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Saturday, February 27th 2010 at 11:25am
We're currently in an area I'm not that fond of, heading towards a city. We're about forty miles distant I believe. I'm playing Nox Arcana out of my boyfriend's laptop speakers that he loaned me for the trip.
We slept in the car last night. My father only slept four hours I think. We've been driving almost straight since yesterday morning around nine in the morning. Yesterday at nine in the morning we were departing the nice lady's house. We arrived in a city last night a couple hours before sun set. We walked up and down the artistic district, and I bought a very awesome 'Living Dead Souls' trench coat that was marked down from it's original price.
Oh, and while we were staying with the nice lady we visited this interesting Native American museum that was also a preserved ground. Apparently the natives in the area built large pyramid shaped mounds (with a 'cut-off' flat plateau top) for the purpose of building the chief's dwelling atop as well as temples and other important structures of the community.
Oh look! We're entering the city limits right now... It's eleven-forty-three. I didn't expect it to be so soon. Not much as of yet to see. More bushes, more dead-looking trees, yellow and orange grass with patches of green. A mostly-clear blue sky with swipes of white cloud. It's quite warm - my father is opening his window.
Farms here and there. Patches of houses. Frequent exits that lead almost directly into gas stations. A plane in the sky, white and flying the same direction as us. The billboards are much more concentrated. Arrow truck sales.
Aha. The city proper I think... Many houses spread out to the right of us beyond a bunch of dry-looking shrubs. Ahead it looks like there might actually be a metropolitan area. Maybe...?
“I was under the delusion that were was a city here,” I say.
“Me too,” my father says. “But like I said, cities can be forty square miles out here.”
“So perhaps we're just in a suburb,” I suggest. Then we pass under a sign that indicates that we're still headed to the city. And jeez it's suddenly hot. I gotta put this heat-maker away.
[6:27pm]
Still on the highway. Been on this thing forever. A long way, in any case. A little while ago a cop pulled us over again. Stupid DMV mix-up. He was nice enough to let us go.
There is a beautiful sunset before us. Dark blue and purple clouds swirl around a sky that is baby blue, and a powder blue that's nearly white, and a golden yellow with a slight pinkish tint.
Dad is still being irritable about being pulled over. I think he's angry with himself, and therefor wants to find somewhere else to pin blame and frustration - someone or something he can vent his anger on without being self-demeaning perhaps. That's one theory, anyway. We've pulled over and he's checking the car-bag. We've had it strung to the back (as it's intended to be strung) this entire time, but have decided to move it to the top of the car so that the license plate would be firmly attached to the car properly instead of dangling it off the bag. We figure that might somehow contribute to a future issue to continue to have it dangling.
My father's temper is in some ways, like Porcupine's. Not nearly so bad, but perhaps it was when he was Porcupine's age (twenty-eight, which is incidentally the same age as Paladin - not that you'd know it from the vast difference in their maturity levels.)
The clouds are just amazing. I wouldn't be able to capture them in a picture with their full glory. There is this effect as though a dark blue-purple dye was dripped into a pitcher of water. That's how beautifully the clouds are swirled throughout the sky. Towards the horizon, the sky behind the purple clouds, is white and gold-pink. Away from the where the sun is setting the sky is a powder blue fading into a baby blue.
Hills are appearing beside us. The ground has been flat for a long time and now hills rise up on both sides of the road, scattered with rock and little green bushes ranging from just a few inches squared (or rather - circled) to a few feet.
Today we stopped in a city and looked at a couple of cathedrals (from the outside), and stopped at a grocery store. I determined very quickly that indeed I would not want to live here. For one thing, no organic food. For another thing, way too damn hot and dry. For a third thing, too many Hispanics and their culture and influence. Between the country music and the Mexican music, and the country houses and country food and Mexican food and the country 'lifestyle' I think I'd about go insane.
Once again, I dislike this area. I've never enjoyed visiting here. The best part of it are the large empty parts without any people where this very interesting landscape flourishes on either side of the road. There are no trees, but lots and lots of shrubs, grasses and cacti. Some areas are entirely flat, and some, like the area we're in now, are quite full of hills.
It's finally dark enough that I've taken my sun-glasses off and put my regular glasses on. This is a comfortable amount of light. I almost wish I could somehow live at the north pole comfortably so that the sun would always be on the horizon - well, except for that six months of darkness thing - I wouldn't be too crazy about that aspect.
Today we also stopped in some little 'historic' town that had caverns nearby. Unfortunately we arrived about an hour too late to visit them. More unfortunate still is that they change to summer hours tomorrow. Funny timing we have.
Three-hundred and fourteen miles to the end of this area. It's growing dark in earnest now. The sky to the right of me has turned into a dark blue; almost navy, but not quite. To the left it's still a light baby blue surrounding the area where the sun has just set.
