Cars
Oh, fuck, this thing still works. Alright, then. Let's dig in.
Since I've checked in last, my husband has died, my father has died, and I am currently in a shitty little apartment whose only redeeming features are a washer/dryer and a gas stovetop. Neither of them committed suicide, but seriously, if there is anybody out there who thinks that their death would benefit the world, please do not ever in a million years imagine that this is the case. What your death means is a thousand hells of unknown passwords, your relatives walking into countless bureaucracies with your death certificate to try to get your unpaid gas bill off of their credit report, and a lot of "Oh my god, couldn't he have written this down ANYWHERE?!?!" You dying does not lessen the burden for anyone; it just makes them a lonely, bitter widow with two fucking cats to move a thousand miles to fucking Miami because her fucking father apparently thought he'd live forever and therefore never bothered to teach her mother how to do shit like pay bills online or use Travelocity. So that she can be single again in Miami at 34 with two fucking cats. Yes, this is exactly how she dreamed her life would be.
The one good thing in it is my blessed 2010 Camaro SS, and I won't pretend like I didn't think long and hard about blowing my husband's entire life insurance payoff on a Lamborghini, because Jesus Christ I could have. But ever since our neighbor drove home a brand new brown Z28 with gorgeous beige leather seats in 1987 and I realized, "Holy fuck, a NORMAL PERSON can afford a BITCHING CAR," I have salivated after muscle cars. The r-r-ROOOOOAR when he started it up, the fact that Mustangs were shit back then, the fucking long-bodied BEAUTY of the thing...in a life of wood-paneled station wagons and Crown Victorias with suffocating plush seats, it was a being of beauty and intrigue. It was hands-down the coolest car I'd ever encountered, and Corvettes were for poseur assholes, then and now, because the Corvette has been and continues to be an overpriced, plastic piece of shit.
So I got my own V8 Bitchin' Camaro. And aside from being automatic, (horrible, but ultimately realistic decision, because it spends most of its life in traffic) and KILLING THE FUCK OUT OF MY BACK, oh my God do I love it. I love being first at the stop-light and peeling that motherfucker out. I love racing a BMW 535 at the light even though I know I'll lose, because at the end of the day the BMW asshole is paying top dollar for something that looks like a Honda. My shitty interior cost half as much as yours. Trust me, BMW, you didn't really win that.
I love just hearing the thing, starting it up or ripping the shit out of it. I love the big, huge doors that force me to Gumbi myself into the thing. I love the big, heavy, "We are not fucking around here" slam of the doors. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it will be replaced by a hot hatchback (Focus ST or Mazda 3) since I need something smaller and less expensive in the long-term, but for a while there, I loved this thing beyond measure. It was hope, something beautiful and potentially stupid to own, and probably the most American car for being so.
And the end of the day -- be it cars or marriages or weather reports -- we are, as Americans, finely in tune with the hugeness of lies,the beauty of its absurdities, and its aftermath.
Since I've checked in last, my husband has died, my father has died, and I am currently in a shitty little apartment whose only redeeming features are a washer/dryer and a gas stovetop. Neither of them committed suicide, but seriously, if there is anybody out there who thinks that their death would benefit the world, please do not ever in a million years imagine that this is the case. What your death means is a thousand hells of unknown passwords, your relatives walking into countless bureaucracies with your death certificate to try to get your unpaid gas bill off of their credit report, and a lot of "Oh my god, couldn't he have written this down ANYWHERE?!?!" You dying does not lessen the burden for anyone; it just makes them a lonely, bitter widow with two fucking cats to move a thousand miles to fucking Miami because her fucking father apparently thought he'd live forever and therefore never bothered to teach her mother how to do shit like pay bills online or use Travelocity. So that she can be single again in Miami at 34 with two fucking cats. Yes, this is exactly how she dreamed her life would be.
The one good thing in it is my blessed 2010 Camaro SS, and I won't pretend like I didn't think long and hard about blowing my husband's entire life insurance payoff on a Lamborghini, because Jesus Christ I could have. But ever since our neighbor drove home a brand new brown Z28 with gorgeous beige leather seats in 1987 and I realized, "Holy fuck, a NORMAL PERSON can afford a BITCHING CAR," I have salivated after muscle cars. The r-r-ROOOOOAR when he started it up, the fact that Mustangs were shit back then, the fucking long-bodied BEAUTY of the thing...in a life of wood-paneled station wagons and Crown Victorias with suffocating plush seats, it was a being of beauty and intrigue. It was hands-down the coolest car I'd ever encountered, and Corvettes were for poseur assholes, then and now, because the Corvette has been and continues to be an overpriced, plastic piece of shit.
So I got my own V8 Bitchin' Camaro. And aside from being automatic, (horrible, but ultimately realistic decision, because it spends most of its life in traffic) and KILLING THE FUCK OUT OF MY BACK, oh my God do I love it. I love being first at the stop-light and peeling that motherfucker out. I love racing a BMW 535 at the light even though I know I'll lose, because at the end of the day the BMW asshole is paying top dollar for something that looks like a Honda. My shitty interior cost half as much as yours. Trust me, BMW, you didn't really win that.
I love just hearing the thing, starting it up or ripping the shit out of it. I love the big, huge doors that force me to Gumbi myself into the thing. I love the big, heavy, "We are not fucking around here" slam of the doors. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it will be replaced by a hot hatchback (Focus ST or Mazda 3) since I need something smaller and less expensive in the long-term, but for a while there, I loved this thing beyond measure. It was hope, something beautiful and potentially stupid to own, and probably the most American car for being so.
And the end of the day -- be it cars or marriages or weather reports -- we are, as Americans, finely in tune with the hugeness of lies,the beauty of its absurdities, and its aftermath.