ah dammit
i need to write but - oh dammit - i dont feel like it. not now... now im tired and have work to do and the sat's tomorrow and i need to go to bed but i need to play guitar and theres so much shit i dont want to worry about like that damn test and the football game and eating out and still writing a story and doing things all the time and im so damn sick of it because it still gives me things to think about. i need a break, a long one with nothing to look forward to. with all work done and no outstanding projects or papers or tests or work or appointments... jesus. i need a fucking break.
but today still, things happened that need to be relayed and even though i dont feel like it i know i should. its strange how things happen and why... or why not. i wore a very small shirt to school today. thats not really the issue. but it was funny and liberating in a way because for once i was forced not to care about how i looked, whether stupid or gay or whatever people say... at least to some extent. i could relax. im not saying i should do that every day but it was interesting for at least one... now to only become that which i have just described to you. to be respected as someone that is who they are all the time with no excuses or conformity involved but hell, we all know that is much harder than it sounds. so for now ill just passively work on it. like i do on a lot of things. not so sure it works but whatever. im tired. so fuckit.
every now and then i will intentionally put strain on my mind just to make my life more meaningful. i had a choice today, as i always do, to either turn right at a certain light and take a 45 to 35 mph road to cut over to this one country highway on the way home or to go straight and go to another big light with traffic and get right on that highway. either way would work but its near impossible to account for traffic patterns etc. i can play it either way and win. so i got into the right turn lane and racked my brain to try and convince myself to merge left again. but i realized that i didnt really care because, try as i might to convince myself it was important... it just wasnt. so i turned right and went down this little slow road and at the end was this church. i saw an old purple car out in the lot and was curious but i could tell it was of mid-seventies collonade origins so it really didnt interest me much. but then i saw a kid near it... but who was it? when i passed i realized i knew the kid. he was an old friend i hadnt seen in months... waving. so i waved back and dropped down this 20 yard hill to the highway ready to turn out. but i checked my mirror once more and saw he was motioning for me to come over. so i turned the wheel and when i was sure nobody was turning right onto the road tried to pull a u-turn and managed to burn out in a circle to turn around... not intentionally... but it was new pavement. made my way back up to the kid in the lot and talked to him. turns out he had bought the car and the gas gauge was broke and to make a long story short needed a ride home. cool. so i took the kid home. this wasnt the usual way i would have gone but it wasnt that far out of the way either and it was good to see him again. so we talked about school and band and a bit of life in general and after i dropped him off he said it was good to see me again. it had been a while. it felt good and i couldnt help but wonder, after pulling away, how lucky it was that i went that way. he was just about to leave to walk five miles up the road to the place he works to make a call for someone to pick him up. but i just happened to pass... right then. just like that... but things soon got more interesting... and morbid.
i drove the jeep today. that old red wrangler. my mother is always tentative to let me drive it because of safety. not because i cant drive it because clearly i can - almost flawlessly - but because other people are inherently stupid and if i were to get hit by one of them it wouldnt bode well for me. well usually thats not the issue because i am a good driver. i can keep my eyes on the road and know where the car in front of me is and be safe in most every single way. i know i have a bad habit of going a little faster than i need to and perhaps take a bit too many liberties with yellow lights but i know what im doing. the way i see it its ok to be a bit agressive without being stupid. the latter is much more dangerous than the former. but today things were different. i know i have a fantastic mind... and by that i mean it goes off on tangents and generally amuses itself sometimes and loses focus on the task at hand. i realize this can be dangerous too. because as i pulled up to this country highway near my house i saw two vans pass in a row. i knew they were there because i couldnt turn out until they passed. its logical. well i pulled out behind them and, of course, gunned it. that little four aint going anywhere too fast but it will get to fast quicker than you might think, especially downhill. as i pull off i start going downhill. at the bottom of this little hill is a bridge over a stream and a right hand curve that goes uphill with a road going off to the left in between. well i knew i was going fast but it was ok because i knew what i was doing. i saw the first van turn off to this road on the left and then a truck passed with some old shit car on a trailor. i was fantastic and curious and checked the mirrors to see it all the while accelerating down the hill. well i was going about sixty when i looked up and saw the other van turning also. i had somehow forgotten about this one. see, one thing i particularly appreciate about myself is my reflexes... i can generally do it right. when i run off the road i dont jerk it back on, never have, hopefully never will. when i see something in the road my left hand has the clutch in my right hand popping the shifter into neutral and my right foot on the break before i have a chance to think at all. really its about instantaneous. this is what saves my life. i got on the brake at exactly the pressure i wanted. this, unfortunately, was enough to lock the tires and send me bouncing and skidding down the hill. not really bouncing... more of a pulse of feeling the road and not feeling it. when i felt it i could feel the back end slipping some, fishtailing left then right then left again... but somehow i kept the wheel pointed straight and amid blue clouds of tire smoke managed to slow down enough that the van pulled off onto his street ok. after it happened it didnt occur to me for a few seconds that anything had even happened out of the usual because it was really all reflex from the beginning. then i realized that... holy shit... i could have died. a 1995 jeep wrangler merits a mere two stars worth of crash test ratings at 35 miles per hour. clearly if reflexes hadnt kicked in that fast i would have either rear-ended the van at a good 40 or 45 mph or gone off the road and rolled a ways. jesus... two stars means that there is a 35-45% chance that i would have been seriously injured in one of those 35 mph crashes. i feel like i almost died. this is the first time something like that has happened. ive never locked the tires before. just yesterday someone did it right behind me and all i could think of was how stupid they were to not see that someone had stopped... hypocritical i guess. damn if my parents had been there i wouldnt drive again... much less the jeep ever. i know things could be much worse but hell... i havent gotten over it. i drove home slowly wondering why i even took that slow road to begin with... just to see that old friend and take him home that other way and be in that situation to begin with. i could have died. jesus...
