A good friend surprised me last night with a belated birthday gift of old Bob Dylan records. I think I squealed. He handed me a short stack of awesomeness wrapped up in a haphazard bow. They were dirty and roughed up with love. Edges shabby and soft with age, ink faded to that genuine crack that cannot be imitated. The paperboard sleeves smelled stale (like paper once wet and now dry) and arid with dust settled oh-so-sinisterly into the groves of the record. The vinyl snapped a bit with static electricity when I pulled them out, and many still had that sheen to the surface that makes my stomach do little dips of excitement: the quality is still good in that spot.
Examining a newly acquired record is such a tactile adventure for me. Scrutinizing the condition, feeling the stiff and course covers, smelling the ghosts of cigarettes, plastic, household perfumes- that inexplicable cocktail of smells given off by things dug out from attics. Contemplating how Bob looked oddly like Adam Sandler in the mid-80s…
It surely the best surprise in quite a while. I can’t wait to get home and clean them.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
In Which I am Neurotic
So, as you may or may not have heard, the Saturn line of cars has been sold off and discontinued. As you also may or may not know, I am greatly saddened by this. I am a Saturn orphan.
Anyway, the downtown Saturn dealership is the only place my little red Apollo has ever been. And now they’re closed. I got mailings saying that Jerry Seiner GMC is now the official place for certified mechanics and that they’ll pick up where my Saturn people left off. I don’t like this one bit. Nu-uh. Nope. Never!
I am ridiculous, I know, but I feel like a little lost lamb from the flock. Who are these people? Can I trust them with my car? The Saturn mechanics knew my car as well as I did and the service there was unbelievable! Besides, they had record of all my visits there and had the service history for my car. You know, like a medical record. “Allergies?” Synthetic oil. “Past surgeries?” Yes, I recently has my brakes replaced. “Current medications?” What?
Now I have to wrack my brain and fill out another medical history for the new ones.
But, change is good, the Doctor teaches us this. So, I made an appointment for an oil change with these people and I felt like a little kid going to the doctor’s office for shots.
I didn’t tell Apollo. I just launched it on him. Poor thing.
I slowly pulled into the very large parking lot, wild west shootout music whistling in the background. I glanced around for a bouncing tumbleweed, but they had had the sense to remove all of them. Where the hell do I park? I’m always hesitant to park next to the stock of other cars, irrationally afraid that my car will get mistaken for one for sale.
The smiling faces eagerly took Apollo into the bay, drawing up paperwork and pitch-perfect reassurances that they are the best people for the job. Apollo rolled into the back as I was distracted and shuffled off with a tour of my new facility. Hm, I think, I will not be hoodwinked by their confidence…
It was all rather painless, really. In fact, anticlimactic. These new mechanics handed my car back to me in the same condition in which I gave it to them (except with new oil, of course). I was shown out with parting gifts and well-wishes. It would seem that my Saturn and I have been adopted into a new flock. I need to learn to take one from Apollo and just roll with it.
Anyway, the downtown Saturn dealership is the only place my little red Apollo has ever been. And now they’re closed. I got mailings saying that Jerry Seiner GMC is now the official place for certified mechanics and that they’ll pick up where my Saturn people left off. I don’t like this one bit. Nu-uh. Nope. Never!
I am ridiculous, I know, but I feel like a little lost lamb from the flock. Who are these people? Can I trust them with my car? The Saturn mechanics knew my car as well as I did and the service there was unbelievable! Besides, they had record of all my visits there and had the service history for my car. You know, like a medical record. “Allergies?” Synthetic oil. “Past surgeries?” Yes, I recently has my brakes replaced. “Current medications?” What?
Now I have to wrack my brain and fill out another medical history for the new ones.
But, change is good, the Doctor teaches us this. So, I made an appointment for an oil change with these people and I felt like a little kid going to the doctor’s office for shots.
I didn’t tell Apollo. I just launched it on him. Poor thing.
I slowly pulled into the very large parking lot, wild west shootout music whistling in the background. I glanced around for a bouncing tumbleweed, but they had had the sense to remove all of them. Where the hell do I park? I’m always hesitant to park next to the stock of other cars, irrationally afraid that my car will get mistaken for one for sale.
The smiling faces eagerly took Apollo into the bay, drawing up paperwork and pitch-perfect reassurances that they are the best people for the job. Apollo rolled into the back as I was distracted and shuffled off with a tour of my new facility. Hm, I think, I will not be hoodwinked by their confidence…
It was all rather painless, really. In fact, anticlimactic. These new mechanics handed my car back to me in the same condition in which I gave it to them (except with new oil, of course). I was shown out with parting gifts and well-wishes. It would seem that my Saturn and I have been adopted into a new flock. I need to learn to take one from Apollo and just roll with it.
