New Universal Theory of the Bad Day Syndrome =
Bad Days Make Great Stories. Period.
An Official Bad Day of Thanksgiving 2009 (Bad Day, but Many Heroic Actions) ~ On July 27, 2010, I engaged in some unpersonal interactions with a man who works for a towing company in Santa Paula, and was contracted to pick up my car--a beige Subaru Legacy 1993--from our rental house on Hillview Dr, Goleta. I didn't feel much sentiment or state of reflection (just dulled, suppressed, internal panic) when he started to move and tow the car. I rescued the car seats as my last desperate move, because I'm sure they could be valuable for my Toyota Tercel (1995), in which the current $3-from-a-yard-sale car seats are falling apart after five years of wear and tear (speaking of which, I need to duct tape my car seats, to its entirety!). Colleen, my next door neighbor, and her three young, rambunxious sons, came out to see what all the hub-bub was about, and I explained to her the pros and cons of having a second car and getting rid of a second car. I purchased the Subaru Legacy in 2006 for $2000 from an African-American man in Isla Vista (with the help of Talei; his name was Vern Hunt, and the previous owner was Scott Barrett, a drum-player, and before that, the car was sitting in Scott's grandmother's driveway for several years, Scott apparently moved to Arizona).
The reason for buying a new car, this Subaru in the first place? I just spent a year learning about geology and that I thought that I deserved a car of optimal size, which is getting the most for the least: a car in which I could carry surf boards, giant rocks, and I could sleep in. I cannot exactly sleep in my Toyota Tercel... I get quite scrunched up and my body complains after a night of crampedness. From a more abstract, idealistic perspective, I think that since the Subaru embodied the notion of "freedom," or "freedom from being stuck in Riverside, Black Hole, California." I was also trying to seek freedom from myself.... I was really "mentally stuck" at that point in my life. So, freedom from myself, escaping across external landscapes because I was struggling to venture into "internal landscapes" is then otherwise called "escapism." Poor me... was I in denial? Or was I mentally stuck? I don't think I was in denial, I was trying to unstuck my mind in space and time. And that required lots of internal and external "soul-searching" and resolution.
I thought I would have a Subaru and then I could get rid of the Toyota Tercel. It turned out that I kept hold of both cars, because the Toyota never let me down (in unexpected ways) since high school (in 1999!), whereas the Subaru had water pump problems, radiator problems, oil leak problems, and plus it was a drain in terms of oil changes, gas mileage (20 miles per gallon is unacceptable to me), and having two cars for insurance and registration. Owning two cars had become cumbersome, like an extra tumor of maintenance, and the last year I even had to deal with major Toyota Tercel repairs (especially after the Roadtrip Nation trip), including clutch replacement, break pad replacements, battery replacements (Txriel, stranded in Isla Vista Fall 2008), car tire changes, radiator-fluid changes, and now car-starter changes. Plus, my Toyota survived several treks and close calls, including a minor accident-turned-into-major-because-the-car-in-front-of-me-was-a-massive-white-truck-with-huge-wheels-and-my-little-car-went-under-at-5-mph-and-the-truck-zoomed-away-without-a-care-though-it-scrumpled-up-my-hood-yet-it-was-my-fault-because-I-fell-asleep-on-the-road-for-split-second-as-I-parked-at-the-Vons-11pm-at-night the day before Thanksgiving in 2000 (off Rose Avenue, Oxnard), a treacherous dirt-road trip in the boonies of Nevada (geology field trip with Seth and Joe in November of 2004), a car tire blow up on the 405 freeway going south toward Orange County, and a minor fender-bender on the 405 going north around the UCLA area, where I was sandwiched because some Bxtch in an Infinity car rammed into me when the traffic drastically slowed down (my car slightly bumped this blue Nissan in front of me, which housed some young Idiot Asian Female, in which the Bxtch and I both pleaded to her "Please DO NOT call car insurance! It's cheaper to take care of damage ourselves!" (I ended up preferring to talk to the Infinity Bxtch than the Idiot Asian when it came to resolving the collision. We were hassled by several angry drivers around us, Road Rage Deluxe!).
