-old dog to be put to sleep.
The Biscuit hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, she'd done everything right. Four months after I brought her home from Brown's Toyota in Glen Burnie, I moved to downtown Baltimore and never left. I took her from the comfort of the suburbs to Baltimore's answer to the Gaza Strip and she never complained. I think about some of the neighborhoods she and I have lived in over the years and it's a wonder she never up and quit on me. What follows is an abridged version of our Baltimore history together:
Mt. Vernon 1996-1996: Never any place to park, but she always found a way to slide into impossibly small spaces at 3 in the morning when I'd get home from work. The Biscuit endured endless encounters with aggressive homeless people while parked along the park at the Washington Monument. She took so many loogies on her windshield when I refused to give out money to junkies who called me “white cunt” every time I told them I had nothing.
Hampden 1997-1998: The Biscuit was on the receiving end of much gay-bashing my then-girlfriend I endured on a daily and nightly basis. The little homophobic street urchins broke off The Biscuit's side-view mirrors, bent her antenna, launched bottle rockets at her for fun, peed on her, and deflated her tires. Not once did she complain.
Lakeside 1998-1999: The Biscuit took the most hellacious beatings commuting up and down the war zone of Harford road from 25th Street to Northern Parkway and across 33rd and 29th streets, as I commuted to and from Owings Mills and Towson. Just awful driving.
Butchers Hill 1999 - yesterday: The beatings continued from southeast Baltimore out to Owings Mills for work, up and over to Towson for graduate school, back downtown again via St. Paul St, across the war zone of E. Madison and Eager streets, and eventually to and from Linthicum and back and forth to graduate school again. The Biscuit not only endured this commuting nightmare, but she also endured multiple flat tires from road debris. One morning about a year and a half ago, I came outside and my little car was crushed on Castle Street from bumper to bumper by some dope-sick yuppie who couldn't parallel park his mommy's borrowed SUV. I actually cried when I saw the damage. Fortunately, some old school neighbors saw the whole thing happen from their stoop and wouldn't let the guy go back to northern Virginia until he gave them all of his information. The damage was repaired and she was good as new (on one side only). Most recently, a junkie tried to break into her trunk with a screwdriver. Not only did the tip of the screwdriver break off in the lock, but they never got the trunk open and the lock still worked just fine.
My car has been the one place where I've always found sanctuary. When I am driving, no one can reach me. I'm anonymous. I let my thoughts wander and I and visit people and places and ideas without interruption. I've made many of my most important decisions in my car. Where do I go? How will I get there? What do I say? How do I say it? When will I do it? How will I do it? Will everything be okay? Am I okay? And I've shed my most honest tears, both good and bad, in the privacy my car. She knows just how high and just how low it can get.
Through all of this, my little blue bullet always started on the first try, always got me home, never konked out on me, never got stuck in the snow, never over-heated, and never got bested by a junkie or yuppie. No power locks, no power windows, no fifth gear, no CD player, no fuel light, no clock, no odometer, no cruise control, no intermittent windshield wipers, no sun visor mirrors, no fold-down back seats, no Oh Shit handles, no ability to open the trunk or gas cap from inside. Nothing. My brother used to laugh at my car and say it was a beer can rolling around on four pizza cutters. Funny. He's been through four cars in the time I've had mine.
Nothing was wrong with The Biscuit. It's just that an opportunity came my way to steal a practically brand new car. When I bought the Biscuit 9 years, 10 months, and 6 days ago, I was still in undergraduate school and in no financial position to buy a new car. I simply couldn't afford it. I struggled with the $250.00 payments, even on a five year plan. But I've never had to put any money into her, other than the normal basic maintenance stuff. I don't think any of us can honestly say the same thing about most of the women we know.
I want The Biscuit to have a good life and enjoy her golden years in the suburbs. My hope is she'll get to live in a driveway and never have to worry about junkies violating her or drunk yuppies side-swiping her. Perhaps she can bask in the sun and breeze with her windows rolled down and her doors unlocked. Maybe someone will wash her and detail her regularly. And in my wildest of fantasies, she'll never have to come into Baltimore City again.
I feel I need to add a follow-up item to my demolition derby fun from last weekend.
