Strange roads will offer us a new home.
Well,I'll be the first to admit that it's been awhile since i posted, but a lot is going on. That doesn't matter to some cold-eyed blogosaurus types, though; Muggs' blog calls me out, because Muggs is only working two jobs, raising a kid, and trying to make with the rent on time...he somehow finds the time to blog, and it's usually something fun (mostly movies, lately, which is no shock if you know the boy; if you don't, then follow the link on my blog and feel the joy that Muggsy brings).
Meanwhile, on the turnaround...I have been to the hills, of late, and have seen nothing and everything new. To preface this, let me start bby saying that I am a big fan of driving. Not that NASCAR bunk, where a man is graded by his ability to hang a California left in a pasture full of similarly-demented stewed acorns; not that road-rage, kill-em-all and let the DOT clean it up Fast and Furious skit either; I had Suburbam with no exhaust for two years, and the LAST thing I want is a louder car. A new road, or one long forgotten, is still a thrill, no matter what I'm piloting. I get the radio going (the songs have to be willing to ride the strange roads with me, the genre is unimportant), I roll the window down (I am known for being hotter than your average blast furnace, even in mid-winter; As such, I like to keep the cool air flowing as much as possible. My frequent copilot Bacon calls my ever-open window "the pneumonia hole" as a consequence), make sure the baby is buckled in, and we're off.
Many a quiet Sunday morning passes with us trolling through the hills, seeking out new ways to get to old places. Lately, I've been looking for new ways to get to and from his daycare without using the highway; while I haven't found that Columbian Passage to India, I have found some amazing country roads very close to home. This is exploring, as much of it as I can do, the only way I know how. The van slides through the suburbs and non-urbs like a silvery ghost; the mist barely parts as I steer through crazed twists and turns, narrowly avoiding certain embarrassment at the hands of a horse farm's thick white fencing (which seems to match the thick white people hiding behind the fencing, given my experiences with the locals), leaning as I try to hang the curves of a serpentine, barely-paved concourse between the hayseed section of my city and the outlaying plantation towns, sometimes awestruck by the fact that some of these roads haven't seen a hot tar patch applied since I was born (there are potholes big enough to have driveways leading through them; sometimes, when they fill with water, I expect to see periscopes peering up at me as I pass). I wonder what it's like to live in some of the big houses, some of which even have guest or staff houses visible from the road, gates closed like the paperboy was planning on leading Manson's followers up on a lark, stone walls (very big in CT) perfectly stacked like Eli Whitney had taken up landscape design, perfectly-manicured lawns, the very image that most out-of-state folks have of Connecticut)...and then I laugh at myself. How lost am I, and not just geographically speaking?
I live in a very, very densely populated area (there are more multifamily homes on my street than there are single-family ones, and everyone but us has twenty or so children, to all appearances). Given my proximity to the highways, main drag, and firehouse, any snow is plowed fairly quickly. How do these devils get out in the winter? Do they have to stock a larder for the winter, knowing that their seven-digit house needs more than a $20 shovel job? What's summer like in a land of dead air, where the trees are manicured but block the few breezes? The air must taste of pine fairly constantly, but if that same air is hanging over you like a poorly-crafted shul, the taste of pine must eventually make you less homesick and more just plain sick after a while. How green must your car be, after a gullywashing rainstorm, when that alien wind rises in the pines like a shrieking French teacher, spitting terse (but frequent) pollen invectives and cursing you to a week at the car wash? In comparison, everything blown by the wind crosses through my yard, sometimes catching along the sides of my hedges or driveway. It all ends up on the avenue, though, if the wind persists, so I spend less time raking leaves than you've just spent reading my rant.
Is there such a thing as succeeding too much? I doubt it, but I certainly rethink the trappings of affluence, especially what smells like recent affluence, after my time in the hills. It lends perspective, I guess, to a life that's otherwise bereft of such wisdom.
After all that rambling, it's hard to rein myself in; I've had a lot of caffeine this weekend, as well as a back massage and a palm reading (they said it looked like Cliff Notes). Given all of those factors, it's amazing I can string words together, much less press for a point (however well-concealed or idiotic that point may be).
Someday I will live in the hills, next to a bunch of other people who should know better. Until then, I will laugh to myself, just as they must when they drive through my comparative shantytown.
It's crazy, but it's just crazy enough to be true...
There will be more soon. I go now to ride the gray seam between the haves and the have-nots. It's a road I spend a lot of time on, but there'll be more on that later (get it? I said "moron". Ah, we are clever when the mood strikes us).