Johnson City Thinks I'm Pretty

The drive to Virginia is a familiar one. It's the same drive I did my four years in Syracuse, the same as my one year in Rochester, and now the same as my three years in Asheville. It's seven hours. It's a roundabout number. I'm throughly used to the seven hour drives alone down I-81. I've been doing them for ten years.

And so this drive was to be no different. I got out of work an hour late, got on the road a half-hour after I would've liked but on the road I got. I only had about a quarter tank but I didn't fill up, eagerly waiting the cheaper gas across the border in Tennessee or Virginia. I was being thrifty.
45 minutes in: there's a black bear. Standing on the side of the interstate. Just watching traffic. Like ya do. Duly noted.

Just north of Johnson City, TN I realize I have to stop for gas. I had wanted to make it all the way to Bristol in VA but this will work. I take the exit for Tri-cities airport and stop at the BP there. First gas pump takes over five minutes to pump about a gallon. This isn't going to work. I painfully wait through $10 of gas ($2.46 gal for mid) then pull around to another pump to try my hand there. Same speed. Apparently this is the gas station from interstate hell. I was just driving at nearly 80mph; I want my gas at that speed too, you bastard. I end it at $12. I can't stand to wait any longer, this just took a half hour. I start my car. It doesn't sound like my car. It sounds ill. My car isn't ill. I stutter across the parking lot to the McDonalds there, so I can use a restroom that isn't attached to a gas station. I come back out, start my car and realize things had gone downhill. I realize this when my car keeps stalling. Or acting like its stalling. Even when I'm revving it like I want to race.

Curse word.
Double triple curse word.
Apologize to God.
Beg his forgiveness.
Promise him my first-born if car is magically healed.
Try car again.
Still coughing like it has auto emphysema
Well too bad, God cuz I didn't plan on kids anyway so HA!

I pop the hood and stare. Go to trunk, pull out tools and Haynes manual. Dismantle air filter, check it. Looks a-ok. Check connections on spark plugs. Check idle. You get the idea. I'm stuck in the parking lot of a McDonalds in 88 degree Tennessee. I'm in jeans. I hate everyone. Nice guy stops by with a slight beer belly, a trim strawberry blond beard and a receding hairline. He's the kind of guy one knows works construction before he confirms it. He offers whatever he can. We agree it's probably my fuel injectors. He works in town but doesn't live here and starts calling his buddies to find a good auto parts place. This is also when he starts telling his buddies he's met “some cute lady who's got her own tools. And a Haynes manual. I'd ask her out if she twern't headin' for a weddin' up in Virginia. Hold on. (turns to me) How ol are ya?” Then drops the phone and asks if I wanna go to the lake with him and forget my car for a while. Oh lord. I am in two different colored wife-beater tanks, my hair looks like it has been subjected to windows down driving for over an hour (it has) and I'm rapidly collected Johnson City crud between my toes. If this is what it takes to look cute around here, I am gonna win. I politely decline and reluctantly the nice bearded guy leaves to meet up with his friends. I head to the gas station (who sold me the stupid gas in the first place) and ask them if they know of any auto parts stores or mechanics.

Guy behind counter: I dunno. I don't live here. I lives in Kingsport.
Me: But you work here. And you haven't seen anything?
Guy behind counter: Nope.
Me: (to woman standing there): Do you know anything?
Stringy haired chain smoker: Naw. I lives in Johnson City.
Me: Well then where am I? What town is this?
Guy behind counter: Beats me.
Me: But you WORK HERE.
Guy behind counter: Well YEAH.
Me: And you don't know what town this is.
Guy behind counter: They don't pay me to know that stuff.
Me: Do you have a phone book?
Guy behind counter: I thinks so.

I borrow phone book, use it and the GPS function on my phone to figure out I'm in Grey, Tennessee. Because homeboy behind counter isn't paid enough to know the name of the town in which he works. Well done; he's gonna go far it life. I then use the phone book to call and plead with two mechanics to help me, who both tell me that it's too close to closing and that they're booked up for the rest of the week. Drat. I call a third. His name is Ed. I crank up the southern accent. I dial into my inner helpless woman. I throw hints about loving Jesus and being from out of town. Ed sighs. I tell him my problem. Ed understands. Ed gives me advice. He says its probably bad gas, I should get some specific fuel injector cleaners and try that out. And just in case, he'll have calls forwarded to his cell phone if I'm still stuck. I decide that first born no longer goes to God, creator of the Universe, but to Ed, polite auto mechanic.

