Okay! I see that I haven’t gotten the picture of the day up much yet – too busy yammering – so let’s get that done, starting with February 27 (I am confused as hell now but I think Perdita was actually February 26 and the crocus February 25, despite what it may say on the blog.) Because there is no other real excuse for this except it’s yet another through the windshield on the way home shot:
And the next day, February 28, is the same: through the windshield for the win! A bit more interesting, though, thanks to some groovy clouds and cyclists.
On March 1 we have moved on to a shot taken actually within the car, a traffic jam selfie:
I find I’m taking way more selfies now than I did in 2007 and although selfies are widely regarded as hopelessly narcissistic and an emblem of What’s Wrong With Youth Today, as someone who is not part of Youth Today, I quite like them. Also, I have finally grasped the fact that I am only gonna get less selfie worthy, minute by godawful aging minute, and I kind of want to watch the process. It bums me out that there are so very few pictures of me when I was young and beautiful, but there just aren’t. You will have to take my word for it: I was once young and not so hideously deformed and shuffling about croaking to myself as I am now, or, in other words I was young, and much slimmer, and not terrible to look at always, although come to think of it I have more or less always shuffled around croaking to myself. Therefore, there are just going to have to be pictures of me being middle aged and, um, middle aged around now so I can look at them in 10 or 15 years and say, damn, I wasn’t all that fat as I thought I was, was I?
OK! Moving on! Picture of the day on Sunday, March 2 is going to come from the Mardi Gras set and oh, it is hard to pick just one! There are a few I really really like in that set and I can’t choose between this one, this one, this one (a very strong contender) this one or, or, argh, I like a lot of them. So we’ll wait on that. Or tell me which one you like best!
And then it was Monday, March 3 and back to work and my head still hurt but I made it over to El Paraiso with Jay anyway to commiserate over his breakin and drink a margarita bigger than my head.
And then later at home I drank some wine and talked with my friend Elizabeth into the night and that was good too. I actually took a couple of other photos I like that day, landscapey type things, they are here and here.
So now we have arrived at Tuesday, March 4, yesterday in fact, and my head finally stopped hurting, which was very nice – it’s funny how you don’t realize you’re actually sick until you’re better. I knew my head hurt horribly but at the same time I thought maybe I was making it up, or it wasn’t that bad, or I was shirking or something. Then, boom, it stopped hurting and I wasn’t dizzy anymore and damn, that was amazing. And it was also the day I had arranged to take Batly to the car vet. Yes, my car has a name: Batly, because her Maryland license plate said BAT and yes, I anthropomorphize the hell out of her and that is okay. I patted my car on the steering wheel and said, “Just a little longer honey and I swear you’re going to the vet. The car vet.” And off we went.
I didn’t take any pictures. The nice guy at the car vet, also known as Expertech, who came highly recommended by several of my friends and coworkers as well as having tons of glowing reviews online, was horrified by my car.
“You can’t drive this,” he said, “You need a new clutch. I’ll put one in tomorrow.”
“But but,” I said, since I was planning on driving it home and I had heard that you have to wait for weeks to actually get things fixed at Expertech.
“No,” he said, “It’s on its last legs. You drive it anymore and you’ll destroy the transmission. Can’t believe you haven’t done that already, driving it like this.”
So I went home courtesy of my friend Susan who came and picked me up and left Batly there. I took a picture of Okra as I was going to bed last night and that is the photo of the day for Tuesday, March 4.
Today is Wednesday, March 5 and my car was fixed. A whole new clutch. How can I afford this, you ask? I ask too, but I can afford it because my friend Jodi landed us both an actual paying photography gig in June. I do not want to jinx it by saying any more but anyway, I have already been paid for it – and spent the money on my clutch because the two amounts were almost exactly the same. Miracles, I am telling you, it is miracles and friends that keep me alive.
So Batly has a new clutch and it’s like driving a new car: it is fucking amazing is what it is. Like the headache, I didn’t know how bad it was until it got better. I mean, I knew how bad it was, when it took all my strength to wedge it into first and sometimes I couldn’t change gears and had to coast downhill until I could get it somehow into some gear with a terrible grinding clunking sound and a lurch which echoed my heart’s lurch as I thought oh god oh god I’m going to die, first order of business here is do not die, oh car don’t die, oh me don’t die. But when you have no choice, you adjust, and you even laugh because half the times you succeed in wedging the car into gear you slam your hand into the radio and change the stations hopelessly. Yes, it was that bad. And now it is better – and the reason I attribute personality and sapience to my car is that over the 16 years I have had her, she has never, ever let me down. She holds on until we can do it and then she lets go when it’s safe and she did it again, made it to Xpertech and came out the next day, all better. So here is a sunset to celebrate.
6000onions 