George from Bob's Auto Service in Riverside stated that if the Toyota Tercel now has 200,000 miles, these types of major repairs should be expected.... So the question is, which car to invest in? I am so emotionally attached to my little Toyota Tercel (which is probably as fuel efficient as a Toyota Prius hybrid fuel-electric) that I decided I was going to ware this car down to its death (hopefully 20 years from now). The Toyota Tercel has been with me since high school in 1999 (graduation gift from parents).... When the Tercel dies, I will cry... just like I cry for the passing of my relatives, especially for my grandfather, even when I was upset that I lost my stuffed Bugsy, Sparky, and the Bean. So, when the anonymous man towed away my car in the name of Kars for Kids (which is a very LAME non-profit organization, because all the money goes to charities catered to strictly Jewish kids in between ages 8-16 who have supposed teenage and other crises... I thought it would be for cancer patients or starving African children... whatever, and the worst part is that the Kars for Kids website does not make this strict "Jewish Donation" an upfront statement, you have to scrounge through the website a bit before you realize you're NOT helping poor, needy, unhealthy kids in a generic sense; but believe me, I have NOTHING against Jews (no doubt, they went through a lot of disturbing history; I'm not sure why they have been picked on so much!); I'm just pissed that the donation is for JUST JEWS, and not other ethnic or religious or cultural groups; nevertheless I set up the time for towing, and since Kars4Kids is efficient with the towing process, I just told myself to "nevermindthis" and just get the towing process done, no more delaying, since I anticipated on getting rid of this car for the last 2 years).
My friend Kamal was fascinated by the life cycle of cars and the the end-product landscape of junk yards, and I'm sure he would be interested, as I thought it would be interesting to take photographs of such a dismantled car in a neglected landscape. Given my limited timeline and stresses of school, I donated the car, essentially for FREE. But if I had MORE TIME and thoughtfulness, I would have taken the car to Riverside and gotten $300 from a company called Pick-a-Part, or I would have successfully sold a car for $500 on Craigslist, upfront. But no, my father said, "Do me a favor. Get rid of the car and you will do me and the family a service. I'm tired of lying to your mother saying that this is 'Talei's car.'" I think aunt Jean and Uncle Chuck were tired of that little fib as well. I get rid of the car and my father stops "lying" and my aunt and uncle are no longer "holding a secret."
The option of getting rid of this car was on the plate of my entire "family" of housemates. Kyle, the Climate-Energy-Policy grad student (did he finish his Ph.D.?) had been pressuring me to eliminate this car for quite a while, but then he got married and moved out of the house and didn't care anymore. Jay had also been pressuring me to eliminate the car, but then he moved out and didn't care anymore. And then Gwaz, who most recently got a badxss job toward the Thousand Oaks area (internet advertising, I think), started to pressure me to eliminate the car from the driveway. He asked to me to place a deadline and notify everyone in the household, which I did. And then Gwaz moved out... and perhaps he doesn't care anymore, like all the other housemates. Teena said she didn't mind the car, but I was at a point in which it was an embarrassment to occupy the driveway with a dead car (bad alternator, couldn't start on its own, needed a jump start), and not paying any extra rent for occupying this extra space beyond my room. So, out of generic guilt, despite the heightened sensitivity-followed-by-apathy of my former housemates who pressured me... I eliminated the car, though I do wish that I made an extra effort to get $200-$300 for the parts, or $500 sold on Craigslist for whole.
What made this circumstance different? Why did I get rid of the car this time? For one, it was summer, and I had time to deal with the issue. Secondly, cumulative build up of pressure from housemates. On a third level, out of all my housemates, I have much, much respect for Gwaz, and whatever he tells me, I listen, and it sinks down in me. We had a few lengthy "existential conversations" over the time he was at Hillview (since March 2009), and even though the quarter system mowed me over, and I did not have much time to reflect on all the cool ideas we batted toward each other, back and forth... I still have his thoughts, his ideas, his ambitions in my head. He's intelligence + experience + humbleness + enthusiasm, and someone with such diverse experience that I look up to him. I am thankful for Gwaz' humbleness, because as I have learned, most "environmentalists, at least hard core ones," are judgmental, pretentious pricks... just as bad as religious people who are so willing to make judgments about your life (and supposed afterlife).