I again use phone book to find auto parts store. I enter it into my GPS, who tells me in a polite voice that the closest store like that is .7 miles away, down the four-lane divided road that is Bobby Hicks Highway and so there I go. Along my walk two other guys stop to ask if I need a ride, or they can be of service. This would be a nice gesture if I hadn't just watched “Monster” and if they had been looking me in the eyes. And if my serious case of back sweat hadn't been so uncomfortable. I again decline the offer of a ride and keep on my trek to Advance Auto. I make it, I find what I'm looking for, I ask the guys there what they think and they say I'm probably spot on. Walk the .7 miles back along the highway that has no sidewalks, dump one in my gas tank, sputter around the parking lot a bit then say to hell with it and get back on the interstate.
I immediately feel that I have to pee.
But I won't stop.
Not for another four hours.
I'm going now, dammit I won't get delayed again.
So a seven hour drive turns into nine hours with the addition of $22 in dreadfully slow (bad) gasoline, 3 sketchy ride offers, a 1.4 mile walk along a highway named after someone who probably drove moonshine, $8 in fuel injector cleaner and one free phone book.

And no more bears.

Plug of the Day

My friend Leah has a fabulous blog of fabulous stories, ones that I am pretty sure most of you will absolutely adore. I couldn't give a stronger recommendation. This post is a hands-down favorite involving grape picking, semi-nudity and Mennonites.
For your entertainment I present Confessions of a Homecoming Queen.

The Truth is Like a Second Chance

A few quick notes...

Yes, I’ve been very busy lately. I had a period of time when I was out 12 days straight and the only reason I stayed in that 13^th day was because I was too tired to move. Summertime brings out the social in all of us.

I’ve had nights on roofs, nights on late walks, nights full of silence, nights full of song and a conspicuous lack of nights full of tears. I am so blessed.

My job has picked up. It has gotten more challenging and I still love it.

I went camping this past weekend with several friends. We were planning it for over a month and a half; I was thrilled to see it all come together. On the trip we had a bear. The bear managed to somehow get up to where my tent was and knock it over, putting a hole in its process of scouring our campsite. Bastard bear. I got that tent when I was 13 or 14. It is where I stayed on all my camping trips with my dad and brother that we took at least once a summer. It went to Canada with me three times; I have distinct memories of falling asleep in it with my guitar and my dog beside me. Lots of sentimental value. Just gotta get a new one now, make some new memories.

Just ate an ice cream sundae. I immediately regret that decision. Ice cream does not like me much.

Two weeks ago one of my oldest and dearest friends, Megan, was in town along with ol’ Nathan H. They were doing a 100 mile century ride in the mountains around here, evidence that they are gluttons for punishment. The first night we went to the Chocolate Lounge and in walked Katherine/Andy/Ena and Nathan E. The six of us sat down around the big table and began to chat. It took a moment to realize that all six of us had attended the same high school, seven hours away from where we sat. Andy had started there in 1990; Nathan H had graduated in 2000. We spanned a decade. Amazing.

Tomorrow is the start of Bele Chere. The past two years I have intentionally skipped out of town; this year I am excited to stay for the simple reason that Dar Williams is coming. A free Dar Williams show. I can handle that. I started listening to Dar in 1996 and haven’t seen her live since a show I went to with Emilie in 2003 in Ithaca. How far away that seems.
This is a favorite Dar song. It’s about depression but has some of the more poignant lyrics I’ve heard on the subject. “It felt like a winter machine that you go through and then/you catch your breath and winter starts again/and everyone else is spring bound.” Ugh. What a description.

I love the line, “When you live in a world, it gets in to who you thought you'd be.” Can’t wait for the show.

And to mess with you, check out this cover that Dar Williams and Ani DiFranco did in 2005. It is in my top five favorite covers of all time. Video is lame, song is amazing.

Jump Back, 1999

I just read that it was ten years ago that JFK, Jr died.

I remember that summer with clarity I don’t have for any previous seasons (or really any since). When I read that it had been a decade that summer flooded back in full-color flashes.

