I'm an Urbanite Snob

This post was supposed to be about something else. Then it turned into what it is. Which is not very good. Oh well. Blogs are supposed to be off the cuff, fast and dirty. They can't all be winners.  I'm saving the really good stuff for The Paris Review  or my neighborhood newspaper. Same diff.

I recently started a new job. It's great. I love it. I couldn't be happier. But.
     Jen and I now work in the same building, for the same company, at the same job. No, literally Jen and I have the exact same job. She does the job full-time during standard business hours. I do the job part-time, typically starting at 1 in the afternoon. It's wonderful to have my mornings free. But
     I now take Jen to work every morning. Then I typically drive back home before driving back up to the office at 1:00. I don't mind it, but it's maybe not totally practical.  See, Jen and I only have one car. I know that's un-American. We are commie-urbanite-snobs. Why don't we just move to New York (City, not Buffalo) with all the other commie-urbanite-snobs? Well, judgmental reader, because, Life is expensive. Until recently, we couldn't afford to. If we could've afforded to do that, we could certainly have afforded to have 2 Pontiac Grand Ams with 128k miles on them in our fleet, instead of just the one. Also we didn't need two cars when I had my old job. Also we like it in Columbus. Also, did I mention we both have jobs here? Try to keep up.
     Now, back to my point (which I'm painfully aware I never established in the first place).
     When I worked at my previous job, I was within walking distance of my office. Having just one car was perfectly perfect. Jen drove the car 15 miles north everyday on a highway she hates to work at the cool job that I coveted, and I walked 1.7 miles through a neighborhood that I love to a job that I hated. Well now everything is right in the world. It's been 2 months since Jen has almost died trying to merge onto the highway and it's been almost 2 months since I've nearly been run over by some d-bag from the suburbs who doesn't know what a crosswalk is. (Wow, I'm starting to understand why you might think I'm a commie-urbanite-snob. For the record, I'm actually a socialist-urbanite-snob.) Anyway, this way everyone wins. Everyone except the aforementioned Pontiac. But.
     Let's be honest. We live in a place where a two adult family needs to be a two car family. Let's also be honest that the real reason Jen and I haven't yet bought a second car is not because we're so principled in our snobbery. Sure, we're conscious (but not concerned) of our carbon footprint. And, we do like to leave the car at home and walk to local restaurants for dinner (except when we drive 20 miles into suburbia for Turkis/Mexican/Chinese). No, the real reason Jen and I haven't bought a second car is that I'm a child. I would rather spend the money we should be saving for a down payment on a vacation, or great seats at a Notre Dame football game (insert laughter here), or 40 really good dinners out. Ongoing debt makes me twitchy. Paying someone interest makes me irate. It's why I don't buy a house, or a car, or a master's degree. The thought that someone else should make money off of me just because they happen to have it to lend and I don't have enough of it afford things that, at least in this country, are considered necessities--well that just pisses me off. Did I mention that that job I just recently left was at a bank? You could say it was a bad fit for me.
     I realize that according to my ideals, most people would never be able to own houses (hello, Mother  Russia.), or new cars (I'll sell you the Grand Am for $1500.), or educations (We don't need no...).  I'm not asking anyone else to live by my ideals though. I'm not even expecting to live by them, myself. Someday we'll buy a house (I'm not spending my Saturdays mowing the lawn, sweetheart.). We'll have a second car by Christmas (Sorry, none of you will be getting gifts this year). And I already have a degree (that I'm still paying for and will be until I'm forty, and I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in Communist China). But.
       
   
   
        

Let the Looting Begin

I know we in Columbus, OH don't have much to complain about on the shitty weather front. There's no flooding. We haven't had any tornadoes this year. We're too far inland to worry about hurricanes. But fuck me if we didn't have some crazy-ass lightning tonight. There were downed trees everywhere. I'm not talking a branch here and a limb there. I'm talking entire 30 ft tall trees scattered throughout my neighborhood. When I came home after the rain, more than a few streets were blocked off due to the fact that there was a big fucking tree laid out in the middle of the road. The park by my house looked like a disaster area; however, as a sign that everything would be okay, the local juggling club was outside the rec center tossing and catching various blunt objects. It's like I always say, if the Columbus Juggling Society doesn't get together and practice on Thursday nights, then the terrorists--I mean Thor-Norse-God-of-Thunder has won.