Gwaz provided great advice on some of my cartoons. In a certain way, I wish Gwaz weren't my housemate (which he isn't anymore), because you can tell that we are both very intense people with lots of ideas, and the house at Hillview is the only place for quiet, private space and time. And it's hard for two people with super intense thought processes to live right next to each other and try to maintain a sense of quiet privacy, when all we would engage in is very lengthy conversation. Gwaz would be a great person to go and visit, and I hope that one day I can follow through and visit him in Los Angeles. He's such an outpour of great ideas, I cannot stop not talking to him!
So, I was using the Subaru Legacy as storage space, practically for the last two years of graduate school at UCSB (for the bullshxt of academia kept piling into my brain! with no time to sort it out). In order to get rid of this car, I went through the pains of moving all these papers, these bags of trash, these memories, these times of intense informational input, eliminating a lot of paperwork back in early July, which essentially, placed my mind in an extreme panic: that the last two years of my life had been an accumulation of trash, chaos. I was standing upon a pile of rubble, and I did not even know what was happening in my own life... like I am living and not knowing that I'm living... I was letting my life slip, hold no control....
I was panicking in mid-July but just set the panic aside, denied it, until it flared up in a $60/night Motel 6 in Escondido in late July (or Ex-con-dido or Mexican-dido)--in which I was alone, with a massive head ache, yes, I could classify it as a migraine--in which I was forced to delay my written exams. Jules reminded me that "I didn't have real problems." I had a discussion with Oran, and things are settled for early October. That's fine. It was the first time that I was forced to seriously look at the state of my life and realize that "If I'm in school and that my life is becoming more chaotic than orderly, then school is not performing its desired function, and therefore I need a break and get out of here... go catch fish or something for a few months." I refuse to stand on my own pile of rubble. If there is faith and loyalty to anything and anyone in this world... it will have to be to myself. And right now, mentally, emotionally, physically--if I stay in school--I will be in trouble. I can't do it anymore, for now....
Well, even though I stalled on eliminating the Subaru Legacy (which was threatened on being towed one time, last August of 2009; I had to hire a company to tow my car from Evergreen to Hector's driveway on Padova), which was about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile away. The tow cost $50, I was stuck in San Diego, and was not interested in driving up from San Diego to Santa Barbara, just to move a dxmn car 1/2 of a mile. On its own, that was $50 of gas and 10 hours of driving life. Not fun! )... So, even though I was stalled on eliminating the Subaru Legacy (or should I call this car an "unnecessary tumor of responsibility" from my life (funny how my mind seems to meander in streamline form), I have one more heroic tale to tell about this car. And why I am glad that I kept this car just one more year after I should have gotten rid of it.
And just yesterday, when I was pressing hard down on the clutch to make it to the top of the Camarillo Grade on the 101, all the memories of this bizarre experience of Heroism of ancient technologies, kind roommates, and friendly strangers just flared up, and I realized that every time I passed by on the Camarillo Grade, this memory will keep flaring up, and that it's time that I should just write it down, pass it out of my Mental Space and onto Blogger space, so that my mind is freed up for more new memories. This "Annals of the Bad Day Syndrome" is a major symbol of how my mind had "runned over" by academic information overload from last year, with absolutely no time to myself, absolutely no time to reflect, no time to account for my existence and for my relational interactions with the context of my existence... until now... a random day in the late summer where I'm revolting and saying "F-You University!" I can't cater to your arbitrary bureaucratic needs when my own psychological needs need some tending to.
Even Teena and I had a little discussion about this story with Gwaz a couple of nights ago. I'm tired of holding this Heroic Story in my Head. So, here's a brain fart, a brain dump... about 8 months since its passing (of course, it won't be so dramatic this time, because all the immediate emotions and details have passed out of my system, and now they are just memories of reminiscence, skeletal memories, though I have a few details stored in the papers of my massive pile of rubble).