thats alright, thats ok, spandex!
but today still, things happened that need to be relayed and even though i dont feel like it i know i should. its strange how things happen and why... or why not. i wore a very small shirt to school today. thats not really the issue. but it was funny and liberating in a way because for once i was forced not to care about how i looked, whether stupid or gay or whatever people say... at least to some extent. i could relax. im not saying i should do that every day but it was interesting for at least one... now to only become that which i have just described to you. to be respected as someone that is who they are all the time with no excuses or conformity involved but hell, we all know that is much harder than it sounds. so for now ill just passively work on it. like i do on a lot of things. not so sure it works but whatever. im tired. so fuckit.
every now and then i will intentionally put strain on my mind just to make my life more meaningful. i had a choice today, as i always do, to either turn right at a certain light and take a 45 to 35 mph road to cut over to this one country highway on the way home or to go straight and go to another big light with traffic and get right on that highway. either way would work but its near impossible to account for traffic patterns etc. i can play it either way and win. so i got into the right turn lane and racked my brain to try and convince myself to merge left again. but i realized that i didnt really care because, try as i might to convince myself it was important... it just wasnt. so i turned right and went down this little slow road and at the end was this church. i saw an old purple car out in the lot and was curious but i could tell it was of mid-seventies collonade origins so it really didnt interest me much. but then i saw a kid near it... but who was it? when i passed i realized i knew the kid. he was an old friend i hadnt seen in months... waving. so i waved back and dropped down this 20 yard hill to the highway ready to turn out. but i checked my mirror once more and saw he was motioning for me to come over. so i turned the wheel and when i was sure nobody was turning right onto the road tried to pull a u-turn and managed to burn out in a circle to turn around... not intentionally... but it was new pavement. made my way back up to the kid in the lot and talked to him. turns out he had bought the car and the gas gauge was broke and to make a long story short needed a ride home. cool. so i took the kid home. this wasnt the usual way i would have gone but it wasnt that far out of the way either and it was good to see him again. so we talked about school and band and a bit of life in general and after i dropped him off he said it was good to see me again. it had been a while. it felt good and i couldnt help but wonder, after pulling away, how lucky it was that i went that way. he was just about to leave to walk five miles up the road to the place he works to make a call for someone to pick him up. but i just happened to pass... right then. just like that... but things soon got more interesting... and morbid.
i drove the jeep today. that old red wrangler. my mother is always tentative to let me drive it because of safety. not because i cant drive it because clearly i can - almost flawlessly - but because other people are inherently stupid and if i were to get hit by one of them it wouldnt bode well for me. well usually thats not the issue because i am a good driver. i can keep my eyes on the road and know where the car in front of me is and be safe in most every single way. i know i have a bad habit of going a little faster than i need to and perhaps take a bit too many liberties with yellow lights but i know what im doing. the way i see it its ok to be a bit agressive without being stupid. the latter is much more dangerous than the former. but today things were different. i know i have a fantastic mind... and by that i mean it goes off on tangents and generally amuses itself sometimes and loses focus on the task at hand. i realize this can be dangerous too. because as i pulled up to this country highway near my house i saw two vans pass in a row. i knew they were there because i couldnt turn out until they passed. its logical. well i pulled out behind them and, of course, gunned it. that little four aint going anywhere too fast but it will get to fast quicker than you might think, especially downhill. as i pull off i start going downhill. at the bottom of this little hill is a bridge over a stream and a right hand curve that goes uphill with a road going off to the left in between. well i knew i was going fast but it was ok because i knew what i was doing. i saw the first van turn off to this road on the left and then a truck passed with some old shit car on a trailor. i was fantastic and curious and checked the mirrors to see it all the while accelerating down the hill. well i was going about sixty when i looked up and saw the other van turning also. i had somehow forgotten about this one. see, one thing i particularly appreciate about myself is my reflexes... i can generally do it right. when i run off the road i dont jerk it back on, never have, hopefully never will. when i see something in the road my left hand has the clutch in my right hand popping the shifter into neutral and my right foot on the break before i have a chance to think at all. really its about instantaneous. this is what saves my life. i got on the brake at exactly the pressure i wanted. this, unfortunately, was enough to lock the tires and send me bouncing and skidding down the hill. not really bouncing... more of a pulse of feeling the road and not feeling it. when i felt it i could feel the back end slipping some, fishtailing left then right then left again... but somehow i kept the wheel pointed straight and amid blue clouds of tire smoke managed to slow down enough that the van pulled off onto his street ok. after it happened it didnt occur to me for a few seconds that anything had even happened out of the usual because it was really all reflex from the beginning. then i realized that... holy shit... i could have died. a 1995 jeep wrangler merits a mere two stars worth of crash test ratings at 35 miles per hour. clearly if reflexes hadnt kicked in that fast i would have either rear-ended the van at a good 40 or 45 mph or gone off the road and rolled a ways. jesus... two stars means that there is a 35-45% chance that i would have been seriously injured in one of those 35 mph crashes. i feel like i almost died. this is the first time something like that has happened. ive never locked the tires before. just yesterday someone did it right behind me and all i could think of was how stupid they were to not see that someone had stopped... hypocritical i guess. damn if my parents had been there i wouldnt drive again... much less the jeep ever. i know things could be much worse but hell... i havent gotten over it. i drove home slowly wondering why i even took that slow road to begin with... just to see that old friend and take him home that other way and be in that situation to begin with. i could have died. jesus...
thats alright, thats ok, spandex!
posted by sunshine at 11:13 PM
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