Who knew that being a spectator at demolition derby was just as dangerous as driving in one? At one point during the festivities, a car came around the turn and threw a rooster tail of dirt and debris up into the air and it rained down on the crowd. I felt many things fly into my eyes, as my blink response was very slow after 10 beers. I wasn’t particularly alarmed though because crap always works its way out of eyes, right? Wrong.
My right eye was extremely irritated the next day, and the next day, and the next day. It felt like I had a little pebble behind my eyeball. My eye started to look like a cherry with a blue center - not sexy. My mom was like, “What the hell happened to your eye?” And my co-worker said, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but your eye looks really bad.”
When I woke up Friday morning, my eye actually ached and this alarmed me because I am not a person who even wears glasses or contacts. I managed to get an appointment with an opthomologist who saw me right away. I did have a foreign object in my eye and it left behind a corneal abrasion. Ouch. The good news is I am fine and my eye will be fine. I’ve got these magic eye drops that have me feeling nearly 100% better. The bad news is that I was not prescribed an eye patch.
Oh well. Maybe next time.
M-W’s Word of the Day, with my own additions:
caterwaul \KAT-er-wawl\ verb
*1 : to make a harsh cry
2 : to protest or complain noisily in favor of entitlement issues
Example sentence:
“Just before sunrise, Womyns Festival lesbians screamed and caterwauled in the distance.”
Did you know?
An angry (or amorous) lesbian can make a lot of noise. As long ago as the mid-1300s, English speakers were using “caterwaul” for the act of voicing feline passions. The “cater” part is, of course, connected to the cat, but scholars disagree about whether it traces to the Middle Dutch “cāter,” meaning “tomcat,” or if it is really just “cat” with an “-er” added. The “waul” is probably imitative in origin; it represents the feline howl itself. English’s first “caterwaul” was a verb focused on feline vocalizations, but by the 1600s it was also being used for noisy people or things. By the 1700s it had become a noun naming any sound as loud and grating as a tomcat’s yowl.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
We had a great time Friday night. A. called Thursday to invite me to the new exibit opening at the AVAM, which translates into free booze and a really funky crowd. People ranging from soccer moms to Mr. Mid-Atlantic Leather 2005 and his groupies were there in the warehouse. I make no pretenses about being into art or “getting it” when I walk around a museum. I was there for the free booze and the people-watching. We never made it inside to see the exhibit, but we did make it up to A.’s office, which made us all very jealous because it’s so sexy. A., who was the event organizer, said she couldn’t go home until the kegs were kicked. Not one to let one of my best girls down, I proceeded to drink inordinate amounts of a local beer called Amber Waves. I tried to beer pressure those around me into drinking more too. Fortunately, the kegs were dead and we staggered our way up the steep side of Federal Hill park and found LF's car.
Saturday started with a raging microbrew hangover, but the weather could not have been more perfect for a demolition derby. Nurse J, LF, my dog, and I all piled in the car and drove up to Arcadia for the last demolition derby of the season. We were armed with folding chairs, a dirty Mexican blanket, and BF’s collapsible roller cooler. When we arrived at the derby around 3:00, we had 36 beers for three people and when we left the derby, we only had 8 beers left. Gross. The derby was just like it was last time. The Stars and Bars were flying in every direction and bare-footed children ran wild. We were so calmed and relaxed by the soothing smells of burning oil, tires, and gas and we were lulled by the gentle sounds of 449 cu.in. engines tearing around the dirt track. There were occasional engine fires, exploding tires, and cars rolling over. LF said it was great to be back below the Mason-Dixon Line and in the sweet loving arms of Dixie again.
Sunday was a day of rest and recovery and football. I somehow managed to avert a hangover, but I did wake up with the most god-forsaken cramps. Everyone was wrecked on Sunday. Nurse J couldn’t turn her head without gagging, LF just sat really still and didn't say much, and my cousin was reduced to drinking Gatorade and Ensure after a night of doing Jager-bombs in Canton. I made a vat of chili and told everyone to come over to watch the game. We finished off the bastard beers from the derby and ate. Slowly, very slowly, we all came out of the hangover fog.