It was 1999. I was leaving for Syracuse in a few weeks. I’d lived with my father for exactly one year and was still getting used to freedom. I was saying my goodbyes to friends I’d known my whole life, shedding my family and the person I was sick of being. It was a typical Virginia summer of suffocating humidity and days of nonstop 90 degree sun. I was working at the environmental consulting firm as an intern and I dressed up every day and made ridiculous amounts of money. I shared an office with a guy who looked a lot like Charlie from "The West Wing". One of my best friends from high school worked in the office with me. I drove us to work everyday in the little blue Mitsubishi that I borrowed from my grandparents while they were summering in Maine. We took long lunch breaks and loved the feeling of pretending to be a grown up and having the money to back it up. Every morning we stressed about what we'd do that night.

It was the same summer that Blair Witch Project came out and I distinctly remember reading an article in the Washington Post about how it was allegedly based on actual footage. Burkettsville is less than a half-hour from my house. I saw that movie during a rainstorm. Seth and I drove back home in his pale yellow Mercedes and we were frightened of the endless forests and gravel roads of our home town. Ghosts and witches could be anywhere.

It was the summer of Woodstock ’99 and the chaos there. I remember friends considering going but never getting around to it. It was year of the final Lilith Fair; I went with friends from work.

I remember the overwhelming sense of sadness at the loss of JFK, Jr and I didn’t even know much about him. I was saddest for the Bassett family. It was just so abrupt.

Ten years. It went by at a speed I am just beginning to process.

Dual Citizenship

I have ten cousins and five siblings.
My mother is one of four; father is one of five.
So far this sounds like the beginning of an SAT word problem.
Ten cousins. That's it. My siblings and I double their cousin numbers.

I'm not close to cousins on either side. I didn't grow up near cousins; I saw them on holidays or random weekends or not at all. I have cousins I don't recall ever meeting; cousins I couldn't pick out of a line up, cousins I haven't seen in over five years. I don't know my extended family past a perfunctory point. And there are only ten of them.

But Facebook has done its best to bridge all distances.
My final sibling joined FB the other day. The five of us are now like Captain Planet & the Planeteers; I'm making my brother be Ma-Ti, the stupid kid with the power of heart. That kid was lammme.

With this fun coming togetherness crap the inevitable reunion banter begins. A cousin (one of the ones I don't quiiiite remember meeting) sent out an email to the rest of us, enthusiastically declaring we should have a big ol' family reunion because look at us, we are all on FB and it's high time we hung out. I don't think our parents have even attempted a family reunion since 1984. I saw my aunt for the first time in 20 years at my grandfather's funeral.

I understand the idea, I really do.
Family is family; blood is thicker than water, and on.
Sorry to be Debbie Downer here, but I don't know you. What we have in common is our parents are siblings; you know less than nothing about me and I can't say I know a thing about you. If you can't tell, I'm hyper negative about the idea of getting to know my cousins and I've been racking my brain as to the why. I usually thoroughly enjoy meeting people and making connections but to this I have a visceral heel-digging reaction. This is my theory as to the why.
When my parents divorced, my mother's family rallied around the flag of the country YourExIsABigFatBastard-ilvania while my father and his family choose the smaller country of NoGoodCrazyChristianBitch-instein. While two very worthy countries on their own, those who were born holding both those passports were unfortunately stuck like Tom Hanks in that equally unfortunate movie, “The Terminal.” But the viewers of that movie had to suffer for two hours; my siblings and I suffered...well...I think I still do. My aunts and uncles and grandparents fought bravely for their respective countries, and so family visits consisted mainly of listing to my family load cannons of hate and fire them, aiming them to destroy one who was half of my genetic material. I was eight years old. Didn't make me like my extended family much. I felt like I was evidence of a past mistake made by my parents; “look there's that reminder of that marriage implosion to the spouse we never thought was good enough for our kid/sibling. Maybe she'd like a popsicle.” With the exception of one fabulous uncle & aunt, not a single one of my parents’ siblings has ever tried to know a thing about me and that tastes a bit like bile. So, strange cousins, why now? What is so great about our genetic material that we should come together to see the ways in which it manifests itself? There were years and years when I needed family so badly and it wasn't anywhere to be found; why the hell should I give it audience now?
I'm happy with my siblings; our personalities and dramas and personal universes make five seem all the larger. Though the five of us have never lived together under one roof, we still manage to make weather systems whenever we gather. That is enough. I've seen their two passports; that's all the family I need.

This is not meant to knock any cousins. I'm reflecting on my reaction to the invite, not to the people themselves. I'm sure the ones I do not know are very nice.