MaroonXLR8R update 1

I Drove my car today, the faded maroon one with the corvette engine. Its been sitting for awhile. I expected the battery to be dead, that I would have to buy a new one, but that wasn't the case. I gave it a jump and it fired right up.

It has been sitting for probably a month. I haven't touched it. I walk by it twice everyday and both times it makes me sad. To see the dented hood and fender where an oak tree fell, and the water trapped inside the car condensing on the windshield (meaning it is no longer sealed off from the elements) and the cobwebs around the tires and headlights, it reminds me why it hasn't moved in so long.

Problems.

Some of the gauges don't work. Last time I drove it there was an error code. It doesn't start or run well. I need to take it to anexhaust shop and extend the exhaust pipe. And connect the lock up torque converter so it is legal to drive, and take it to the referee station and get it check off.

So much to do it overwhelmed me, so I didn't do anything to it at all. The idea of selling it crept up. As well as junking it. It just makes me sad, why keep it around?

I decided to get my MFA in writing.

I researched a lot of schools and narrowed the list down to the best 10 in the country. Number two, or tied with number one is the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for good reasons: If you teach undergrads tuition is waived and they give you a stipend of several thousand dollars a year which is the same as I make working at the tire store. The program excites me, the faculty impresses me and my girlfriend is close by. Currently we are 2600 miles apart, not that I am keeping track or anything.

I decided after much thought that I would move to Michigan to be with my girlfriend (hereto referred to as Loo) at the end of March. I would also become a resident of Michigan and not pay out of state fees to attend U of Mi, meaning graduate school could have a positive effect on my bank account, rather than a negative one.

I told my parents, and they didn't like the idea mainly because they love me and my brother is moving out as well. They think we wont come back, or forget them, or something.

Mom told me yesterday I need to do something with my car, the maroon one with the corvette engine. And then she said, "Or sell it."

I must have needed to hear somebody else say it because I instantly hated the idea of someone else having it, after all the time and work and money and memory I have put into it. So the very next day, today, I jumped it, cleared the cobwebs, filled the gas tank, and drove it around.

After it warmed up the oil burning problem went away and the idle problem went away and it ran flawlessly. Minus the temperature gauge, speedometer, and gas gauge. It also did not trip any trouble codes.

And it was a good thing I drove it too. Because in driving it I pressed the gas pedal down 3/4 of the way. The car down shifted, roared forward, and pressed me into the seat as it accelerated out of first gear (around 45 mph; the speedometer doesn't work).

It made me smile. It renewed my excitement. It cured my pessimism and my apathy. My mind sharpened and my resolve increased. My priorities aligned themselves and life made more sense.

I must fix this car. It makes me happy when it works. It makes me more productive, and I like that.

Editing software shutdown.

At work I can't say what I want because it would scare people away. I think because I am so patient is the reason why I can stand it. You develop this other you for work you know? This other me, he smiles for no reason and apologizes often for things he has no control over to make people happy. When people yell at him for things beyond his control he has to listen to them rant.

But sometimes, especially at the end of the day, my editing software shuts down, having been used all day at work, and the real me is released upon the general public--the unedited, unadulterated 100% pure me; I have no editing software left.

I walked into Kragen and was looking for an oil filter for my car. This other customer up front starts huffing and sighing until finally he walks up to me.

"Hey, I been waiting up there for 5 minutes."

"Bummer," I said returning to my wall of oil filters. I had no idea what he wanted with me.

"Bummer? Get up there and do your thing, you little shit," he said while holding a chrome exhaust tip in one hand and a gallon of Dodge transmission fluid in the other.

"I don't know what your problem is man, but you are invading my space. Back off," I said firmly. I turned to face him.

"What the hell? Wait until your manager hears abut this--Brian. I been coming here for years. I am a customer!" he said raising his voice.

"So am I!" I said raising my voice higher than I expected. He immediately looked at me anew, looking down his glasses and wiry mustache to see me. I pointed to the company name on the shirt which was not Kragen.

"Oh. Uh, sorry, I though you were an employee."

"Yeah, I get it, now piss off."

"I'm really sorry," he said backing away before turning around to wait at the register.

I found my oil filter the same time the Kragen employee returned from the back room and followed him to the register, where I stood next to the other customer. His face had lost some color, and even though it was darkish outside his sunglasses were on. He had his credit card out and it was trembling in his fingers. He was very uncomfortable, I know because I read people for a living. I know when they are comfortable and likely to buy or when they are not. This guy was completely uncomfortable. And as the employee, the real employee mind you, unlocked the register the man gestured to me.

"I'll buy that for you, go ahead and put it on the conveyor belt," he said with a warm smile. I disliked him a lot more here because the smile was completely fake, and well faked at that. His sunglasses couldn't hide the guilt in his voice. I could have taken his money here, all $4.78 of it. But I wanted him to feel guilty. I wanted him to go home and tell his wife how bad he felt he screwed up, to get some acid indigestion, impotence, cold sores and diarrhea, lose sleep over it and perhaps look at people in the future before being such a prick.