I had always dreamt of missing one Thanksgiving in my life. I have had perfect attendance to Thanksgiving functions since my birth, which in part, I think is worrisome, because it's important to break habits once in a while in order to appreciate them. Heck, even my sister missed a Thanksgiving, potentially in 2004 or 2005, because she was charged to work with her autistic patients that day. She was crying on the phone all day because she was missing all the family. My sister is a living proof that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." It's important to go in absence of elements of your life that you have come to take for granted from mundane, ritualistic routine.
I had also become more appalled by the commercialized aspects of nearly all Holidays in America, long-traditioned holidays... now even more popularized occasions like Quinceneras.... The commercialized element is so meaningless, so plastificated, but when you're with family, then all the plastic crxp sold on advertisements and stores sheds, and you come to feel quite happy in being with your intellectual and genetic kin. That is how I felt at the Thanksgiving of 2008. Grandpa Ray didn't make it, but he almost did... he was off by two weeks or so. So close... so close.... I even showed up a little bit late to aunt Jean's house that year, but I didn't miss Thanksgiving all together.
I thought I was going to leave for Thanksgiving (in San Diego this year with Aunt Judy) on Wednesday evening (which I am sooo relieved that I didn't do that), and finally I let go of my pursuit of ideas and hit the road around 8 or 9 am Thanksgiving morning, hoping that I would arrive in San Diego around noon or one. So, here I was, driving the Toyota Tercel up the Camarillo Grade, and I found myself pushing the gas pedal very, very hard and then when I was about 3/4 up the grade I found myself pushing the gas pedal all the way down, and I started to silently panic as my car started to slow down from 60 mph-50mph-40mph; I was on one of the middle lanes and the closest "open area" I could go to (where there were no cars) was the the extra shoulder lane in the middle of the freeway next to a thin wall that divided the speedy cars on the left versus on the right side of the freeway. My car just slowed and slowed and slowed to a halt, and I'm like "Great. Oh shxt. Perfect location. Spending my Thanksgiving stalled, about one foot away from speedy cars going up and down the Camarillo Grade. What a PERFECT location." Funny in retrospect, but frightening in situ. It was such an appalling point of view, I regret that I did not take pictures from my camera phone about the whole ordeal! I mean, really, of all places I would not want to be in my life, stuck in the middle of the Camarillo grade during Thanksgiving?! Well, thankfully there were not too many cars on the road, which most certainly helps. I remember being extremely panicky, thinking about how all objects I am next to are volatile and could kill me in no time. I was in tears by the time I called AAA auto service. The lady kept me calm and asked me... then stated that she would also send out a police officer to help me out (besides a tow truck, of course). I was just sitting there and at that time my sister Jenny was pissed off at me, and so that delayed a lot of interaction between Mumsy, Bubsy, and me (plus my sister's cell phone was dying), and so I called several times, and the phone was not answered at first, but then once they arrived at Judy's house, I was able to talk to Bubsy several times, but that was way after my time of frightened panic and aloneness....
While the car was shaking and rattling every time that a car zoomed by a couple of feet away from me, I was surprised to find a police officer from Thousand Oaks come by my car (coming from the opposite side, going downhill on the 101). I remember him being very cheerful, helpful, and caring--which was surprising to me, because the last few time I have delt with cops, I have found them to be uncaring and apathetic.
A Series of Largely Unfortunate Interactions with Police Officers
(Trial 1: police officer doesn't care about my stolen i-pod shuffle, $129 at the FedEx Office in Ventura, labeled as "petty theft," though the African-American man in suit and tie was caught on tape at Fedex Office taking my ipod, and they even had his credit card transactions available from that day, the officer didn't do anything that day though he said he would, and Fedex was even willing to work with the officer... and then a month later I didn't hear anything from the police, so I asked for a report, which they made me pay $16 for, and then they told me afterwards that the officer didn't do anything about my "petty theft" because the officer was transferred to a different district (aka he "moved," and no one notified me, because no one at the police department in Ventura cared). Things slip... no one really cares in the end....
