Jeffrey Was A Race Car Driver
Sometimes, we just need to change things up a little.
That's how I've felt over the last few months. I've felt that way for a while, but it's been time to make some of these changes into reality. As I've often been reminded by one of my best friends, complaining about the way things are is pointless if you don't plan to do anything about it. Granted, she's always been one to take action and I'm one to overanalyze every detail hoping the result is right. Why is that? I guess it's because I always felt like people judged me by my failures, and I've had it in my head that I didn't want to make a move and come crashing down. I don't want to commit to some big expense I won't be able to handle. I don't want to move somewhere only to come knocking on my parents' door months later hoping for a place to sleep.
You're living life for the wrong people, she'd say. Certainly some wisdom there...shouldn't we live life for ourselves? And I won't deny that. I've just never been one for impulse decisions, never been one to react on a gut feeling...my gut feelings just aren't that reliable. Hence why on some things, I'm slower than molasses to react...so slow it's probably cost me a car or two, a date or two...a few things maybe I could have seized sooner.
So maybe I haven't acted on things as quickly as I could have. But I'm always devising some sort of a plan.
The two biggest elements of this plan have been an apartment and a car. I love my parents dearly, but I'm rapidly nearing the age of twenty-five and I need some semblance of privacy. A place to come and go as I please, without feeling like I owe an excuse or should ask permission to be polite. A place where if I miss the family dinner because I have something else to do with my time, I don't need to feel guilty about it. A place where if I want to invite a friend over or stay up until 1am on the phone, I don't need to feel like I'm intruding on someone else's ground. It's time for that place. And the car thing, well...cars don't last forever. The Monte Carlo is fun and all, but it's ten years old, showing some signs of rust on the rear quarter panels, the side windows are sticking in the tracks, and the transmission is slipping pretty badly.
So basically I'd been playing the numbers game, deducting my current expenses from my weekly paychecks and realizing that rent couldn't be much more than a single paycheck for me to be able to save any money at all. That's almost undoable, unless you're willing to accept a seedy studio in a sketchy part of town...or if you find a roommate.
My parents had been on me since the fall to do the car thing. That I might as well take advantage of living at home, where rent is much cheaper, to have the car I wanted. I had another idea in mind...I wanted to be sure I could handle both expenses at once. And when it became clear that I could, I'd act safely on each.
The day of my last entry here, I actually test-drove my first car since the Monte Carlo in 2002. I went over to Werner Pontiac in Manchester and test-drove a Pontiac Grand Prix GXP after I got back from a weekend in Connecticut. Now, I'd been staring at the Chevy Impala SS since it had come out, and the Chevy TrailBlazer had been a practical diversion from the car when they seemed to be the hot ticket in terms of major discounts and incentives. The Grand Prix, though, was more fun than that. I sat down with a salesman, who wanted to sell me the white car he had on the lot but understood I was hoping to go black, and wasn't really in the right mode to buy right away. I had to get that first one down, though.
The next couple weeks, I'd drop by other dealerships looking for a car. I went up to a dealer in Concord looking for a GXP of a different color, only to find it wasn't on the lot. I checked out Tulley in Nashua, though you can't easily judge a car in the rain. I continued my online research. On my next trip to Connecticut, I checked out a dealership in Bristol looking for a GXP, but they only had black cars on the lot. The next weekend, I spent some time in Nashua playing with Chevrolets. That day, I got some good prices on the Impala and a Monte Carlo that struck my fancy, but the Grand Prix still seemed the better deal. I drove home that afternoon utterly confused.
I ended up deciding that week to go test-drive a black GXP down in Malden, Massachusetts Saturday. To be safe, I transferred some money into my checking account, for a security deposit. I asked my mom to come along, and we made it as far as Tewksbury before the serpentine belt of my car snapped on I-93. I pulled off the highway and we called AAA for a tow back to New Hampshire. I started wondering if maybe, since I was dumping more money already into the car, I should just fix it and keep going. But the next night I went to Malden with my mom, and got some new figures to play with.
That Monday, a week ago today, I went back to Werner. I figured I'd test-drive a Grand Prix GT with the supercharged V6 just to see how it compared. I was disappointed, but I asked the salesman what he could do about the black car in Malden.
And to make a long story short, I wrote him a security deposit check that night.
I'll have photos shortly, but I did pick it up Friday. It's a black 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP, just about totally loaded save for the navigation system and an XM radio. The last few days of last week were a whirlwind, calling my insurance agent and meeting with him Thursday night, getting the funds for the down payment into a cashier's check that same evening, waiting Friday through work hoping to sneak out early to see when I could get the car. When I drove it home Friday...I've been on a cloud ever since. It's a joy to drive, a joy to show off...everyone smiles when they see it, and they beam when I start it up. I was proud of the Monte Carlo, but this is my new baby, ready for an all-new set of adventures.
