Idiosycratic Life

Hmm. Am home sick today. I have a cough and the beginnings of what could be a nasty cold, so I just took today off. I am laying in my bed with air conditioner on full blast. Ah, life's simpler pleasures.

My life has been so busy these past few weeks. I have, for the first time, purchased my own car. It's a black 1999 toyota corolla. It's fun for me because I don't have to glue the rear view mirror back on every 6 weeks, the dome light works, and for the first time in my life, I have a car with power windows and locks and headlights that blink when I hit the lock button on my keychain. This is going to save me so much time when I can't find my car in the mall parking lot.

This feels good. It feels right. I can make it work with money stuff. It's mine, on my own. I researched it, did all the legwork and negotiated and shopped around and re-negotiated and finally took it home. I think I got a pretty good deal on it. If anything, I got a more than FAIR deal on it, and I wasn't a push over, and I resisted all their "aggressive, pressure, buy it today" sales tactics, and even if i could have haggled for a lower price, the learning experience I had, doing it all on my own, is more valuable than any additional savings.

I have never named a car; never wanted to name one. Wanda the Honda, Jarvis, Ronald Mark Karen, Adolf, Lester the Land Yacht, the Tam Tam-Pontiac o' Death: none of them belonged to me. I thought about calling the car Ruby. But it's black, and Onyx doesn't suit it. Black Beauty was my favorite book when I was 10, but that's too cheesy. While Ginger suits the car's "personality," (carality? Automobiliality?)- I should add that Ginger was the white horse who was Black Beauty's friend who was beaten by her owner and finally, mercifully killed in a carriage accident- that is so not the Carma (okay, the puns are just running painfully amok here) I want to cast on this car. I am going to drive it carefully, not dribble diet coke on everything, or let my cat out of his carrier for any reason in it. I am debating using air freshener at all in it so that the air conditioner doesn't get that sickly sweet perfume build up smell in it. I think its name wants to be Ruby. But I don't know.


Fall always feels like the New Year to me. I say this every year, but Rosh Hashanah is dead-on perfectly timed for me. I got new shoes (70% off- nine bucks!), a new car (well, new to me), re-folded my all my drawers, finished some projects I've been carrying around (some for more than a year), organized my closets and under the sink, donated a few summer and fall clothes to charity that I just do not and will not ever wear, a new boss (they actually appointed a real, live photo editor at my job) with new plans for a new approach that resembles working for a real newspaper.

Being a diehard band geek, I have always associated, "Eight to a Hand," the first, universal warmup exercises that all marching percussion units start with at every rehearsal, with anticipation, the sense of that good things are coming soon. Especially since college, that basic, clear, dut dut dut dut dut dut dut dut, is the sound of change, progress, new friends, a new start, a fresh binder and crisp new notebook paper, bright blue skies with big fluffy clouds and so many good things. And pretty soon, the Nournal Wews Jeeklies will be "Applaud"-ing autumn, and the NRHS drumline will be warming up.