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 Tuesday, October 28, 2003
pieces of orion
twothirtyinthemorning and it's still too hot to sleep, but when i look outside my window, i see orion for the first time this season. i'm supposed to feel a chill whenever orion comes back, yet here it is nearly november and it's just hot and sweaty. i know this has happened before ... posted by moya | permalink Tuesday, October 21, 2003
pat benatar
after arguing pointlessly and confusingly with the most unhelpful USAA car insurance agent i have ever had the misfortune to be assigned ("i can tell you right now, there's no way your deductible will be waived in time even if you aren't at fault"; "if Ryder's insured doesn't accept 100% blame, you'll have to take them to small claims court to recoup the rental car fees; there's nothing we will do about it" and additional doom and unfriendliness about how they might never contact their insured, thankyouverymuch for your help), i unexpectedly cheered myself up by taking home a pat benatar cd yesterday. it wasn't enough to have seen her live (on september 10, 2001, speaking of yesterdays), but two years later as she's still turning out new cds, i get to still take a new pat benatar cd home. i understand she's got a 'real' new album out with an all new, different sound, however i took home more of the yesterday stuff yesterday: the double-cd/dvd called best shots. on the included dvd, you can see pat and her husband watching the old videos (back when music videos were so revolutionary!) along with you, and commenting about their hair and makeup and corny video stories the whole way through. it really brightened my day ----- and i have no idea why. perhaps it's because, along the lines of everything old is new again, i have a crush on pat benatar, again! maybe crushes on pat benatar make me happy. or probably, it's the hair. or maybe it's because of leanne. she calls and she writes and she sleeps on only one side of the strange bed, as do i... leanne sends me greeting cards when she's gone and makes silly rhymes. hmm. leanne <--> pat benatar. hmm ...
that settles it. leanne is pat benatar. leanne, come home! posted by moya | permalink Monday, October 20, 2003
driven
my car and i have seen too much, these days. the poor thing was just sitting at the pump, and i had just swiped my card, when a very large ryder truck didn't clear quite fully around my right front bumper. there was a large crunch, and a steady escape of air from the outside left rear tire of the giant truck as it sat mangled together with my bumper. i think this is the second bumper mangling and potential new bumper this year for my car, and although it couldn't have come at a worse time, with work too busy to eat, stretch, or sleep properly, i have some vague hope that the insurance and repair process will work servicably and without too much additional damage. ironically, i think the new screw is, at least, still in place, though that turn indicator seems much lower and more twisted than it should be. let's see how it drives to work later today... posted by moya | permalink Tuesday, October 14, 2003
driving
today, it was a pigeon that nearly broke my heart. i had just left peet's headed up california street with a single latte, when i saw an object flopping across the road ahead of me on the busy street. i was in the right lane, a bus was coming around my left side, and cars were stacked up behind me as i slowed while approaching it. its little head looked up and i saw that it was a pigeon with a broken wing. it somehow - miraculously - managed to flop all the way from the center of the road into the middle of my right-hand lane. it just lifted its head and looked up at me as i stopped in front of it. i turned my signal on, and went to the left around it, but the car behind me just carried on straight ahead... i agonized, as it seems i do, about the poor thing. in my mind's eye, i saw myself stopping the car dead in traffic, getting out and lifting the pigeon out of the road to safety as cars honked and people around me angrily swore in passing. yet i did no such thing. i also transposed the homeless person i just passed, about whom i also did nothing, moments before in front of peet's, as i was cradling my latte and my bag of groceries. perhaps i need to stop driving like this. i learned today that the odd patch of blotchy skin on the left side of my neck comes from the sun through the driver's side window. all this time-- all this driving-- and the window without UV protection. i've driven all my life. my life seems to be showing its age. vegas and back. cross the country. vancouver to mexico. all this time. broken wing... posted by moya | permalink Friday, October 03, 2003
pumping arnold
i'm temporarily ignoring my screw saga, having parked my car (in the fogstorm!) last night and taken my - newly pumped - bike today. in the spirit of innuendo, it's worth noting that we went to see 'pumping iron' last night. dapper members of the french media were on the scene at the roxie, filming and interviewing audience goers, and they filmed me paying for my ticket and grumbling about not casting a vote for 'arnold' because i value my state too much. i'm sure people all over the world and particularly our french friends are watching me, famous me, today. little do they know about the loose screw... posted by moya | permalink Thursday, October 02, 2003
a screw loose
somewhere between here and las vegas i must have lost a screw, and naturally the possibilities for innuendo are almost too much for me to bear. caution to the wind, the screw holding my front right turn indicator into its place must be lying on the highway somewhere between here and there, and so i had to add to the list of unsavory-sounding tasks to accomplish for my day, which also included pumping tires, changing oil, and getting me, myself, juiced. the pumping, and the juice (and the coffee and tartine) were easy tasks, as was the oil - and yet i thought the oil would have been the perfect place for the screw. but it turns out it is just not that easy to walk into the jiffy lube, look seriously into the pimples of the teenage boy's faces, and say "i need a screw; can you help me?" and not just any screw --- but a particularly long screw, it seems. i managed this unlikely request anyway, and after my car was done i was told i had oil leaks, transmission fluid leaks, but that they did not, in fact, have the screw i needed. when i got into the car and peered out the newly-grimy windows from the boys' dirty cloths, i wondered where i could drive to where i could see a sign saying "we have the screw you need," or even better, "we have the perfect screw for you." you just don't go around finding things like this lying on the ground when you need them, either, though i can recall several instances of finding screws lying around -- just not the right ones. the big categories of the day have stores or service stations to go along with them. (if i hadn't pumped my tires and) if my tires blew, god forbid, they have stores that give you nothing but tires. there are places for transmissions. there are gas stations and places for oil changes - without the screws. there is just no place, like the 'just chairs' store in san francisco, for screws. 'just screws.' further, 'just screws for moya's front-right-turn indicator.' ... and in the back of my mind i am aware that if you don't take care of these little things, they become bigger things. like an entire right-turn indicator lying on the road, or stuck up in the motor somewhere ... and then i'd have to go to the 'new car' place, or worse. sometimes its the little screws that hold us together, or keep us apart. i'm sure there's a pun in here somewhere. it's just almost too much to bear. posted by moya | permalink |
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