From a Dirty Hotel Thirty Minutes Outside of Nashville

As I sit here in the shower, with the luke warm water pounding a
steady beat into the back of my neck and a head bent down, I wonder
how many of my mourning moments happen in the shower. Too many
lately.

I feel pressure so great I can't get away from it.

I used to feel pressure like this in college, with finals or
semester-end projects due. That was different though. It felt
like the weight of a great pile was burying me and I couldn't breath
freely until I had dug myself out one small piece at a time.

This doesn't feel like weight, it feels like I'm doing 90 through the
mountains, hugging the edge of a cliff trying not to kill all the
passengers in the car. And everyone else with me is looking out the
side windows, amazed at all the beauty they see, but all I do is look
ahead and sweat.

I can't shake the fear of driving my future off a cliff. It follows
me, dogs my steps, and steals my joy. I'm white knuckling the wheel and
I can't let go, not even to see the sunset.

I have a personality prone to worry and have used routine,
unknowingly, as a coping mechanism for years. No matter how frayed
things get around the edges, going back to my routine on Monday will
set it all straight. No matter how far I wander, I never wander too
far from my routine. it's there at the end to comfort me. But now it's
all going away. It will never be exactly the same again. I have no
security blanket, I'm just holding on to the wheel.

It's at times like this that I recall the phrase that is so often my
mantra: 'the only way out is through.' in the midst of deadlines bearing
down on my head and the fear that I will not have the time to complete
articles, or worse; will turn in something poorly put together, I just
think: 'the only way out, is through.'

I sit back and remember all of the tests I took, the articles I wrote,
the papers I finished. I would think to myself: 'in two days you'll be
done, you will have turned this in. you'll be collecting a grade or a
paycheck and it will all have gotten done. It always has.' I always
have.

so now I suppose I'll say to myself that in two months. I will be
sitting on my couch in my new home. Surrounded by all of my clothes
and pets and husband and I'll be flipping on the TV trying to find
something new to watch on Netflix. I'll look at the clock and
calculate what time I need to be in bed to get up for work because I
will have a job. And lets say I'll have a friend here too. Just one, I'll
set my sights on one friend to start. Maybe she'll drag me
into watching some crappy reality TV show I hate and insist that we
live tweet each other while watching the Bachelor. Or maybe she'll be a
lazy alcoholic who's already passed out by this time of night. who's
to say, but she'll exist and I will too in this new world.

The Lone Heads are the Worst Part

My car is a testament to my life. It should be a part of my life that transports myself and certain items from one destination to another. However, it is more often than not, just purgatory for my stuff. Things go in and then things just stay there. I recently moved into a third story apartment with winding stairs of death and no elevator, and this is only exacerbating the problems in my car.

Now every minutia item I have to bring up from my car feels like I’m carrying Frodo to the top of Mount Doom. This has lead to a collection of rather odd items piling up in the front passenger seat (read: the final loading dock) of my car. These items include, but are not limited to:

A book of coupons for homeowners

2 leather coats

An expired bag of Twizlers (I didn’t know they could expire either)

A bag of smelly roller derby gear

2 bald mannequin heads

A set of WW2 DVDs

A turkey roaster

And a completed puzzle of a white tiger sitting on top of the earth, surrounded by purple clouds

I can only assume that those fortunate enough to peer into the depths of my car will think I’m preparing for a dinner party with imaginary friends, or that I’m about to host a dashing cloak-and-dagger prison break for my jewel thief friends who didn’t make away like I did.

Once again

Where to start? Well for one, this whole blog is a lie.

I’m sorry to those that have followed me faithfully (which as of now is no one) and are let down.

From the outside this blog was designed to look like the chronicle of a mild adventure / challenge to live without a car for a year. That is partially true, I lived without a car for a whole year. It was, contrary to what I would have liked to project, because I got a speeding ticket and didn’t have insurance and lost my license for that amount of time.

Unable to live with the stigma of someone who I would have judged if I weren’t me, I started a blog as a cover. If anyone asked why I was suddenly ditching my car for a bike in a Midwest state where it’s winter 7 months of the year, I would just say I was going green or starting a blog about it or not eating meat anymore, or all of these.

Although, I’d like to say that creating a bog to cover up an indiscretion was pretty clever on my part.

I obviously didn’t keep up with the façade as you can see the last post before this was more than two years ago. But since I have already created this blog, and I’m too lazy to make an entirely new one to start fresh, I thought I should explain the early entries.

I have been inspired by a fellow blogger to re-start blogging and if nothing else, get a little creative exercise daily….or weekly.

I feel that it is important at this juncture to inform you that I have extremely long arms. Abnormally long actually. Most long-sleeved shirts I buy only go about ¾ of the way to my wrist. It’s a burden.

For the record, I did ride my bike May through December to my two jobs. Most of the reason I rode it well into the winter was because I had been told the public bus was full homeless people. When the winter weather got the best of me and I had to give in and buy a bus pass I found out that the bus is not only full of homeless people, but also crazy and smelly people. It was exciting to say the least

Here to There

Well this lovely weekend I have been sick, so to speak, and barely able to work, let alone bike. So I was obligated to get a few rides Sunday. Today I'm enjoying the only day I might have off for months...at home with my mom, sis and nephew.

