take the long way home
ugh. worst drive home yet- didn't get on the road until 5 due to longer-than-expected cleaning, packing, and moving difficulties. many thanks to chrischerry for his assistance in matters of moving and storage, and of landlord evasion. the lemon has been escaped, and further correspondence with ramsey squared will be as follows:
'tenant (former) invites landlord (former) to engage in sexual congress with a barnyard animal of his choice.'
some new insights for the day:
-always budget at least 50% more time than you think you will need when cleaning and packing an apartment. this makes sense, really- if you're thinking of cleaning the bathtub with a toothbrush, keep in mind the bathtub-to-toothbrush surface area ratio. same goes with other things- a refrigerator has both an inside and an outside, you cannot clean an oven by simply setting its contents on fire, etc.
-if you somehow miraculously managed to squeeze everything you owned into your small car when moving somewhere, have lived in that place for 2.5 years, and have continued to bring items down from home, not everything is going to fit in the car when it's time to go somewhere else.
both of these were predictable, but i failed to prepare well for them. hence the late start.
also, while i am not particularly good at organizing, being productive, or cleaning in an orderly fashion, i am an absolute wizard at stuffing large things into small spaces, as evidenced by my car-packing skills. i idly worried that, with the dramatically reduced amount of air space in the car, that i might asphixate myself in a horrific accident of flatulence, but no such thing occurred. fortunately.
on the other hand, my front axle decided to stop working somewhere around memphis. the shuddering of the car for the next 400 miles did help keep me awake, but it wasn't very good for it. i replaced it today (well, someone else did while i was sleeping), just in time to get back on the road again for leg 2 of the trip.
one of these years i'm not going to do this. really.
i got home around 8 AM as dad was leaving for work. we took the car in, and he said, 'get some sleep before you turn psychotic'.
'before?'
we both laughed. it's good to be home.
there was no exaggeration, either. i stopped being coherent about 4.
notes from the drive:
I had some things I meant to write about, but I can’t remember most of them right now.
I think the most memorable of them is that monster magnet sounds like what would happen if beavis and butthead formed a band with calvin and hobbes. Songs about sex, drugs, space, and dinosaurs. How can they not be included in a short list of the greatest bands ever?
Good driving music:
ZZ top (probably the best ever. Hard to argue with, even if everything after and including eliminator sounds the same.)
Swervedriver
The gun club
Monster magnet
Interpol (!)
Audioslave
Ok driving music:
Screaming trees
The stones-particularly early 70s stuff
Bad driving music:
Bob Dylan
Andre 3000
Sisters of mercy
Good music for old vampire movies:
Sisters of mercy
eddie's reefer service in the missouri bootheel seems to have taken its billboard down. i am extremely disappointed, as i never did manage to stop for a picture. surely, eddie, people still need reefer?
the 70-mile trip through the bootheel (the little tail off of SE missouri) is one of the most surreal parts of the trip, especially at night. the highway cuts through the mississippi floodplain, which is the flattest piece of land i've ever been on (and i'm from central illinois, which is not exactly topographically blessed)- the horizon is flat in every direction. the river is about 5-10 miles from the interstate, and you can see it off in the distance as a stream of lights off the ground somehow- they're lights on top of the levee, which is by far the highest thing around. i don't think the mississppi levee is as built up as that on the huang he (yellow) of china (where it's literally 40 feet above ground level in some places), but it's still really impressive when it's dark and that's the only light or height around in any direction.
'tenant (former) invites landlord (former) to engage in sexual congress with a barnyard animal of his choice.'
some new insights for the day:
-always budget at least 50% more time than you think you will need when cleaning and packing an apartment. this makes sense, really- if you're thinking of cleaning the bathtub with a toothbrush, keep in mind the bathtub-to-toothbrush surface area ratio. same goes with other things- a refrigerator has both an inside and an outside, you cannot clean an oven by simply setting its contents on fire, etc.
-if you somehow miraculously managed to squeeze everything you owned into your small car when moving somewhere, have lived in that place for 2.5 years, and have continued to bring items down from home, not everything is going to fit in the car when it's time to go somewhere else.
both of these were predictable, but i failed to prepare well for them. hence the late start.
also, while i am not particularly good at organizing, being productive, or cleaning in an orderly fashion, i am an absolute wizard at stuffing large things into small spaces, as evidenced by my car-packing skills. i idly worried that, with the dramatically reduced amount of air space in the car, that i might asphixate myself in a horrific accident of flatulence, but no such thing occurred. fortunately.
on the other hand, my front axle decided to stop working somewhere around memphis. the shuddering of the car for the next 400 miles did help keep me awake, but it wasn't very good for it. i replaced it today (well, someone else did while i was sleeping), just in time to get back on the road again for leg 2 of the trip.
one of these years i'm not going to do this. really.
i got home around 8 AM as dad was leaving for work. we took the car in, and he said, 'get some sleep before you turn psychotic'.
'before?'
we both laughed. it's good to be home.
there was no exaggeration, either. i stopped being coherent about 4.
notes from the drive:
I had some things I meant to write about, but I can’t remember most of them right now.
I think the most memorable of them is that monster magnet sounds like what would happen if beavis and butthead formed a band with calvin and hobbes. Songs about sex, drugs, space, and dinosaurs. How can they not be included in a short list of the greatest bands ever?
Good driving music:
ZZ top (probably the best ever. Hard to argue with, even if everything after and including eliminator sounds the same.)
Swervedriver
The gun club
Monster magnet
Interpol (!)
Audioslave
Ok driving music:
Screaming trees
The stones-particularly early 70s stuff
Bad driving music:
Bob Dylan
Andre 3000
Sisters of mercy
Good music for old vampire movies:
Sisters of mercy
eddie's reefer service in the missouri bootheel seems to have taken its billboard down. i am extremely disappointed, as i never did manage to stop for a picture. surely, eddie, people still need reefer?
the 70-mile trip through the bootheel (the little tail off of SE missouri) is one of the most surreal parts of the trip, especially at night. the highway cuts through the mississippi floodplain, which is the flattest piece of land i've ever been on (and i'm from central illinois, which is not exactly topographically blessed)- the horizon is flat in every direction. the river is about 5-10 miles from the interstate, and you can see it off in the distance as a stream of lights off the ground somehow- they're lights on top of the levee, which is by far the highest thing around. i don't think the mississppi levee is as built up as that on the huang he (yellow) of china (where it's literally 40 feet above ground level in some places), but it's still really impressive when it's dark and that's the only light or height around in any direction.