the pieces of my life

In my nesting phase, I’m trying to clean out, get rid of the extraneous. Of course, the more I clean, the more of a mess I seem to make. I’m only a tiny bit of the way done. I found a stack of papers from graduate school, which of course I can’t bear to part with, although looking through them was strange. I don’t remember half of what I learned. I’m looking over my Master’s Essay and it looks completely alien. I wrote that? Actually, it’s an area that still interests me–my essay was “Reading the Road: The Road as Medium in the American Travel Narrative,” in which “I intend to look at how the road functions as a medium for the traveler to maintain agency, to discover self-identity, and to complicate the traveler’s past within the American narrative of journey at home”–but I’ve long since put aside. (I’ve got to reread some of those books, Going Native especially). My thesis, my road novel, sits in the box, waiting to be revised. I don’t think that’s going to happen. It wasn’t a terribly successful novel. I like the newer ones I’ve been working on, although I keep hitting the same revision stumbling blocks.

It’s been less than ten years, since I started grad school, but my, what a time warp. My teachers’ syllabi were typed. As in on a typewriter. Our phone/address list didn’t have e-mail addresses on it. The school had just begun assigning e-mail addresses, but I was one of a few who could actually access from home (I was high-tech even then; I had a 14.4Kbps modem). Pine was the only system I knew how to use. In 1996, during my second year, I used Amazon.com–a new store my father had heard about that was online! How weird, an online store–back when it was just gray pages with text, to create my book list. Could it all get any more advanced than that?

And now, I’m going through letters. Ah. I’d forgotten about so many of these people. And I won’t remember them again, because the letters are going into the recycling. It’s harsh, but how long can you hold on to letters from a guy you dated for a few months in high school that basically say, “Hey, you suck for only having written me once the entire year” (I’ve got about ten like that)? What can I say, I’ve always been bad at correspondence–that was one of the main purposes of this blog, to keep me from having to write individual e-mails to people (and it doesn’t work–people still expect e-mail and they seem to expect me to have something new to say in them). I’m saving all family letters (the family ones are classics) and some of the more representative ones from those years. But I actually think the writers of those letters would be grateful they’re going into the trash–the main topic of the day seems to have been virginity or lack thereof. All these folks are now grown-ups with jobs and spouses and kids, and I just have a feeling they’d be happier if this stuff didn’t exist anymore. I’ve Googled some of these people to see what they’re up to, but I can’t find anyone (and I’m too cheap to pay for Classmates). I guess everyone has awfully common names (and I don’t know which of my female friends even kept their own names) or else they’re not doing much these days. Of course, if I had cared that much, I would have gone to my ten-year high school reunion. Maybe I’ll hit the twenty year. It’s only (gasp) three years away.

Okay, let me state for the record, I do not plan on having a natural childbirth. Kudos to everyone out there who will be having one (or has had one). You have my utmost respect. But there’s nothing like being in a room full of pregnant women and having one saying how she’s going to be doing the Bradley method and another saying she’s doing Lamaze, but she heard that hypnotherapy is the way to go, and another saying she’s using a visualization process that likens childbirth to a flowering and then have them look at me, and all I can do is shrug and say, “I plan on using the ‘Get me an epidural NOW’ method.” I am not a natural person. I am not new agey. And I think it would be hypocritical for me to say at this point in my life, “I don’t believe in drugs,” when much of my life has been concrete evidence to the contrary. A girl’s got to believe in something, you know.

Pregnancy brain + new car = bad driver. Thoughts while driving to work today: Lalalalalalalala… mmmm, shiny buttons… lalalalalalala … 61 degrees? Is that cold enough for the seat warmer? I think it’s cold enough for the seat warmer… I wonder what this button does. Oops. Won’t hit that one again… Wow, the brakes are a bit more powerful… Yikes, so’s the gas… lalalalalala… Must program radio stations… Now, how do I load all of my cds into this thing?… Ahhh, seat warmer… Now, what was I going— Where is that— huh? … What was I just thinking?… Did I try this button yet? Oops, oh yeah. Gotta remember to not hit that one again… lalalalala… Almost didn’t see you there, Bub. No need to use the finger!… Pretty graphics on the dashboard… lalalalala… Oh, yeah, watch the road, not the pretty graphics on the dashboard… The funk soul brother, check it out now, the funk soul brother, right about now–man, do I sound better in this car! Fatboy Slim isn’t much of a lyricist is he. I could be a lyricist. Although lyrics are kind of like poetry, and I’m a horrible poet. Maybe I couldn’t be a lyricist— Oh, hold your horses, I see you for f’sake!… I wonder what we’ll have for dinner tonight… What did we have last night for dinner? Why can’t I remember last night’s dinner? This is so going to bug me… Stupid no-fault insurance state. Stupid people cutting me off in crappy cars… lalalala… Why do they still put the ashtrays in cars but not the cigarette lighters? What’s the point?… Is that mileage counting up or down… Am I the only one in the state of Massachusetts that knows how to use a turn signal?… What was I just trying to remember? Didn’t I forget something that I wanted to remember? Man, that’s so going to bug me until I remember what it is I wanted to remember… Was that the button I wasn’t going to hit again? Oh yeah, right. That’s the one… Adam is so not going to get to drive my new car. I know he thinks he will, but he’s not. Hee hee… lalalalalalalala…