And the other thing is, I did this all on my own. I didn't need my mom to co-sign. I met with the insurance agent one-on-one, face-to-face like it should be done. I signed all the papers myself, talked my own price down...I came out of the experience feeling more mature. Like maybe I really am twenty-four. More than owning the car was knowing how much I felt like I'd matured at last.
So with the car out of the way, I can start thinking of an apartment. I've been talking with someone about maybe splitting a two-bedroom place, being able to create a space of our own since we can't really afford to do it separately. We'll see how that works out. I'm optimistic.
That said, on a lot of fronts, things are going pretty well. On the flip side of that, some things are going not so well. I got a bit of a reality check at work last week, and realized my mind hasn't been where it should be. It's my strength and my weakness, but they pointed out some ways in which that weakness became a serious liability. I'm going to try to improve, to do things right from here on out. Here's hoping.
That, and sometimes I've wondered if I've started to change lately. Not in good ways, either. A friend was pointing out some ways in which I'm acting differently and I'm not pleased with the person they observed. It's not who I want to be, and hardly what I want to become. I need to be more on guard of that. Fortunately, they're there to tell me how they see it. Sometimes those little reality checks make us realize our priorities have been misplaced.
This weekend was good so far, though. I worked today but I'll get tomorrow off, and next Monday as well to make up for the working Tuesday. I hung out with my two cousins in New Boston on Saturday, took them for a spin in the new car, then caught "The Devil Wears Prada" with my cousin Kara later that night. I thought it was a great movie, but maybe it's because in some ways, I felt like I could relate...how sometimes it feels like by keeping your boss happy, you're alienating someone closer to you than that. And it touched on that unexplainable allure of moving to the big city and taking a job that'll springboard you to bigger and greater things, according to some HR lackey. I did like it, and I'm almost tempted to read the book now. Yesterday wasn't the most exciting of days, but I did watch a movie on my PC, then waited to see if Carmine would be able to make it (he was visiting NH for the weekend). He didn't, but there'll be other weekends.
And tomorrow, my parents leave on vacation for St. Croix, again. I should have taken some days off this week, for my own little vacation...but I think it'll still be a good week overall. My mom worries, but I don't. I kind of look forward to it. We'll see how anxious I become for them to get back.
That's how I've felt over the last few months. I've felt that way for a while, but it's been time to make some of these changes into reality. As I've often been reminded by one of my best friends, complaining about the way things are is pointless if you don't plan to do anything about it. Granted, she's always been one to take action and I'm one to overanalyze every detail hoping the result is right. Why is that? I guess it's because I always felt like people judged me by my failures, and I've had it in my head that I didn't want to make a move and come crashing down. I don't want to commit to some big expense I won't be able to handle. I don't want to move somewhere only to come knocking on my parents' door months later hoping for a place to sleep.
You're living life for the wrong people, she'd say. Certainly some wisdom there...shouldn't we live life for ourselves? And I won't deny that. I've just never been one for impulse decisions, never been one to react on a gut feeling...my gut feelings just aren't that reliable. Hence why on some things, I'm slower than molasses to react...so slow it's probably cost me a car or two, a date or two...a few things maybe I could have seized sooner.
So maybe I haven't acted on things as quickly as I could have. But I'm always devising some sort of a plan.
The two biggest elements of this plan have been an apartment and a car. I love my parents dearly, but I'm rapidly nearing the age of twenty-five and I need some semblance of privacy. A place to come and go as I please, without feeling like I owe an excuse or should ask permission to be polite. A place where if I miss the family dinner because I have something else to do with my time, I don't need to feel guilty about it. A place where if I want to invite a friend over or stay up until 1am on the phone, I don't need to feel like I'm intruding on someone else's ground. It's time for that place. And the car thing, well...cars don't last forever. The Monte Carlo is fun and all, but it's ten years old, showing some signs of rust on the rear quarter panels, the side windows are sticking in the tracks, and the transmission is slipping pretty badly.
So basically I'd been playing the numbers game, deducting my current expenses from my weekly paychecks and realizing that rent couldn't be much more than a single paycheck for me to be able to save any money at all. That's almost undoable, unless you're willing to accept a seedy studio in a sketchy part of town...or if you find a roommate.
My parents had been on me since the fall to do the car thing. That I might as well take advantage of living at home, where rent is much cheaper, to have the car I wanted. I had another idea in mind...I wanted to be sure I could handle both expenses at once. And when it became clear that I could, I'd act safely on each.
