the exchange of bodily fluids

Back when I was dating the Rock Star, his band opened a show for the Misfits (legendary punk rock band).  I never grew accustomed to "groupie" status and usually insisted I was a crew member, despite the fact that I knew nothing about setting up the stage -- although I am pretty good at making an obscene amount of gear fit into a small passenger car.  So I had a backstage pass, but mostly used it to wander around feeling like a conspicuously out-of-place poser, trying to find places to smoke.  At least I knew how to dress the part.

Anyway, I was in the hallway when the Misfits finished their set and exited the stage.  It was a narrow cinder block corridor that stretched the length of the club, and there was nowhere to escape to get out of the way.  Now, risking the readership of this blog (ha! yeah, right! this blog has no readership), I will admit that a) I have never been starstruck by celebrities, and b) I think the Misfits are overrated.  (I have now lost any measure of street cred I ever accrued.)  But it's hard not to be overwhelmed as a nineteen-year-old waif when one finds oneself directly impeding the path of a group of large, endorphinized, world-famous rock stars.  Accordingly, I pressed myself up against the cinder block wall, from the heels of my appropriately-scuffed Chuck Taylors to the shoulders of my carefully-selected band t-shirt, held my breath, and averted my eyes.  At this point I should probably illustrate the personage hurtling through the narrow corridor toward me.  Let's just say Jerry Only is a very large person, in person.  As a world famous rock star, he evidently enjoys intimidating coy young women backstage.  He turned his brutish shoulders as if to slip past me -- because while it may have been a narrow corridor, it was certainly wide enough to allow two persons to pass one another if they were reasonably-sized, or if one were gargantuan and one excessively gracile -- then suddenly leaned forward, pressed his entire front into me (and my bony shoulderblades further into the cinder blocks) and rubbed himself across me, eyes boring through me, and continued on his way.

I don't remember the rest of the band passing, although assuredly they must have.  Later on, Rock Star's manager got Jerry to sign a poster for me because I was a) too shy to ask for myself, and b) not that intent on getting one.  I don't know what ever happened to it, anyway.  I only remember that that was the night Jerry Only sweated on me.  Besides the time in kindergarten when my dad took me to see then-vice-president George Bush (Sr.) give a campaign speech and he shook hands with me on his way out, I think that's the closest I've ever been to famous: rock star sweat.  All over me.

driver's education

My first car was a Pontiac 6000 STE. It was an '89, which was the year all-wheel drive became standard, and boasted 135 hp with its "upgraded" engine. It was maroon, with gold trim.

I got to use the car because my mom was fed up with my asking for rides (even though she usually said no and I mooched off of friends -- or friends' parents -- instead). But I think I'd have been shit out of luck if that old Pontiac hadn't been a bit...wonky. It used to stall out for no apparent reason -- sometimes at highway speed, sometimes just idling, sometimes while decelerating. It would always start right up again, but then -- often, but not always!, and not in any kind of a predictable pattern -- kill when shifted into Drive. There were days when it refused to budge, only to be towed to a mechanic who could find nothing wrong with it. My mom hated that car.  It seemed to perversely enjoy stranding her.  There's a photo somewhere of my grandpa teaching me to replace the serpentine belt.  He's standing over me, directing, while I bury my arms up to the shoulders in the engine block, twisting that belt into place.  There's grease all over both of us.

I got along with it pretty well.  It died on me a few times, and frustrated all my attempts at tricking or coaxing it into Drive: revving the engine, holding in Neutral, gliding slowly and gently into Drive, cursing profusely and pounding on various interior surfaces, but for the most part, it was reliable, and put up with more abuse than it probably deserved.  For example, there was that one time that I decided to test its top speed on a gravel country-ish road...we hit 97mph and I really thought the steering wheel might come off in my hands.  And there was that time in college (that Pontiac was my parents' high school graduation gift to me) when we were trying to navigate through an ice storm, and we slid through three or so red lights, because there simply was no stopping.  Oh, and the New Year's Eve when I was gallavanting with some friends -- before any celebration started -- and I fishtailed around a corner into a snowbank and landed with three wheels in the air.

