Digging in the Dirt

Monday I slept in my own bed for the first time in eleven days. The bathroom is an empty shell save for a toilet that drains, but does not flush. The rest of the house is a mix of supplies, tools, and my own displaced clutter. The only room left untouched is my bedroom, which feels like a sanctuary away from craziness. Yesterday I spent a couple hours replacing the dryer belt, which broke a week ago. If I thought it would have been difficult, I be surprised at how easy it was. Instead, I thought it would be easy, so of course it kicked my ass.

Last Friday the girlfriend and I took a trip to her home for the holiday weekend. It was nice to see her family again. Actually, it was more than nice. The Mistress showed me about the leavings of her past, and there's little I revere more than our personal childhood mythologies. She also continued in her lessons on how to shoot an SLR camera. Like, you know, a real film camera. I had a blast, and I can't wait to get the pictures back.

We got in late Monday night, and I had taken Tuesday off so I could get my car inspected at the place around the corner from D.M.H.'s house. I knew the tires were iffy, but I was hoping that they might pass and I would have a bit of time to shop around for a new set of skins. If they didn't, I figured it'd be a "hey, go buy some tire and bring it back to get your sticker." Instead I got "you failed on tires, and we couldn't get an emissions reading because the computer says there's not enough data. You'll have to drive the car around for a while until it resets. When you bring it back we'll have to re-inspect the car. That'll be $90."

I had my Monday all planned. I would drop the car off, then enjoy a quiet day to sit and write. A day with nothing going on and no one around. A day unlike any I've had in longer than I can remember. Instead, I figured I'd better try to get my car legal, so I ended up at Wal-Mart, where the cheapest tires were $70. For $75 they had some discounted performance tires, so I went with those. Two hours in Wal-Mart, then Three in the Meineke up the street to get an alignment and another inspection. At least inspection and emissions only ran you $50 there. At one point the guy working on my car came in with a concerned look, the kind you don't want your mechanic to have, and asked me if I just got my car inspected recently. I told him my story up to this point, and he said they should have explained to me that I have 30 days to come back and get my emissions re-checked free of charge. The first place didn't tell me this, even though I explained that I moved from a county where emissions checks aren't required, so I therefore didn't know how things worked. Assholes.

My choice at that point was to drive around and bring the car back on Saturday, hoping the computer gathered enough data, or keep driving it after the inspection ran out to give it more time. I chose for the latter, not wanting to waste any more money. I've never been pulled over, and I don't intend to start now. I'll see if I can get in this Saturday or Monday, and until then, cross my fingers. I will cross them also in the hope that my car's computer's got all the emissions data it needs, and that I don't need to take my car to Ford to have the computer diagnosed at a presumably high cost. Or, that my car fails emissions, which would also suck tons.

Somewhere in there my upstairs computer, the one do all my writing and audio stuff on, crashed. Could not find the operating system. This means hard drive difficulties. I've rescued my writing, but one hard drive is down permanently and the other still won't boot. Props go to my Linux booting iMac for being able to grab my writing from my crippled Linux hard drive, albeit at a turtle's pace.

I feel I've lost the past two weeks. It's exhausting, and I'm overwhelmed. On the exciting side, mom gave me some flowers, three pepper plants, and a tomato plant. I put them in the ground Monday, and it was kind of crazy. I didn't expect to have such a powerful experience, and I still don't understand it, but there was something about seeing all the critters, all the roots, the rusted bolts and pieces of glass hidden buried and forgotten half a foot below my yard that made me feel connected to this place in a way I haven't known. Every morning and afternoon on my way in and out I stop and check on my plants, more excited than I should be.