The time I sold my car

I decided to sell my car. It just wasn’t worth it, in my mind. The calculations were not in my favor. There were many things wrong with it and I did not have enough money to fix it. A strange creaking noise emanated from the rear suspension, stopping whenever I craned my neck to look. A failed emissions test and then a failed retest. I vacuumed the car in the hopes that a clean interior might prompt a magical mechanical recovery. Broken window theory, etc. No dice. The old problems continued, and were joined by a new one: the creeping sense that given enough time, the litany of mechanical problems afflicting the car might jump ship and begin affecting other components of my life.

I’m not a superstitious person. My mother is very superstitious. I think this is the reason why I am not superstitious. I am afraid that if I become superstitious that I will become more like my mother. I try not to think about it too much. The mechanic from the garage by the beach called me up. He was a really tall black man. In the shop earlier, I had considered telling him that, beach-side or not, I had never before seen such a tall black man working at a garage before. He had asked me where I was from and when I told him, he was interested.

“Do you know Tony Colon?”

“No.”

“What about Kendall Williams?”

“No, sorry.”

“When did you graduate high school?”

“Two thousand and eight.”

“Oh, so you might know Erica Stevitz.”

“Nope.”

I had never heard of these people before. I don’t remember many of the people I went to high school with, but I think that the utterance of their names would prompt some basic cognitive recall. Maybe these people weren't real.

I left the shop thinking about Erica Stevitz. Who was she? Was she beautiful? Was my life less full because I didn’t know Erica Stevitz from high school? What if Erica Stevitz was meant to be my friend, neighbor, co-worker, or lover? What if I was missing out all because of some seemingly inconsequential error in high school registration data. I got sent to this school and my destiny got sent over there.

I was riding a bicycle back from the garage. I brought the bicycle in the back of my car and dropped my car off at the garage, and now I was riding my bicycle back. This is great, I thought to myself. I love riding this bicycle. I should do this more often.

I didn’t make it halfway before the tall black man from the garage called me.

“This car is scrap. The bottom is all rusted out. I wouldn’t drive this myself, for safety reasons.”

I rode my bicycle back to the garage and inspected the car and I nodded in agreeance, very unsafe. I didn’t mention anything about not being able to afford a replacement car. It just didn’t seem like the right time.

I loved the tall black man, he was so personable. I wanted to be his friend and stay up late at night and watch movies with him. Not wanting to scare him off with my enthusiasm and friendliness, I left very abruptly, taking car to drive the car slowly over bumps in the road. Potholes that before seemed like harmless nuisances now took on a menacing demeanor.

It took me about three days to sell the car. I was surprised by this. I put the car on craigslist with a very straightforward advertisement. My best friend from college, John, is a very straightforward person, so I wrote the advertisement from his point of view. How would John describe my car? I listed the statistics in a clear and concise bullet point format. My impressions of the car? Unsafe to drive. Low miles. Good interior. I took eight high quality photographs as well as a video to show that the car started up without issue and that the motor was in good shape. I double checked my spelling and grammar.

There are a lot of advertisements on craigslist with poor spelling and grammar.

Apparently this is not completely reflective of the consumer demographic, because I had a lot of calls interested in the car and even though I told them it was unsafe to drive, several people came out to look at the car and offer me money for it.

Eventually I sold it to a short man named Shawn. Shawn drove up from New York City to look at the car and He had an easily excitable face; he was always smiling with such force that a small island of spittle existed permanently at the corners of his lips. He bought it on the spot and payed me $800 for it in cash. I made him promise me that he would fix it before driving it very hard. He promised he would. He returned a week later in a taxi-cab and picked the car up. I left the key with my brother to give to Shawn when he picked up the car, as I was still at work.

Now I ride to work on my motorcycle. Riding to work on a motorcycle is not bad at all. It is very fun and exciting, and keeps my mind focused in the mornings. Still, it is inconvenient to do with a motorcycle all of the things you used to do with a car. For example, I cannot pick up anyone at the train station anymore. I cannot buy more than a handful of groceries at a time. Riding to the gym is inadvisable because of all the riding gear that I need to store away while exercising, so now I just walk or take my bicycle to the gym.

I tried to listen to music while riding. The earphones got caught on the inside of my helmet because they protrude every so slightly. In addition to being physically painful, listening to music is a nuisance in other ways. Volume, for one. I can’t adjust the volume of the music while riding nor can I change a song if I don’t like it. So I stopped listening to music. Instead I wear foam ear plugs to protect my ears from the roar of the engine and the high-pitched whistle of wind on the highway. Someone recently asked me, do you get bored when you ride the bike, especially on long trips? I said no. I said it was nice to be alone with my thoughts, which was not a lie.

Here's a photograph I recently took of my little brother's beagle, named Ollie.