Before I even got to the park, I was shunted all around Third Street which was closed for a couple blocks due to waist-high water. When I drove back through a couple hours later, the water had all gone, but the street was caked in mud, and the poor bastards who'd been parked along the street when the storm came were either having their cars towed off the sidewalk or trying to will their newly fried electric to correct itself.

After driving through town for a bit, I would say that roughly 50% of the traffic lights are out. Speaking of which, I'm sure my educated readers know this, but just in case someone else stumbles across this blog, when a traffic light is out you are supposed to TREAT IT LIKE IT'S A STOP SIGN! I can't say how many people I saw just barreling through busy intersections without even slowing down. See, when people do that, THEY CAUSE ACCIDENTS!

When I finally came back into my neighborhood it was dark. Lots of power out. Not mine, but just about everyone for the 10 blocks north of me. I live in a part of the city where it's never completely dark. To see it that way was a little creepy. Creepier still was the little old shopkeeper I saw standing outside his storefront, sweeping and looking at the big hole in the front of his store where his window used to be. For the first time in my life, I'm glad I sleep with a loaded gun under my pillow--did that fool anyone? I'm trying to practice my bad assness in case there's trouble tonight.

From the Road #1

Thursday, March 20, 2008
7:20 a.m.

From a hotel that I’m told both Ted Bundy and Charles Manson stayed at—not at the same time:

Cold. It’s the only word I can really think of to describe my first night on the road with the boys. We initially reserved 3 rooms for 8 people, but once we got to Jellico, TN, most everyone decided that it would be best to just pay the extra fifteen bucks for the extra room so everyone could have a bed. This was fine by me. Collins and I roomed together. I guess this was because we drove together, though that wasn’t my idea. It all worked out though, and it’s probably best he was with me, because it snowed/rained the whole way down, and the visibility was shitty, and I’ve always found that when it’s like that, it’s nice to have a friendly voice chirping alongside me.

I’m pretty sure Collins is radioactive. This might be the real reason he finagled his way into my man-hating lesbian heart. His temperature is always 99.8 degrees. I never really believed him or cared until we were driving and I noticed that all the windows on his side of the car and his half of the windshield were fogged up for the entire five hour trip. It didn’t matter how high I cranked the defrost. In fact, turning it up only made matters worse, because the poor bastard was sweating to the point where steam was rising off him.

Now the unfortunate thing about a girl who’s always cold rooming with radioactive boy is, someone’s going to be miserable. Being the kind and generous person that I am, I told Collins that we could sleep in this icebox of a room (the very room that I’m sitting and typing in now) without turning the heat on. Now, I don’t know if you’re aware, but they don’t wash the comforters in these hotel rooms with any regularity. So, the first thing I do anytime I check into one of these swanky establishments is tear that fucker right off the bed. I don’t even sit on top of the thing. Well, last night it’s Collins sleeping happy as a pig in shit on top of what I’m sure is a very warm sleeping bag and me wrapped up like Nanuk of the North under a measly top sheet and thin-ass blanket. By about 4:00 a.m. my muscles were all tensed up from shivering and trying to conserve what little body heat the Good Lord gave me. The attempt failed and now I feel like I got run over by a truck. In case you’re wondering if I ever actually fell asleep last night, the short answer is no. The long answer is nnnnnoooooooooooo.

I’m told that the last part of our journey entails winding around a mountain for an hour or so, white-knuckelling it the whole way. If radioactive boy and I go over the edge of the mountain, could whoever finds this give it to my mother, and mom, could you make sure Jen T. gets a copy of this?

More later, hopefully.