(Trial 2: police officer and detective did not care that some Bxtch Lady stole my $1450 for a used MacBookPro with several layers of installed software, February 2009, through a Craigslist ad and cell phone interactions; that's why I'm an idiot, I can't make good decisions in the middle of an academic quarter system, especially since I was desperate; the assistant manager at Bank of America didn't care either, even an hour after the transaction... I told him to void the transaction, but he said he couldn't do that, unless a police officer showed up, and the officer did not show up, as the lady gave me a fake FedEx shipping number, and canceled her Sprint phone account... apparently this lady had a track record of fake sales and poor transactions... the officer said that he could not place a "warrant" unless he knew that the warrant would lead to catching the thief, the detective said that this form of Craigslist theft is common and uncontrollable and too frequent for them to do anything... it could be a spammer from Nigeria creating fake accounts... what bullshxt... from this time I realized (1) there's a lot more theft and crime and violence than can be contained by police officers (2) the police choose what battles to fight and not fight and take care of or deal with, it's a random draw of the hat if you yourself receive any level of "justice" for any crime involved (3) true justice is not accomplished unless if you have a lot of money and can hire a bunch of "lawyers" and other "justice people" to do the work on the crime, otherwise... no one cares... (4) it's much easier to become a criminal than I thought (5) it's the law of mass numbers, collective action problems, the lack of containment of crime... (6) I might consider practicing "criminal thinking," like those mastermind characters in Ocean's 11. A crimininal takes chances in not being caught in his crime because (1) the police are under-staffed and under-funded (2) the police don't care and have other things to do (3) the law of mass numbers are on your side. Anonymity is an advantage)
Trial 3: Two "speeding tickets" within four months, with two rounds of traffic school on line (one school called Cheap Fast Fun, and the other driving school called Comedy Traffic School (with two free tickets to see an Improv comedy show!), because I was going 75-80 miles per hour. The two cop dudes didn't really care who I was. I cried the first time, I was too tired the second time. The first time I was sleepy on the road and didn't see the officer behind me in Carpinteria. That young, buff officer was fresh meat, like this was his first day on the job, and I was his first ever ticket. And he was all happy and cheerful about it. Well, what about me?! I wanted to challenge the police officer: why do you give me a ticket when I drive down in Orange County and San Diego, cars honk at me and flash at me when I'm going 75 miles per hour--I'm going too slow? This is bullshxt.
The second time I was driving from Oregon, back to aunt Jeri Lyn's house in the dark, around Yreka, Weed County, and I was the first car in a crop of cars going on the freeway, and this dxmn cop radar-gunned me from the front of the pack of cars and no one else, even though everyone else was going the same speed I was, and so the officer was so adamant about stopping ME, and no one else! I received a speeding ticket but was too tired to care. Jules gave me advice and told me, "Cops are hunters. It's lions and the gazelles. The best thing to do is stay obscure in the middle of the pack. Cops go after those in the front or the back. They're easier to pick out and pin down." I am convinced the officer gave me a speeding ticket because he needed to raise money for his county. Hxck, they can't even bust all the weed growers in the hills! I met a few of them just stopping at a gas station!
Trial 4: Two police officers who just finished their lunch in Isla Vista, decided, just for kicks and giggles, to stop me and give me a ticket for wearing these flimsy $5 dollar head phones listening to Bjork in order to calm myself down, when I was going to visit Oran in concern of my potential for attending graduate school this upcoming fall. I was so stressed out. I learned that police officers only stop you when they really truly have a SEARCH IMAGE, focusing on YOU (as if they're predators and you're ZOOMED-IN BAIT), and that they FEEL LIKE MAKING THE EFFORT to stop you. Otherwise, you can be as free and illegal as possible, and no one will give a shxt. For example, just in my parents neighborhood in Riverside, a house was busted for being a major weed farm.... It's probably been there for over ten years, and no one knew about it. Being illegal seems to be quite easy nowadays.