I got in some trouble, too, but it wasn't the car's fault so much as my own.  Once I got grounded for taking my boyfriend, from whom I was grounded (were my parents the only ones to ground from specific people?) to the mall -- we only got busted because it stalled out in the middle of a busy intersection and I was afraid to let the cops push us out of the way.  Dad told me that car couldn't be towed, because it had all-wheel drive!  And there was the morning my parents woke me up to ask what had happened to my fender.  I played naive and said I must've been sideswiped while parked, but my father took me aside afterward and told me, gravely, that he'd picked the bark out of my fender before Ma saw it.  Trees don't hit people, he told me, people hit trees.

Once, in college, there was a domestic in my backyard/parking lot.  The loser neighbor, Louis, punched through the passenger window of the car his girlfriend had locked him out of, and then stormed off.  Since the cops wouldn't do it, I took it upon myself to offer her a ride home -- she was hella strung out on something.  As we were preparing to back out of the long, tree-lined, frozen driveway, Louis came after us swinging a 2x4.  The rear defrost hadn't dissipated the four inches of ice (okay, I exaggerate, but only slightly) on my windows, so as I squealed out in reverse, I took off the side mirror on a dumpster.  I had planned to duct-tape it back on, but my father refused to let me as he claimed it would ruin the paint.  Damn car only had a couple of flecks of paint left as it was.

It also had its muffler wired up with a coat hanger.  I didn't pull that one myself; it was the mechanic who took pity on my broke ass and agreed that it didn't need replacing so much as it just needed help hanging on.  A lady came into the Italian restaurant where I worked one day and reported a car in the parking lot with an umbrella hanging out the window.  Yup, mine.  The driver's side window would go down, but sometimes refused to go up and instead shut off the ignition.  I put the umbrella up in a mostly-futile attempt to keep out the thunderstorm while I worked me shift.  It was better in the winter, because the snow could be brushed off the seat before climbing in.

I pick'n'pulled a used radiator for it after it started blowing some serious steam one day -- on the freeway interchange, during rush hour.  I pulled over right away and tried to get out of traffic, but the rubberneckers made a scene of it anyway, of course.  Turns out I just had a leaky seal in the radiator hose, but my mechanic, a middle-aged ginger whose primary interests were his Harley and his mutt but who liked me because I'd sit and bullshit with him while he worked, assured me I was right to stop traffic.  ;)  I told him the story of the time my little cousin, who'd just gotten her permit, asked to drive us home from the movies and I put her off on a gut feeling.  On the way home, the accelerator stuck at 45 on a red light, and I had to cut the engine to bring it to a stop.  My poor cousin had her hand on the door handle, ready to abandon ship, with eyes like flying saucers in her cute little 15 year-old face.  I took the opportunity to explain about never putting a moving car into park, unless you want to leave your transmission in the road...although I think my warning that the belt might break and "it might sound like the engine has exploded, but don't worry, it won't!" probably didn't help the anxiety.  Of course we had to recite the lesson when we got her safely home.  I'm always impressed at parents' ability to brush off the danger kids get into with their thankfulness that everything turned out okay.

What finally did in that old Pontiac, ironically, was merely a flat tire.  My mom's old car gave up the goat my senior year of college, and she commandeered mine for her commute to work.  Actually, I willingly loaned it to her, but didn't expect that I'd never get it back.  In a typical conversation of that era of our relationship, my parents insisted that a person could not purchase just one tire for a car, and since it was unlikely to survive a full new set, it was time to cut our losses.  I protested, vehemently, that waiting for the bus in sub-zero winter was not preferable to paying to replace the tire -- and I 'd already replaced just one!  They totally let me, I swear!  No, no, it cannot be done.  A person cannot buy just one tire -- the tire people won't even sell them singly.  Despite all my whining and cajoling, they scheduled the donation.  I thought about driving it on the rim to the tire store, but that seemed unlikely to succeed in the dead of winter, so I gave up.  Ma knows I'm a soft heart, though, so she took pictures of the instrument panel from the driver's seat and sent them to me.  I loved that car.