Fortune Cookie Wisdom from a Blog
As my two faithful readers can see, I’ve been very quiet on this blog for some time now. I’ve not forgotten about it. Quite the contrary, actually, I’ve been fretting about it. You see, I can write six ways from Tuesday on an academic topic without breaking a sweat. But, when it comes to writing about myself, my life, my Same Old, Same Old I not only stop short, I fall off the cliff.
I’ve always written in some form or another, but have never been a journal keeper. The idea of logging away daily events is foreign to me, and a little strange. When I think of journaling I think of “Dear Diary…” and “For breakfast today, I had…” Srsly? This stuff is important?
This is why I started the blog; to warm to the habit and idea of logging away nearly every day. But, I’m puzzled, hesitant and… lost. I am a middle-class white girl who has been fortunate in life. I’ve never encountered any great adversities, and those that I have encountered seem overused, cliché, trite. There is no drama to explore, and I don’t feel I have a story to tell. Who wants to hear about the woes of a white girl with a good education and job? I am afraid that anything I write will seem self-aggrandizing.
Yet, while I’m writing this I am thinking to myself, but there are things I want to say, things I want to explore in my writing, thoughts and feelings that need the space of the page to grow. So, I ask you, what the hell is my problem?! How is it that I can have the former paragraph next to the latter and still mentally choke on my blog entries?
Someone much wiser than me recently told me that I am too hard on myself. Part of me believes this person, the other part of me disagrees and says, No, I’m not hard on myself, I’m setting the bar high and demanding my best. But at what point is my bar too high?
There is a blog I follow, Sleep Talkin Man. It is always good for a laugh and you can find it in my subscriptions to the right. The best post to-date was on June 2, 2010, when Adam comments that: “Your blue sky thinking is blighted with dark clouds and piss-poor ideas”. Thank you, Adam, for closed captioning my problem with my blog and my writing at present. And, for giving me a hearty laugh.
I have high expectations of myself and idyllic, blue sky hopes for this blog. Fat lot of good it does me though if I never post on it though. And, yes, it blighted with dark clouds of insecurity and my piss-poor ideas hang in the wings reminding me that for every good post there will be 10 bad ones.
So, aside from acquiring this quote on a t-shirt (and suggesting it for fortune cookie inserts), I will take to heart its unwitting assessment. Screw my dark clouds and hello my piss-poor ideas. This is my space for my thoughts- well written, important, or not. To hell with blue sky thinking, I need a reality check in daily writing.
I’ve always written in some form or another, but have never been a journal keeper. The idea of logging away daily events is foreign to me, and a little strange. When I think of journaling I think of “Dear Diary…” and “For breakfast today, I had…” Srsly? This stuff is important?
This is why I started the blog; to warm to the habit and idea of logging away nearly every day. But, I’m puzzled, hesitant and… lost. I am a middle-class white girl who has been fortunate in life. I’ve never encountered any great adversities, and those that I have encountered seem overused, cliché, trite. There is no drama to explore, and I don’t feel I have a story to tell. Who wants to hear about the woes of a white girl with a good education and job? I am afraid that anything I write will seem self-aggrandizing.
Yet, while I’m writing this I am thinking to myself, but there are things I want to say, things I want to explore in my writing, thoughts and feelings that need the space of the page to grow. So, I ask you, what the hell is my problem?! How is it that I can have the former paragraph next to the latter and still mentally choke on my blog entries?
Someone much wiser than me recently told me that I am too hard on myself. Part of me believes this person, the other part of me disagrees and says, No, I’m not hard on myself, I’m setting the bar high and demanding my best. But at what point is my bar too high?
There is a blog I follow, Sleep Talkin Man. It is always good for a laugh and you can find it in my subscriptions to the right. The best post to-date was on June 2, 2010, when Adam comments that: “Your blue sky thinking is blighted with dark clouds and piss-poor ideas”. Thank you, Adam, for closed captioning my problem with my blog and my writing at present. And, for giving me a hearty laugh.
I have high expectations of myself and idyllic, blue sky hopes for this blog. Fat lot of good it does me though if I never post on it though. And, yes, it blighted with dark clouds of insecurity and my piss-poor ideas hang in the wings reminding me that for every good post there will be 10 bad ones.
So, aside from acquiring this quote on a t-shirt (and suggesting it for fortune cookie inserts), I will take to heart its unwitting assessment. Screw my dark clouds and hello my piss-poor ideas. This is my space for my thoughts- well written, important, or not. To hell with blue sky thinking, I need a reality check in daily writing.
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