This turn of events has lead me to some more deep questioning (once again) of this bike decision. The bus stops early on Saturdays, and doesn't even run on Sundays and holidays. So how do I get to work on the weekend in winter? Holidays? How do I get involved in activities that might run past bus operation hours?

I have to admit I feel a little pent up in my apartment these days. The point of this exercise is to prove that anyone can choose a car-free lifestyle, regardless of what kind of city they live in.

The important thing here is to 1) face these fears one at a time and 2) prove the possibilities of a non-car lifestyle.

step1: find a hobby (not cycling)
step 2: find out how to get involved (outside my apartment)
step 3: figure out how to get there (not just by getting rides)

Next blog will be on this topic. Alas, I work more than 100 hours over the next two weeks plus a side project, so I might be busy with that.

Actually, I'm not that impressed by sliced bread

So many, many changes this week. First, I should say how very much I love Craigslist....I love it very much. I sold my car on Craigslist after a measly two days. And in the same afternoon, bought a new mattress and unloaded my old one- which is completely beside the point.

Later that same day: Bought a used bike.

My new ride is an all-terrain Pacific Legend. A generic, 120$ bike I would have bought new at a Wall Mart or Target. I bought it for 29$ at Goodwill. I bought a bunch of fancy, expensive Schwinn accessories that night, most of which I took back today because they were useless and poorly made.

I have a compulsive need to name cars, this has carried to my bike....names, names. My first car, a Mitsubishi 3000GT, was named Sheila. I loved that car, more than Craigslist. Six cylinders roaring to life inside a sleek black body. I could hit the gas at a stoplight and soar in front of the starting line. And there lies one of my larger challenges in putting down the car and picking up the bike: I actually love cars. But more on that later. Second car was Lii (short for Lima Bean) and that was the Celica I just sold.

OK, Daphne? Elvira? Tyche (tee-chee)! I think that's the one.

Day 4: Maybe This Won't Kill Me After All

I had a couple of rare days off to sit around my apartment and contemplate my navel. It was spectacular. The days off, not my navel.

I thought the time off would have made it harder get back on the bike today, but the opposite was true. The time to let my muscles rest helped, and the ride to work this morning was [ shockingly] pleasant.

The more I ride though, the more questions I think of. Do I really, really have to obey traffic laws like stopping at four way stops? How do I signal that I want to turn? What kind of cheese tastes best on a Wheat Thin?
Probably best to look these up.

Fresh from the League of American Bicyclists, (http://www.bikeleague.org/index.php) the rules of the road:

Stay in the right lane, not the sidwalk, and stay in the right third of thant lane, to avoid being squeezed into a narrow lane by passing traffic.

Move into the center of the lane before intersections and turns to assert your position to other drivers.

Left arm out and down with palm to the rear to indicate stopping.

Left or right arm straight out to indicate left or right turn

And sharp cheddar or blue cheese are both very good on Wheat thins.

In other news, whilst riding down the road, a squirrel carrying an acorn ran out in front of me today. He waited until I was 12 or so inches from him before darting back the way he came. I felt like a car for a whole minute because of this. His actions lead me to the conclusion that, in their habitat of origin, squirrels were elephant hunters. This is the only reason I can think for three pound squirrel to wait in front of a three thousand pound moving object (a car, not me on my bike) and dart away only when it comes close enough to clearly discern.

Day One: This is Gonna Kill Me

With baby duffel secured into its seat and my tires filled with fresh air, I set out this morning on the first of many treks to work. There is a nice little trail lined with trees and corn fields by my apartment complex that I ride for leisure a few times a week The trails length is seven miles all together. The measly three or four miles to work, I assumed, would be cake. Not so.

First, it is eight hundred and seventy-five thousand degrees outside and although I don't normally sweat much, my body made a special exception today. Second, I was nearly hyperventilating at the idea of having to ride roughly 500 yards on a main road where the average speed is 50.

Accepting these setbacks, I rolled on, plodding down the path and pushing my aching muscles as far as they would go. Deep breaths, beads of sweat gathering. Finally I found myself at the exit of the apartment complex...it was a long ride from there. Every hill felt like a struggle against the very forces of the earth. I tried pep-talking myself up hills, thinking encouraging things like "There you go, you can do it. You're light as a feather. The wind will carry you on its wings." Inevitably these thoughts turned about half way up the hill into "You are a ten-ton pile of bricks on a sled and this hill is made of butter."

I was smart enough to give myself an hour before I had to report for duty: half an hour to get there and half an hour to die in the break room before punching in. The ride home was, if at all possible, worse.

I know this only the first day. I know this won't actually kill me. I only wish my body knew it too.

If you're wondering where I work, it's a department store. That's all I can say. Really. If I wrote what I thought of it, I would get fired.