There's a lot of politics and a lot of life going on at the moment, all of which deserve some sort of attention. It would make a lot of sense to spend some time talking about a high loss of life in a preventable (or at least mitigable) tragedy right at the time the federal government has become its most active and interventionist on all aspects of society EXCEPT the ones where people either could be or have been hurt/killed. A ready and adequately staffed FEMA fucks with the conspiracy theories and bugbears of the churning, chorusing, uni-voiced mass of rugged individualists and free thinkers, and we're learning in real time that the one thing you do not do is tip over the chum bucket, especially the big infinite-gallons one the remoras have been feeding out of since at least 2019.
Is it a great metaphor? Remoras don't really eat out of chum buckets, especially not upright, un-spilled ones, which would presumably be in a boat, out of the water, making it hard for them to breathe and, you know, live. So I'm getting a little crossed up, but that's been a thing the last few days. Last night, for example, I completely forgot my boxing gloves in my fitness class when I left the gym. Going to this class has been a routine for years, one that predates even the existence of this gym (I'm on I think my third boxing gym since I started 15 years ago), but as a creature of rigid habit, the smallest deviations can cause incalculable upset. The problem is you never know which way it will go. Sometimes you replace one whole Terrence Howard with a whole separate Don Cheadle and nobody says boo. But if Felicity gets a haircut, next thing you know fortunes are lost, careers unmade and you can't have a quiet lunch at Nobu because of all the pitchforks and the torches.
I'm pretty sure I lost my boxing gloves because I got a new car. The connection there is of course too obvious to bother explaining, but for posterity, let's get it on wax:
I wasn't necessarily looking to get a new car, but the glorious 2015 Mini Cooper Countryman I've been driving since my the dashboard panel on my old Prius wouldn't stop being festively lit up with ALL the colors, had been trending toward the geriatric now as well. I had put 160,000+ miles on a car that I was told would likely get me about 90k. It was also a bottom-level trim option, which in this case meant the heaviest Mini with the weakest engine, so our girl, she always struggled. Ran great, worked as designed (for the most part), but kept trying to whine out RPMs at banshee levels at every slight provocation, especially when set upon by her mortal enemies of air conditioning and slight inclines. Did I mention I live in a semi-arid transitional climate right next to a desert and on the very hilly edge of a valley? Not the best choice in retrospect, but in my defense, it came in a very nice shade of dark blue.
For years I've lived in dread of car payments. The Mini I crippled my savings in order to buy outright; just in case I lost my job, I would always have a car nobody could repossess. She was holding up, except she had started to eat oil, requiring a fresh quart every 1,500-2,000 miles, in between full oil changes. We were past regular maintenance, so something had to be considered.
The original plan: drive until she gives out. That's what I did with the Prius, just made that mule drag me around until the only option left was a merciful captive bolt pistol to the forehead, which in that case looked like a donation to local public radio.
Being on my own for so long, and having recently taken a job that a) meant a pay cut, but with the promise to make up the difference over the course of years and b) become complicated by the inauguration of new management in the form of a presidential administration determined to fire half and haze the other half of the public sector workers I count myself among. I'd narrowly avoided both being fired and being driven to quit, but the feeling of uncertainty was now baked into the experience. Best time to take on some new financing, surely.
Well, sometimes you don't really make plans, plans make you. That doesn't make sense at all, but see above about the remoras and the chum. There's a theme of thematic incoherence, for which I can only apologize.
Sometimes, and I hadn't experienced this in so long I completely forgot it was a thing, you can attach yourself to another person romantically and physically (if you're both up for it and haven't eaten too heavy a meal recently) and also financially. This can go either way, but every once in a while it's possible to find someone with whom you're compatible romantically, personally, socially, sexually and with regard to income levels. I'm told this can lead to things like stability and functional relationships. I had to look those up, but I didn't only find them defined in Urban Dictionary, so I know they're legit things.
With that reality being what it is, it became possible to consider options. And in this case, the options looked like new cars. And electric cars. And then a specific GM electric car. One that included multiple incentives adding up to about $12,000 off the sticker price, before any negotiation or trade-in. So it all got weirdly feasible really fast.
So no public radio of any kind got my old Mini, that old girl was left in the loving hands of a sales outlet of massive multinational automotive concern. I'm certain she will be treated well.
And me, I'm sitting here covered in New Car Smell and pretty happy, if you minus out the disorientation. It's an interesting new normal on pretty much every level. A pair of boxing gloves is a small price to pay. Well, that and a few tens of thousands of dollars.