"No thanks. I got this," I said. I watched his smile fade, enjoyed it in fact. He surprised us all by simply walking out without his stuff.

"Sir?" The employee said/called/asked.

"He is leaving. He thought I worked here and he yelled at me to ring him up."

"Oh shit, sorry."

"It's not your fault man, the dude's a deutch."

"Was that a negative customer experience?" He asked. I knew this tone too, used it myself in fact, he was probing.

"It might have been," I said, offering him the needed words.

"Well if it was, we'd be happy to give that oil filter and a case of oil to you to in some way make up for the negative experience."

"Oh, well, if you insist," I said.

"I do. Now have a good night," he said. And I did not, I had to take a stop to applebee's.

I was walking in to get a gift card for my Uncle who loves the place and this frumpy lady and her husband and their friends call out to me as I walk by.

"Hey! Aren't you going to take our orders?"

"Psh. No. Why would I do that?"

"Cause we are starving? How about that? Good enough reason for you? Geez." She said looking to her friends in disbelief and encouragement.

"I dont care that you are starving," I said.

"Wha--? What is your name?" The tone of this question made me hate her instantly. What follows is usually "I want o talk to your manager." No matter how customers say it the tone is identical, knowing no racial or linguistic barriers.

"My name?" Why would they want my name, I wondered?

"It's written on his shirt Becca," said one of her friends. They all started to look for my name on my shirt.

"I don't work here you idiots," I said when I figured out what they were carrying on about.

"What? You expect us to believe that?"

"I don't care what you believe. Jesus. Wait your turn like everybody else. And stop being so damn annoying." And I started to walk passed them. When one of them saw that it was true, that I didn't work there, she told the rest of them. And they quickly said, "Oh. Oops," and then very nasally they added, "Sorry." Then they asked if anybody knew and started murmuring about it until finally they got up and left.

Fucking people, what can you do?

END

Playing wrestling games with Laura.

"Oh you bitch!" she yelled at me. All I could do was laugh. I had learned so many new things about the girl I thought I knew, and this was one of them: Playing WWE vs Raw on XBOX 360. I learned she watched wrestling on TV often enough to be familiar with the Wrestlers and their moves. I learned she had favorites and knew the jargon of the ring, the heels, where the folding chairs were kept. I, by contrast, stopped watching WWF et al. wrestling in seventh grade.

We designed characters together, hers and mine which could have been reflections of how we see ourselves, or how we wish we looked--I was totally ripped and she was totally lithe. Than I selected a Diva on the character select screen and she selected the char she made of herself and told me I was dead. Bravado.

Then the match started and I Immediately ran to her and close-lined her, knocking her to the ground where I started pinning her.

"Oh you bitch!" she yelled as she mashed buttons furiously. I laughed as much from shock as pleasant surprise. Never had she called me a bitch, and she was referring to the character in the game--her competitive spirit was coming through on a game, another first. Usually she plays the games I am good at like Racing games and shooters where she prefaces before playing, "Ok, but I am really bad at these type of games..." But not this game, she is a champ at wrestling. It was probably the most fun I have had with her, in front of a TV, playing games, with my clothes on.

She went on to call me all sorts of bad things she had never before said to me, which not only made it ok, it made it fun. I learned which buttons made her mad and pressed them and she did it back to me. We tried new modes, new characters and new costumes. It really was a lot of fun. Far more fun than I expected, certainly.

What I remember most was learning about this new part of her that I didn't know existed, in fact hadn't known about it in the 13 odd years I had come to known her. I thought I knew everything about her see, and seeing this interest she had in wrestling--that she must have harbored it for years and not spoken about it--made me happy. Deliriously happy. :-DD

New years resolution

A beautiful girl came to visit me last week and the week before. She told me she loved me.

I love her. And now she is 2600 miles away in a winter wonderland.

Since she left, I stare out the window at the clouds sometimes. For hours. The clouds swirl you know. They don't move forward like in cartoons like someone moving a picture of a cloud across a table top. The clouds twist, bleed off into nothingness and are filled by the same collection of nothingness. I watched an airplane fly through the clouds on purpose. Then he banked and lined up and flew through it again. Than my mom came home and asked what I was doing.

"Nothing."

"How was your day?"

"It was alright." I lied. It wasn't alright. The day sucked. Mostly because while I was at work I knew that when I got home that girl I mentioned earlier wouldn't be there, as she had been the weeks before. And that colored the day rotten mushrooms. If I had told Mom the truth I would have to explain it and I would rather look at clouds. I think she already knew all this because she just squeezed my shoulder and walked away.

I couldn't watch the clouds anymore because it would draw attention to my miserable state. So I left to my room and listened to music, read a book and eventually tried to have fun playing Borderlands. I didn't get very far in any of those activities. They weren't fun. And they could not fill the hole her leaving had left me. So I stared out the window to the sky above. There weren't any clouds. But that is ok. I can wait.