Between the upcoming arrival of Brown Brown and the slow and painful death of Adam’s car, it was finally time to break down and buy a new vehicle. Adam was stressing this much more than me, mainly because his car doesn’t have air conditioning, and his summer job requires a commute of over an hour and he needs to wear a suit (the car also doesn’t have heat anymore, but that’s not a concern at this point). I let Adam do all the research, because, frankly, I didn’t care that much. Let me say straight up that this is not a gender thing. It’s just that I see a car as a way of getting from Point A to Point B. They just don’t matter to me. They matter to Adam. We knew we wanted a wagon and we knew we wanted it used and I want every safety feature on it known to mankind. I’ll be taking the new car and Adam will inherit the Pimpmobile, the Toyota Camry hand-me-down that I drive (named for its gold trim and wheels and tinted windows).

So off to the car dealership we went. On the way there, just to prove that I had been paying attention during the school year when he babbled on about his classes, I asked Adam with confidence, “So what’s our BAFTA?” “You mean BATNA, honey,” he said. Hmmm, guess I wasn’t paying as close attention as I thought I had been. (BAFTA being the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and BATNA being the best alternative to negotiated agreement.) “Don’t make the common mistake,” he said, “of confusing BATNA with the highest price we’re willing to pay.” Oh. Oops. Okay, so our BATNA is we don’t get a car at this dealership. Who says you can’t teach an old CWIT new tricks?

Once we get there, we take a look around and then the fun starts: working with a car salesman. Ours happened to be fairly nice, but he was still a car salesman. “I’d like an automatic,” I said. “I think it’ll be easier when there’s a fussy baby in back.” “People say that all the time,” he says. “A manual is just as easy with a baby. You’ll be in gear and can do what you need to do. Whether you have an automatic or a manual, you’ll still need to pull over to do most things.” Okay, true. But I want an automatic, so stop trying to push one of the three stick shifts you have on me. If you only have one automatic and it’s not the one we want, we’ll go elsewhere, and that’s fine.

I’d see things written on the car and I’d ask about them. “So what’s the difference between the turbo and the V-6?” Our salesman would launch into an explanation and within five seconds, my mind is off wondering if I’ll be able to get baby spit out of cloth seats or how good I’d look in the convertible on the back of the lot. Adam would listen carefully, nod along, and then ask appropriate follow-up questions. I’d try to listen, but it was all just, well, so boring! But I’d still feel compelled to ask other questions, and again, not pay any attention to the answer. The only thing I did ask and pay attention to was at every car, I’d say, “Does this have LATCH?” (LATCH being the new anchoring system for car seats required in all cars built after 2002.) And at every car the salesman would say, “Yes, it has LATCH. All our cars since ’00 have LATCH.” Adam accused me of being LATCH fixated, but it was the only thing I understood.

We test drive a few cars and finally one clicks with us. Now the negotiations begin. “So would you pay this amount for the car?” Adam asks me. Sure, I reply. Naming another thousand higher, “How about this amount?” Sure, I reply. “What amount wouldn’t you pay at this point?” “You’re the MBA,” I say. “You tell me.” Adam goes back and forth with the salesman. I’m just hanging back and letting Adam do the work. Occasionally, when the salesman would go out to confer with his manager, Adam would say, “Well, what do you think?” and I’d say, “I think I didn’t take a class in negotiations, and you did.” He wasn’t crazy about having all the responsibility, but the fact is, the only two cars I’ve ever owned have been family hand-me-downs, so I’ve never been through this process before, and I find that for all my tough talk, it’s painful and intimidating. At last, a price is settled on and we make arrangements to pick up the car on Wednesday. Adam is thrilled. He loves our new car. He’s jealous that I get to drive it. In fact, when he goes home, he does twice as much research as he did beforehand to see what the factory specs of the car are. “It has an air filter!” he exclaims happily. “You and Brown Brown will breathe clean air!” Oh joy. I still think I’d look better behind the wheel of a convertible. Preferably this one.