Wishes, observations, and a review

I wish I was a master gardener.
I wish I knew all the best fishing spots.
I wish I knew more knots.
I wish I talked less.
I wish I loved more deeply and with less thought.
I wish I remembered more from the books I read.
I wish I read more poetry.
I wish I wrote more letters.
I wish I kept up with old professors.

My observation is that the nexus of my hypocrisy lies mainly in my inability to conquer my own materialism whilst simultaneously espousing a minimalist, anti-consumerist agenda.

In other words, I wish I bought less stuff. Happiness comes from experiences and interactions with loved ones, facilitated by a simple set of belongings which exhibit a set of practical and aesthetic characteristics in keeping with the personality of the belonger-to.

I also recently finished reading a book entitled A Sense of Ending by Julian Barnes. It was a really good book, and the ending shocked me in a way that I've come to associate more with movies than books. It's hard for the plot of a book to sneak up on you, I think, but this one did. Quite a good read!

I also recently finished reviewing my ex-girlfriend's thesis project for her Master's Degree in Epidemiology. Really more of a formality than anything else, she had already submitted it, and she has been and will continue to be much smarter than me anyway. Just like letting an old dog bark and pretend to be tough, it's good to allow outdated people to exercise their old tendencies. I found almost zero problems with it, but I did notice one detail which made me smile. When a city was named, the state and country were named after. So it would go; City, State, USA. Except it was the same city, state, and country every time. So the paper was full of USA. I laughed.

Here's a photograph I took at Shenandoah National Park, VA, USA:

Resolutions Pt. 2

I've read 16 books in 18 weeks. I've fallen behind in my goal to read one book a week. I blame this on Catch 22, which was approximately 5,500 pages long.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Pastoralia by George Saunders
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A Raisin in the Sun  by Lorraine Hansberry
An Unfinished Season by Ward Just
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

On the plus side I'm cooking more food than I ever have before, I've put 2,000 miles on my motorcycle in the past month, and the sun persists until 6 or 7 at night.

Here's a photograph of a Mexican Wolf that I took during a recent trip with my family to a local zoo:

Touring on the F4i

The demilitarized zone

So this week I finished reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It was a really good book, possibly one of the best books that I have ever read. Of course, I have felt that way about almost every book that I've read this year. Maybe I'm just reading more closely, appreciating these books at a more intimate level, because I've experienced a more complete and nuanced sampling of the life-grinding-thought-crushing type of emotional trauma which seems to be a necessary precursor to all great fiction. I don't know for sure. I also read Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Also a good book.

If everything works out, I'll be graduating with my Master Degree and teaching certificate in just a few more short weeks.  Cue generic comments on the passing of time, etc. etc.


Here's a photograph of some peach cobbler that I made recently:

The way things are

My life was very different two years ago. My life was also very different one year ago. I'm happier now than I have been in a long time. Every once in a while, I feel pangs of sadness that are so sharp that they leave me breathless. Every once in a while, I wish I was who I used to be when I could be anything I wanted to be. Growing up is tough, but looking back is even harder.

I remember late-setting New England suns and fresh lobster and making dinner reservations for the first time. I remember losing my car keys for the first time. I also remember the first night I spent with a girl and how it seemed like I might never wake up because who could ask for more, etc.

I remember when I used to go an entire day without saying a single word. I remember feeling powerful.

Here's a photograph I took of Lake Champlain (frozen over), from the shore of Burlington, VT.

The broken watch

I thought that my watch broke, and my heart stopped. It wasn't really broken, I was able to fix it later, but in that moment I felt real panic. I've been riding my motorcycle a lot lately, so I have had some experience with this notion of real panic. It feels like nothing at all. As if all of your hopes and fear, ambitions and memories, everything that rely on as you build your life, simple evaporates underneath you. You feel nothing at all, just the sensation of perilous free fall, without any direction or mooring. You become keenly aware of your present situation and start to document everything with extreme categorical prejudice. I'm convinced that this an evolutionary trait. In times of danger or extreme stress or grief, we lose our ability to rationally consider things within the context of time or other people, and focus more on short-term, tactical realities. When I'm on the highway, and a large truck passes me, I feel true panic when the wind gust blows me around. I felt this way when I thought that my watch broke. Specifically, the leather strap snapped off. I examined it closely. This watch is cursed, by the way, this is not the first time something has gone wrong with it. I wear this watch everyday. I know every part of it. The glass faced is deeply scratched, a history of where I've been and the things that I've bumped into. A few stitches are colored differently, a testament to a red bic pen which was my salvation during an excruciatingly boring meeting. The watch is cursed but its my watch. My heart stopped when I thought it broke. I think that the reason lies in the memories associated with it. Fresh snow fall underneath sodium lights. Waiting outside a door with a quiet campus stretching in shallow slumber behind me. A rough area rug and a set of blue sheets turned over. I've been so many places and I've done so many things and most of them seem like dreams.

To commemorate the coming of spring, here is a photograph of a flowering tree that my Dad took almost two years ago: