Message window, Gareth, yesterday afternoon: "Greg has proposed I-20 exit 51a at 7:30pm EST - there's a McDonald's there apparently."
]]>Message window, Gareth, yesterday afternoon: "Greg has proposed I-20 exit 51a at 7:30pm EST - there's a McDonald's there apparently."
Now, getting to this point was a bit of a minor achievement (and a point of much discussion amongst said locals) for reasons that have virtually no bearing whatsoever on your life. To have the basics of knowledge to understand why the past 48 hours have been entertaining, you must know two nuggets of information.
In typical winter-Alabama fashion, the weather waited until Huntsville school districts sent their students home early, then canceled the ice storm due to lack of interest. In its stead, Huntsville was given stingingly-cold rain and thirteen snowflakes (all of which smacked into my windshield on my way to the store), and no ice to speak of.
In the hours before the ice storm was canceled, most of us sat at our computers, hypnotized by the weather drama unfolding on the Weather Channel. The ice line was between Huntsville and Nashville; would it fall far enough south to hit Huntsville?
The answer: no. The ice storm parties got held in southern Tennessee and eastern Alabama, whose higher elevations meant colder temperatures. (That, or just more interest on the part of the locals in getting a day off of work.)
Characteristically for me, it took me many hours to realize that an ice-free Huntsville did not necessarily mean that it was feasible to make it to Atlanta. Why? See statement #2 in the ordered list above.
There are three ways to Atlanta, all of which have varying types of annoyance and boredom. Route #1 is mountain-climbing route, which takes you through Mentone—which has the dubious honor of having Alabama's only ski resort. Route #2 is not quite the vertical haul of route #1, and it has the additional bonus of taking you through Fort Payne, which someone has officially designed the 'Sock Capital of the World.' Route #3 is the really long, really flat route, aiming straight south on I-65 and then taking the interminable I-20 due east to Atlanta (and taking an hour longer to reach Atlanta than any other route known to mankind).
Huntsville might have been ice-free, but Mentone and Fort Payne most definitely were not. In fact, most reports about roads in that area consisted of perky Weather Blondes™ shrugging their shoulders and saying, "The locals know better than to drive in this crap." As an afterthought, they added in city-wide road closures to deter the Huntsville idiots from saying, "Bah! I'm manly enough to drive on this!"
There was only one option open to me if we wanted to retrieve Gareth: the hours-long rumble strip known as I-20. True, it would get me there, but with a minimum of ice, snow, and visual interest—and a maximum amount of time and gasoline expended. Therefore, I packed a lot of CDs.
(One must be armed with only the best of funk, soul, and Spanish flamenco (hush!) to survive the nearly-eternal time loop that lies in wait on I-20 just east of Talladega.)
Truth be told, the drive wasn't that bad. My copy of Maktub's album Khronos arrived in the mail right before I left, thus taking care of a good portion of the funk and soul necessary to survive I-20. Anything else I might have needed was taken care of by watching the asshole driver of the white Intrepid—the one who thought slaloming around the 80mph-ers at 90+ was a fun thing to do—get pulled over for speeding near the Georgia state line.
In a slightly different universe, I would've tipped the cop on my way out of Alabama.
Meanwhile, I drove and drove as the sky continually repainted itself in deepening shades of blue. The moon hung fat and full, straight ahead over the gap in the trees. I learned the words to songs on Khronos.
My goal: the McDonald's on exit 51a, the one that, when I talked to Kat, she said, "Oh, yeah, I know that one."
According to the map Gareth had sent me, exit 51a would be shortly after the massive exits for 285, Atlanta's Vehicular Accelerator Loop. As the mile markers ticked by, I began to worry. Where was 285? Shouldn't there be an access road showing up eventually? Ah, wait, there's the sign for exit 51a...
...and then the horrible, sinking feeling of realizing that exit 51a was the exit for 285 southbound, and that there was no access road, no McDonald's, nothing. Greg had been mistaken about the exit number, and now I hadn't the faintest clue where I should go.
I took the first exit I could and pulled off into a nicely-lit gas station, calling Gareth while realizing axiom #13 for finding your way around a strange city: never park in any gas station when your mid-sized car is the newest and the most expensive on the lot.
We met up somewhere else. I managed to obtain a fast-food dinner, obtain Gareth, and make return trip without falling asleep or into the time sink. We arrived home at five past eleven. Total drive time: 8.5 hours.
I fell asleep to the sounds of Jeff and Gareth talking animatedly in the living room.
The drive was worth it.
]]>My parents gave me this car during the latter half of my senior year in high school. The unspoken agreement was that if I paid for my college costs, they would pay for this car. There are a lot of memories in that car. I remember fitting an entire dorm room's worth of belongings in that car four times a year; varied things piled so high that I could barely see out of the back window and the trunk barely closed. (In fact, most of the scrapes and scratches on the interior ceiling of the car are from when I was putting my stereo in the car, or taking it out…)
It's been a tool for exploration and self-discovery. My first adventure down to Alabama was in this car; the passenger seat piled with maps of Memphis, Mississippi, and Alabama; a few snacks to get me through the drive and a miniature milk crate filled with mix tapes.
When I crossed the Mississippi River that day, crossing alone for the first time, I drove with my knees holding the steering wheel steady while I yelled with joy and banged my hands on the roof of the car. I was a sophomore in college, and that was my first taste of what it was like to have the freedom of an adult—to go anywhere I wanted to go, without having to explain where or why.
More thoughts:
They say that machines have no souls, except for the ghosts of our experiences that we superimpose on them. It's only our anthropomorphic urges that cause us to project feelings, experiences, and temperaments onto a collection of moving mechanical parts.
Either way, I'm glad she's home. She may have mushy brakes, too much play in the steering, and lots of wear, but sometime over the past six years she's become something like an old friend.
]]>Suspicious, I asked the body shop to check that out to see if it was part of the problem.
The insurance won't pay for it. The car was rear-ended, and the sensor's up front, so they're not willing to pay for it; even though I'd had it replaced a few months before the accident. Granted, I understand their immediate position—since they can't see a direct correlation, of course they aren't going to pay for it.But it's still frustrating nevertheless, because I have trouble believing that the sensor would've been jarred loose if the accident hadn't happened. Either way, though, it needs to be fixed, and we've got to pay for it.
]]>Suspicious, I asked the body shop to check that out to see if it was part of the problem.
The insurance won't pay for it. The car was rear-ended, and the sensor's up front, so they're not willing to pay for it; even though I'd had it replaced a few months before the accident. Granted, I understand their immediate position—since they can't see a direct correlation, of course they aren't going to pay for it.But it's still frustrating nevertheless, because I have trouble believing that the sensor would've been jarred loose if the accident hadn't happened. Either way, though, it needs to be fixed, and we've got to pay for it.
We can afford the repair. That's not a problem. But for one reason or another, it's reactivated my worry about being able to get the car through two more years. I'm not wanting to get rid of my car until we get Jeff's truck paid off. By my estimate, we have just around two years left before we pay off the truck. Granted, we're paying it off early. My car, though, is six years old now, and my level of worry is slowly increasing that the next repair is going to be The Big One.
I know that I'm a worrywart, and I know that I'll feel better about this in the morning.
I'm just going to say over and over to myself, "It's a minor repair. You're overreacting. You know that you can wait two more years, so just be patient." Whether I like to admit it or not, I really like to have control over my life, and I hate leaving things to chance or fortune. I get nervous when I don't have that control.
Debates, political process, and rubber chickens…
I watched the debates tonight—it was somewhat frustrating watching the arguments go back and forth between Gush and Bore, knowing that one of those two men was going to be elected to the presidency of this crazy country.
I wish I could support either of them, but to me, both of them are merely decorative human tissue over a skeleton formed entirely of corporate money.
I'm probably going to wait to see how the pre-election polls in Alabama are shaping up. If Bore has a chance in Alabama, I'll probably hold my nose and vote for him. While I don't care for him, I have even more serious issues with Gush, and would like to cast a meaningful vote against him. However, if Bore doesn't have a chance in hell of winning Alabama, I'm voting my conscience and voting for Ralph Nader.
True, Nader has no chance. But…dammit…a vote for Nader actually means something. Those numbers get tallied and stared at by the two major parties, who ask themselves what in the world —no, WHO in the world—were they unable to reach with their power TV ads and their spin control and two-second soundbites.
They're going to look at those numbers and worry. Imagine what would happen if Nader and Buchanan were allowed into nationally-televised debates; I don't doubt that their numbers would skyrocket. (For Nader, this is good. Buchanan's to-the-right-of-Attila-the-Hun rhetoric terrifies me.)
I think what I have with my government is a total feeling of apathy. I grew up in one state with few electoral votes, and I moved to another state with few electoral votes. My vote isn't wanted, or needed, or even asked for.
For all the jokes I make with Brad about moving to Canada, I care deeply about this country I was born into—America, a land of such promise… until it was sold on the stock market to the highest bidder. We preach freedom and rule-by-democratic-vote when, in truth, my vote doesn't matter one whit except as a pointless political statement on my part.
We, ourselves, have turned our back on the country that could have been an impressive and incredible one…and we were so close to having it right. Most voting Americans feel such an incredible distance from our lawmakers in Washington that our representatives don't even seem like they're from the same planet.
We are not stupid sheep. We know that without tickets to the $1000-a-head rubber chicken fundraising dinners, our voices don't matter and aren't heard. We are not corporations offering to fund a thirty-second soft-money attack ad during the six-o'clock news. We are individually-written letters on plain paper with no checks enclosed.
We are the people the lawmakers "fit in" two-minute meetings with between power lunches and subcommittee meetings, because we aren't important enough to actually talk to … that is, unless the cameras are rolling.
We are voters, and when we act alone, we are powerless. So we stay home and ridicule the debates for the posturing they are, call our representatives bought-and-paid-for puppets and wonder if a nuclear strike to D.C. would actually improve property prices there.
I look to the north sometimes and wonder if it's different there. I wonder if the governmental leech is a species native to the U.S., or if it's spread into a worldwide pestilence.
I curse my apathy and nurture the secret wish that somehow, some way, a truly honest and unbeholden person could run our government for a short while. I'd be curious to see what happened as a result, but I know in my heart it will never happen. The only way to win Washington is to play the political game, the nature of which causes the truly honest and unbeholden to never play in the first place.
I'm an idealist at heart.
Here's to rescuing somebody else's country, because we're too damned stupid to save our own.
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