Sunday Roast

Now that I have all the time in the world to sit around and do nothing, it should be real easy to keep up with my writing.





For almost three years now, I haven't had to take the Toolmobile to the auto doc for much of anything. I've had a muffler changed, and brakes, and that's it. A couple months ago, we started losing oil to the tune of a quart a week. That became a quart an hour about two weeks ago. I'm leaving streams of it in the road.
So we go through the typical car-dance, having friends and family look at it, nursing it between auto stores, and the verdict seems to be coming out that the car is shot. My "expert" mechanic, the guy who's fixed my cars for 10 years, is going to take it Monday and hand over an official time of death. The family/friends know just enough about cars to know a dying one when they see it and "the talk" has already been had.
No wheels. Just. Like. That. And no way to replace it. My bills have suddenly outweighed my income by about $200 a month. Just. Like. That.
I haven't bought a car by myself, like, ever. I have no idea what I'm in for, and I have no idea what my options are. I've had a friend offer to sell me her car; I've also contemplated living without a car completely, or leasing a car. I'm debating quitting smoking, slowing down the party lifestyle, getting a second job; that money's got to come out of something.
So far so good though. Last weekend was fun and long, and I had a ride everywhere I needed. I got a ride from Skillet today to get all my grocery shopping done, and I can get one of the neighbours to drive me around the corner to the laundromat and back no problem, so I'm grateful to have at least been able to keep up with my life.
But it's going to start to be struggle quickly. I can;t always rely on my friends to get me around, and what about the days when I have multiple parties/places to be among different groups of people, all of whom are not going to cater to my chauffeur needs on a schedule like I'm used to keeping some days.
Life is going to get real boring, real fast. That's the part of all this that scares me more than anything else. "Party money" is always the first thing you are forced to sacrifice when something like this happens. But how much of it can I sacrifice, how much should I be willing to sacrifice?
Great, I'll have a car and but won't be able to afford to go anywhere with it. It's not like I'm blowing gobs of money on my rock n' roll lifestyle, either, I do it all on the cheap, I just know how to find the deals. I can cover a night at Playhouse Square with $15.
Sitting around watching Keith Olbermann, playing on the Internet and finding music online used to be Genn-time activities, time I would specifically lay out where I could be left alone with nothing to do. Now it looks like I'm going to have a lot more of that time than I bargained for. And to be a newly-quit smoker?? That could make me completely insane.




Why is this NEWS?!?! This is not a roast on Brad Pitt, but CNN.









This world is just too small.
We're having a party at Steph's; me and Mark are going to walk up to get beer, Steph and her sister are walking up to get subs. We had done a little partying already.
She lives right around the corner from Coventry, a cute little strip of retail stores, food places and bars/clubs that get a little lively and packed on weekend nights.
The beer store is about 300 steps between Steph's place, there and back. On the way to the store, we run into a girl who is a former student from my work. She was out shopping with friends. On the way back, we run into a current student, a 21-year-old boy with bi-polar disorder, and I'm setting a great example getting caught by him all stumbly and carrying beer around.
AND
The guy I met on the bus in January that just up and disappeared and then showed up at the art museum party in June....
Skillet and I stopped in the Cleveland soup-nazi restaurant on our way to the market to do my grocery shopping to try out the cream-of-crab-and-asparagus; major good. The stand-up counter you eat at faces onto the street, so you just look out the glass and see people coming down the sidewalk.
And my boy walks by, talking to someone on his celly. He just happened to look in the window and I just happened to look up. We made eye contact for a few seconds, but I froze pretty quick and he kept on walking by.
Fabulous. I got used to not seeing him on the bus after he just up and disappeared, figured it was done. I run into him at the art museum with 600 other people in the place, get the slight shove-off, okay, I get it. Now I'm just gonna keep on running into him in random places? It's not like we have the same friends or he knows what I'm doing/where I'm going, this is all coincidence. And it's ridiculous.
I know this kind of shit happens to me all the time, it's part of what keeps my life so interesting. But this one is annoying...