Headin' Back

Because my father is no longer driving, and because my stalwart minivan back in Jersey City is doing the automotive equivalent of coughing up blood, my parents are giving me my dad's car. So I am driving from Florida to New Jersey, starting out in, oh, an hour or so, and getting back there at some point or another, probably in the next 48 hours, if the Lord is willing.

(In my family, we never say anything is definite. This because once my Uncle Gary said that he and my Aunt Rose were going somewhere the next day, and no sooner did he utter the remark than there was an accident in the coal mine and he lost his finger. It was not a major handicap to him and in fact made him really good at tricking children with that "disappearing finger" trick grown-ups do-- but it set the precedant of cautious descriptions of plans. Besides, even without mining accidents, plans change...As I'm sure you've noticed, dear Reader, in your own life.)

But I am headed north, fortified with about 32 hours of books on tape. Dad has a Ford Focus and it will be strange to sit low on the road, versus high up amongs the birds and SUVs, as I have for 5 years in my minivan. I like tall cars.

I bought the minivan in 2001 when I thought I was going to head to Mexico to live on the beach with a 23-year old Australian surfer named Cameron. There were any number of reasons why this seemed like a very good idea at the time. I'd met Cam in Athens. He was pretty and fun, but not real bright. Still, I'd recently been in a horrible car accident (think 6 inches of Vermont slush and a hydroplaning Subari crashing headlong into a speeding Cavalier)-- and I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. First, I bolted to Greece, having heard in The Jewel of The Nile that, "When the going gets tough, the tough go to Greece"-- and there I met this cute surfer boy, and after several bottles of the local wine, we decided to move to Mexico.

As I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I came back, bought a laptop and a minivan (to replace the ill-fated Subaru), and was supposed to pick Cam up at JFK a few days later.

Instead, I got a rueful phone call from Perth. It seems my young Adonis packed his passport in his suitcase, which he then checked for his flight. Being as I said, not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, he copped an attitude with the Greek immigration guys. This is, dear Readers, an ill-advised course of action in any country, a fact of which I encourage you to make due note. They roughed him up a little and held him for a night in a cell at the Athens airport. And after that the poor darling wanted his Mummy. He changed his flight and hightailed it back to Australia.

I considered going to Mexico anyway. Instead, I went to New Orleans. The accident had me pretty freaked out about snow and anywhere south of Vermont sounded better than I was going to move there. I looked at apartments and found one I really liked about the Voodoo Museum-- all high ceilings and French doors opening onto the French Quarter and one of those dark inner courtyards. But instead fate intervened again, this time in the form of a bitch named Christian Crocker (know her?) who intercepted and stole the letter containing the Postal Money Order for my security deposit. We know it was Christian Crocker, who would have been my neighbor if I'd moved to that apartment above the Voodoo Museum, because she was stupid enough to white out the name on it and put her own. She cashed it, probably at the Ritz where she worked. Although the US Postal Inspector chased her down and made her repay me the money, the landlord, having not received my letter and money order, thought I'd flaked out. He rented the apartment to someone else. So although I'd priced the U-haul and had my Casey-girl shaved for the warmer weather, I had no apartment to move. In view of recent events, perhaps Miss Crocker was acting as an angel, not an asshat. Perhaps her intervention in my destiny was a blessing. At the time, it was not a thing that made me happy. And I still am pretty sure she was just a bitch with a coke-habit, even if it all worked out for the best.

So since I didn't want to go back down to NOLA look for another apartment, I moved to NYC. I arrived on August 11, 2001. Got a great apartment in the West Village, with a nice view of the Twin Towers.

Need I go on?


And here I am, driving back today. If anyone's looking for me, I'll be in the car heading north on 95. Mass, I'll honk as I drive through DC to say hi. If you hear a horn-- that'll be me.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I did. But I'm glad to be headed back, all the same.

Happy blogging, til we meet again.