this little piggy went to grandma's

I've been curious about the phenomenon of minimalist footwear for a while.  When I was younger, the bottoms of my feet leatherized during the summer months from all the running around on hot pavement, gravel trails, etc. (It snowed in the winter and I had to wear shoes...although there was that one memorable time when I tried to walk back from a dance at French camp to my cabin and froze the tootsies so badly that I couldn't get my boots on even when I tried: it was too dark to see and they were too numb to feel.  The defrosting process, however, can be exquisitely felt.)  I broke down a couple of weeks ago and ordered a pair of shoes with toes, i.e., they're cut to fit each toe individually -- like a glove as opposed to a mitten -- and have a flexible heel that allegedly uses the foot's own anatomy to absorb shocks.  Supporters say it creates a more natural gait, promotes good posture, and reduces injuries.  I don't have any injuries, per se, but I have a pissy ACL in one knee and, moreover,  I thought I might enjoy "barefoot" shoes.  Return to childhood and whatnot.

They arrived yesterday and I eventually figured out how to finagle each little piggy into its respective tunnel.  It's reminiscent of wearing toe socks, except with less flexibility.  Also, I have freakishly long toes -- no, really, FREAKISHLY long toes! -- and a Morton's foot, so my tootsies doesn't precisely conform to the model.  I have the sensation of...webbing?...and an empty space at the end of the "big toe" slot.  That said, they're surprisingly comfortable -- so far, at least.  I read that I need to train my muscles to walk in them and that I should break them in gradually to avoid pain/injury.  Really?  From walking?  Oh, right, this is America.  We're out of practice here.  (Since this is my second Americans-are-lazy-asses statement in a week or so, I'll take the opportunity to declare that I LOVE living here for so many reasons, and I love the privilege of driving, and eating what I want when I want, and not being expected to obey my husband or conceal myself behind swaths of figure- and feature-disguising fabric.  But I wouldn't be very American at all if I didn't feel compelled to exercise that whole first amendment thingy.)  In short, the initial phase of the minimalist shoe experiment is going auspiciously.

This weekend is Labor Day, and I get to visit my grandma.  Actually, I get to visit 20-odd family members -- or maybe it's 20 odd-family members -- but right now I'm focused on Gma.  She's well into her late 80s and still going, going, going.  She and my gpa still live in and maintain their own house, and remain active in their church, community, and family.  Gma is maybe my favorite person in the world.  I spent A GREAT DEAL of time with her growing up, and learned many valuable things about gardening, (sustainably) picking flowers, NOT picking on siblings, enjoying afternoon snacks and dessert, accepting people just as they are, forgiving people for their mistakes (even when those involve killing your child), making lefse, making popcorn (it is an ART in her kitchen), baking cookies and cinnamon rolls, the importance of teamwork, picking battles, how to know when to "cool your jets!" that sneaking candy into the movie theater is delightfully naughty, that cuddling can't fix everything but it sure can make it a whole lot better, that family is perhaps the most valuable resource in my life, and that the threat of the wooden spoon is often more powerful than actually being whacked with it.  She's been an overwhelmingly positive influence on my life and it does not escape me that I'm beyond lucky to have her still in my life as an adult (sort of).  So...the cost of a weekend trip to visit is negligible.  I'll have to remember that when I'm paying off my credit card at the end of the month.  :)

The forecast isn't as beautiful as it will be at home this weekend, and no doubt I'll miss the First Husband, since he's staying here.  It will be a whirlwind of a trip, as usual, but I have plans to visit some good friends and maybe hit up the Fair for some fried stuff on a stick (YUM!), and get out on the river.