Trivial Trials With Cops: I had several cops stop me at night for several random, trivial reasons. In northern California, it seems that cops have nothing much to do than stop people for not much an apparent reason. One time I was driving in the town of Winters (15 miles from Davis, California) for about 2 seconds, and a cop stopped me because I didn't have my lights on right away when I was driving. He thought my driving as "suspicious." Bullshxt. And one time I was getting ice scream but the officer was upset that I was driving 2am in the morning (welcome to UC Davis, where cops have nothing better to do than stop little girls from getting ice scream at the 24-7 grocery store 2am in the morning). Another time, the bulbs illuminating my driver's license plate burnt out, and the officer in Irvine gave me a courtesy notice, recommending me to replace the bulbs. Well, I do admit, the police officer was a very young and HOT blond dude, I was actually on a high of hormones from that experience. Ya, cute cop stops me for a very trivial "burnt-out light bulb" scenario. In that case, he was kind to me.
Much more recently, after visiting Shannon in Oceanside, apparently I made a u-turn in an area in which I wasn't supposed to (I was trying to find the local community college in the area, without much success). A police officer saw me do this, and then he followed me, flaring his lights. I was trying to find a safe place to pull over, and at that time, I was such a nervous wreck because I was pissed off about my Roadtrip Nation experience, being reminded by being in Oceanside, and then Comic-con was coming, and I was very lost in the new town I did not know at all. I finally pulled over at a Home Depot parking lot, and the police officer was an older man, and surprisingly he was very kind to me. He asked to see my license... but at that point I was sooo upset, I burst into tears... because I just went through two other occasions of unnecessarily venturing through traffic school because of speeding tickets (Milton Love said that I should expect a speeding ticket about once every five years, it's more so a phenomenon of the lottery than your actual wrong-doing), and I couldn't deal with this drama of being stopped by a cop ONCE AGAIN!, also just because I went through a Microsoft Office 2010 computer fiasco at a FedEx Office in Oceanside just this morning, that psychologically destroyed me to pieces (I was talking to a dude in India and this guy made me do things to my computer I didn't know about, I am seriously doubting the services and products of Microsoft after this experience!), and as the officer saw me as a nervous wreck, in tears, he felt a level of sympathy. He asked me what I was up to in general--that I was a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, and that I had paint on my car because my friend and I were making a film about careers at the intersection of science and art, and the officer was impressed because most paint on cars was very negative graffiti. In the end, the officer gave me a courtesy notice and was very fatherly, guiding me to the community college, for directions, and said that he didn't want to add anymore drama to my bad day of being lost and frazzled about life in general.
So, presently I have a mixed relationship with police officers, mostly bad interactions, but a few good ones. Experience is largely contingent upon the individual properties of each officer.
By the time, this young police officer approached my fragile vulnerable car and soul on the Camarillo Grade on a Thanksgiving, I was just sooo relieved and elated to see him. The scenario was so dangerous and absurd that the officer didn't even bother to check my driver's license. The officer was there within five minutes and we were discussing what to do next before the Tow Truck Dude from AAA would come and tow my car. I was trying to take my unused, ivy-overgrown blue bike (from Sportsmart) down to San Diego, but it turned out that the police officer wanted to push my car from the middle of the freeway to the right side, where no doubt, I would be much safter. As soon as we took the bike off my trunk-strapped fold-out-metal-bike-holder, the tow truck came. I don't remember what exact procedures were performed, but the tow truck dude quickly latched my car up to his truck, and the bike was thrown in the back of the tow truck. The police officer soon left as soon as he knew that I was safe with the tow trucker, in which he and I discussed what to do with the car. At that point, I made some internal decision to upgrade to AAA plus (so that I could have had my car towed back to Santa Barbara, not to this stupid 76 gas station, repair shop off of Moorpark in Thousand Oaks where they would have charged me $800 to replace the clutch!).
The Indian man at the gas station let me keep the car there over the Thanksgiving weekend, as I gave him my car key. I was trying to figure out how to get myself back to Santa Barbara with the utmost reduced cost (Santa Barbara is about 70 miles away), and at first I called Hector and Katia to see if they could give me a ride, but it turned out that they were in a rush to get to Los Angeles for their family's Thanksgiving celebration, and they could not provide a ride. It was tragic I did not have anyone else I could call. I tried calling Oscar, but he did not respond till 3 or 4 hours later. My housemate Gwaz was gone with his family, Jay was gone... I even tried calling Jay, but I received a "wrong number" from him. Teena just recently lost her cell phone, so she was not accessible, and I didn't have the 207 Hillview house number on me. I did call a taxi cab service, but was doubting that I was going to use it, because I was expecting a $200 cost to get back to Santa Barbara.