Headlights. Night speed limit.
[8:16pm]
I've been having trouble reaching Paladin today. Earlier the line just kept disconnecting and doing strange things, and now when I call it says; “the person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time.”
We're at a rest stop at the moment. My father is having a bloody cigarette. It frustrates me so much that I can't just somehow make him quit. I'm dearly hoping that when he runs out of the cigarettes that he brought with him that he'll quit, as he sort of said he might. He said yesterday I think it was; “...my last pack of cigarettes... I just may have to quit.”
And I said, “Yeah, because I'm not supporting your bad habit for the next four weeks of this trip.”
I just talked with my father a little about how he and mom both raise their voices more than I can agree with. When the cop had us pulled over and was in his car looking at his computer my father told me to call mother, and I did. And mom just begins essentially yelling into the phone while dad is essentially yelling at me. It was highly frustrating, because there was no point to either of them having conniptions. Either we were in deep shit and were going to have to handle it, or we weren't - nothing that they could say in a raised voice was going to help.
I wonder how I will behave when I'm over fifty. If I'll do any of the things that drive me nuts so often about my parents.
My father has moved on to checking the car-bag on top again. He's been shaking the car a lot in the process. It's kinda a guess-and-check sort of deal. *sigh*
I wonder when I'll be able to use the internet again... I wonder what's up with Paladin's phone...
[8:01pm]
I've put on my playlist; a folk song Paladin sent me is on. I've only listened to it a few times. It's very nifty sounding. I have no idea what they're saying though. I catch a phrase here and there, but that's it.
Blood of Angels... Awesome song.
It's pitch black out now. Nothing but headlights and the lines on the dark road.
“We are the silence when all else is gone...”
There are lights in the distance. A city of some sort.
Muse.
247 miles to El Paso. We're approaching Stockton, Texas. Looking for an internet connection somewhere in the city and playing Nox Arcana... And tracks from Death Note.
[8:45pm]
We just grabbed an internet connection from an Inn to send off a quick couple of e-mails. I exchanged some “I love yous” and “I miss yous” with Paladin over instant messenger. It's actually becoming less painful to be away from him. As much as I love him, I'm not nearly as attached as I eventually will become.
I've been comparing and contrasting how I felt when I left Porcupine for the first roadtrip with my father when I was seventeen. We took that trip staring around the end of March of 2007 and I had started dating Porcupine in December of 2006, and met him in November, only four months previous. But in January he had essentially moved in. We were having sex like jackrabbits from the time we met. That first night we had sex, and over the next three weeks I fell in love.
I felt rescued, as I think I always feel when I fall in love. I was blissful. One month after leaving the disaster and tragedy that was Dragon - that was my relationship with Dragon - I met my artistic muse. What's ironic is that I wrote that phrase in my break-up letter to Dragon. I wrote, “I need to find my artistic muse.” And I found him so quickly after, by such complete coincidence.
Quite literally Porcupine was my artistic muse. I had almost given up on art, and I was struggling with my writing tremendously because of the combined stress of work, school and a bad relationship and because of the combined time-suckers of the aforementioned plus all the time I lost to smoking pot. Not to mention how impossible it is to be productive while high.
I'm not in the least sorry, and the regret of leaving Porcupine has long past, but I have to admit that there was a passion between Porcupine and I that I just don't feel with Paladin. It's not that Paladin is unsatisfactory in any particular way. Just that the intensity isn't there.
[9:35pm]
It's something that I've been thinking about a lot with all of this time to think while we're driving, driving, driving... Of course, I have not actually done any driving at all. I think my Dad just likes driving or something. He hasn't asked me to drive at all, and I've offered a couple of times and he didn't really react.
A very nice classical piece has come on. I wonder if my father likes it. I wonder what he thinks of my music... Of me in general, actually. He obviously loves me, and he obviously enjoys my company, but beyond that, his opinions are quite unclear.
...Talk about a steam of consciousness, I don't seem to be keeping to any thought long enough to actually finish writing about it.
Anyway, as I was saying once upon a time...
I've been contemplating why I don't feel now the way I did three years ago when I was on the roadtrip with my father. I had been incredibly distraught about being away from Porcupine. I called him at every rest stop. I recall.
I remember I used to call him repeatedly when he didn't answer, hoping he'd pick up.
I remember that in the state we're in now I had had a nervous breakdown essentially. My father and I had had a big argument and I had wanted to go home. I'm not so sure any more what the said 'big argument' was about.
Ha. The scarf and hat I'm wearing Paladin bought for me. The hoddie I'm wearing used to belong to Porcupine - it had a broken zipper and Porcupine left it at my house one day and then every time he came back he just kept not taking it with him. I think I might have even asked to keep it at some point; I'm not sure. But, yeah, then that IM happened where I asked him to never contact me again. I begin to feel a little sorry about that.