The day of my last entry here, I actually test-drove my first car since the Monte Carlo in 2002. I went over to Werner Pontiac in Manchester and test-drove a Pontiac Grand Prix GXP after I got back from a weekend in Connecticut. Now, I'd been staring at the Chevy Impala SS since it had come out, and the Chevy TrailBlazer had been a practical diversion from the car when they seemed to be the hot ticket in terms of major discounts and incentives. The Grand Prix, though, was more fun than that. I sat down with a salesman, who wanted to sell me the white car he had on the lot but understood I was hoping to go black, and wasn't really in the right mode to buy right away. I had to get that first one down, though.
The next couple weeks, I'd drop by other dealerships looking for a car. I went up to a dealer in Concord looking for a GXP of a different color, only to find it wasn't on the lot. I checked out Tulley in Nashua, though you can't easily judge a car in the rain. I continued my online research. On my next trip to Connecticut, I checked out a dealership in Bristol looking for a GXP, but they only had black cars on the lot. The next weekend, I spent some time in Nashua playing with Chevrolets. That day, I got some good prices on the Impala and a Monte Carlo that struck my fancy, but the Grand Prix still seemed the better deal. I drove home that afternoon utterly confused.
I ended up deciding that week to go test-drive a black GXP down in Malden, Massachusetts Saturday. To be safe, I transferred some money into my checking account, for a security deposit. I asked my mom to come along, and we made it as far as Tewksbury before the serpentine belt of my car snapped on I-93. I pulled off the highway and we called AAA for a tow back to New Hampshire. I started wondering if maybe, since I was dumping more money already into the car, I should just fix it and keep going. But the next night I went to Malden with my mom, and got some new figures to play with.
That Monday, a week ago today, I went back to Werner. I figured I'd test-drive a Grand Prix GT with the supercharged V6 just to see how it compared. I was disappointed, but I asked the salesman what he could do about the black car in Malden.
And to make a long story short, I wrote him a security deposit check that night.
I'll have photos shortly, but I did pick it up Friday. It's a black 2006 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP, just about totally loaded save for the navigation system and an XM radio. The last few days of last week were a whirlwind, calling my insurance agent and meeting with him Thursday night, getting the funds for the down payment into a cashier's check that same evening, waiting Friday through work hoping to sneak out early to see when I could get the car. When I drove it home Friday...I've been on a cloud ever since. It's a joy to drive, a joy to show off...everyone smiles when they see it, and they beam when I start it up. I was proud of the Monte Carlo, but this is my new baby, ready for an all-new set of adventures.
And the other thing is, I did this all on my own. I didn't need my mom to co-sign. I met with the insurance agent one-on-one, face-to-face like it should be done. I signed all the papers myself, talked my own price down...I came out of the experience feeling more mature. Like maybe I really am twenty-four. More than owning the car was knowing how much I felt like I'd matured at last.
So with the car out of the way, I can start thinking of an apartment. I've been talking with someone about maybe splitting a two-bedroom place, being able to create a space of our own since we can't really afford to do it separately. We'll see how that works out. I'm optimistic.
That said, on a lot of fronts, things are going pretty well. On the flip side of that, some things are going not so well. I got a bit of a reality check at work last week, and realized my mind hasn't been where it should be. It's my strength and my weakness, but they pointed out some ways in which that weakness became a serious liability. I'm going to try to improve, to do things right from here on out. Here's hoping.
That, and sometimes I've wondered if I've started to change lately. Not in good ways, either. A friend was pointing out some ways in which I'm acting differently and I'm not pleased with the person they observed. It's not who I want to be, and hardly what I want to become. I need to be more on guard of that. Fortunately, they're there to tell me how they see it. Sometimes those little reality checks make us realize our priorities have been misplaced.
This weekend was good so far, though. I worked today but I'll get tomorrow off, and next Monday as well to make up for the working Tuesday. I hung out with my two cousins in New Boston on Saturday, took them for a spin in the new car, then caught "The Devil Wears Prada" with my cousin Kara later that night. I thought it was a great movie, but maybe it's because in some ways, I felt like I could relate...how sometimes it feels like by keeping your boss happy, you're alienating someone closer to you than that. And it touched on that unexplainable allure of moving to the big city and taking a job that'll springboard you to bigger and greater things, according to some HR lackey. I did like it, and I'm almost tempted to read the book now. Yesterday wasn't the most exciting of days, but I did watch a movie on my PC, then waited to see if Carmine would be able to make it (he was visiting NH for the weekend). He didn't, but there'll be other weekends.
And tomorrow, my parents leave on vacation for St. Croix, again. I should have taken some days off this week, for my own little vacation...but I think it'll still be a good week overall. My mom worries, but I don't. I kind of look forward to it. We'll see how anxious I become for them to get back.