Oh ya, so WHY GO BACK TO SANTA BARBARA?! Well, I had this idea that I could use my spare dud Subaru Legacy to get me to San Diego instead. I started walking down the street, attempting to call my parents again, when a taxi cab pulled up right by me. Inside was a rather young guy, with blondish brown hair, who asked me if I needed a ride. He was wearing one of those trendy taxi driver caps. His car was quite clean and new-looking. I said ya, but I'm a student, and I don't think I could afford getting back to Santa Barbara. He then asked, "Well, how much CAN you afford?!" I said, "How much would it cost to get there? He ballparked around $120 with no traffic or unexpected stalls. I said, "I am a student, I can only afford maximum $80"... and then he said he would do it. Wow! What goodwill on a Thanksgiving Day! So, I hopped in, and it turned out that the taxi driver was a very spunky guy who had a horrible driving record in the past, but found this taxi job on Craigslist, and has $1,000,000 insurance on the car and the people in it, through the taxi company, and that it's a sweet job because he drives everywhere in this car.... And over time he accumulated clients over time who are basically "rich people who some how fxcked up with driving but still need to get from Point A to Point B, which is usually Santa Barbara to San Francisco." He gets sweet gigs on the side transporting wealthy people around, and so monetarily it has been working well for him. I think it must also be stimulating in a certain way if you actually get interesting customers... after all the car is a wonderful place to really get to know another human being very well in a short amount of time, it's a small enclosed space, so a lot of intense, focused conversation can occur in a short amount of time.
Which is what happened between me and this guy. It turns out that he is very interested in zombie horror fiction and was thinking about writing a book/story about zombies, with the whole story set in San Francisco. I gave him some writing advice that I could provide. I mostly was probing him about the structure of the story: basic themes, motives, plot, setting, characters, to see how well developed his thoughts were. I think he was elated to have me ask these questions, because it challenged him and forced him to critically think about his story. Along the way home, in which I was a nervous wreck (and I was depressed too, impatient, feeling stuck), there was a slow-down on the 101, around the 15 mile scenic stretch in between Ventura and Carpinteria. It was a severe slowdown, and by the time we passed by the La Conchita landslide area, the taxi cab charge box read some hideous numbers, like $140 dollars, and so the cab driver was kind enough to turn off the box and turn on his good will. He was looking up his i-phone to figure out why there was such bad traffic for about a half-hour, and there was some stupid report on the internet saying there were "two dead dogs on the freeway," but it turned out to be regular tourist traffic. People simply slow down in the area simply, simply, simply to admire the ocean. Possibly the best possible reason for a traffic jam--no accidents, no deaths, just beautiful landscapes to stare at since most people have been largely deprived of these landscapes.
Toward the end, I very much felt like that this guy did half-service, did half-something as a friend. I wished I remembered his name... but I bet I can retrieve it once I look through my pile of rubble in the garage in Santa Barbara. I wished I gave him this bizarre book in our house, which is a compilation of existential quotes from taxi cab drivers in New York (published by Chronicle Books), and Teena said I should have given this book to him, out of gratitude... but I didn't know whether that was appropriate at the time... give away my housemate's book to a generous stranger. In the end, since this guy gave me a half-off discount on the taxi ride and went out of his way on Thanksgiving to help him, I was willing to give him $100 instead of $80. We parted by exchanging emails... one day I might find him on facebook, or he may be writing the next best-seller zombie book, sooo... I'll just see him give a speech at some prestigious writer's conference! I could say this taxi driver is a half-hero; he was a humanitarian today... but I still lost $100.
By the time I returned to Santa Barbara, I startled my housemate Teena, who was working diligently toward making 3 or 4 pumpkin pies from scrap in the kitchen! She was alone at the moment, but was preparing for a feast in the afternoon! I was glad to see her and rambled about what happened to me. I rushed out to try to start the Subaru Legacy, but as I feared the car did not start... and even my car salesman neighbor (Colleen's hubby, why do I not know his name, who ended up working with Teena at a car sales place in Goleta) said that my car probably has a bad alternator. Teena went out of her way to rush to her friend's house to get a pair of spark plug charger wire thing-a-ma-jigs and she spend a half-hour helping me trying to start my car. She hooked up her nice white Dodge to my dusty beige Subaru, and we got the car working. We left the car running Teena said she was sad she couldn't help me get back from Thousand Oaks. Teena was also concerned about the long-term running of the Subaru... that it may stall... so she accompanied me to the 7-11 Citgo gas station off of Calle Real off of Storke Road, as I filled up the tank and was able to miraculously re-start the car without the need of any spark plugs. We both then ventured back to Hillview Drive, and I thanked Teena so much. What kindness! She has been so kind to help me, I told her that I would write a blog about all these acts of heroism and kindness to help me make it through a disasterous day on Thanksgiving and make an attempt to still see my family on this day, though it was probably around 12:30 pm by the time I left Santa Barbara for the second time! And it's so sad... it has taken me about a year to finally account for this unfatefully fateful day, to feel that humans have the ability to reach out and help out someone in troubled need on a random, spur of the moment. I am truly grateful for such humanity... and one day, when circumstances of space and time align, I can help to do the same.
(Interruption, just left Starbucks, went to pick up Bubsy, we went to the house, I discovered my driver's license picture, I looked good though my cheeks looked burnt, placed mail on bed, left the house, went to B of A, deposited check, took out cash for George, went to Bob's Auto Service, picked up car, George also replaced the air filter, cool, paid cash, got 1 dollar back, Bubsy took the Tercel, I drove the Camry, felt less repressed driving the Camry, less baggage, will take to Monterey, deposited one more check at B of A, chewed on my nails, went home, talked with Mumsy and Bubsy about Monterey, dropped off Bubsy, picked up suppplies, went back to Starbucks, here I am, talk about a mundane to-do list!)
By that time I remember driving down to San Diego being extremely depressed and having suicidal thoughts comforting me all the way down. It is a 4.5 hour drive after all (given no traffic, but it was probably more so like 6 hours). I could have stopped for a jog in Lake Forest before venturing down. The sun was setting quite early. My mind was blank... I remember though passing by the Camarillo Grade the second time. I was nervous and started sweating, hoping that my Subaru would not jinx the Toyota Tercel, and low and behold, it made it past this steep grade. I bet my brain was fried from the quarter system process, so I didn't think much of anything.
I made it to San Diego just after dark, and I had to frantically call aunt Judy about 3-4 times, let alone change my clothes in the dark by a gas station, my other clothes were soaked with stink and sweat! Judy forced me to take the 8 freeway and pass by Cal State San Diego. It was quite a trek to reach Judy's place from this route. But I found out afterwards that she lived only 1-2 miles away from Jules' house, which is in Lemon Grove. And I wondered why Judy did not guide us to her house through the 94 freeway? Maybe because of the negative stigmas of the 94 freeway? Or Lemon Grove, and that whole area? Who knows. I reached Judy's place around 6, it was dark, and everyone already split. I was very glad to see her--at least one person in the family for Thanksgiving!--We ended up talking frantically and quickly catching up as much as we could--as now I remember talking with Jean and Chuck over the phone, and I was adamant that we MUST have a Christmas get-together, now that I missed out on 99% of the Thanksgiving event!!! Both Judy and Jean retired this year, but Judy was off to romp around the world again, I think for Peace Corps? Or one of the Corps, for a year or two to China? Or some country in Europe to teach English, or do some foreign language education elsewhere. Judy was very excited and told me that I could come by her place anytime whenever I'm in San Diego. The question is, why haven't I? Well, I need to reflect and write ideas down before I am able to alter my thought process and my behavior! Maybe I'll try to visit Judy, or Andy or Robin, next time I'm down in San Diego!
Judy encouraged me to take some stuffing, some caramel popcorn (which I'm sure made me gain five pounds, it's so sugary and buttery, Jenny took the other half), and some chocolate fudge, which was so richly sweet, that I couldn't eat any of it, nor Jules. I threw away an entire tray of sugar and fat and chocolate. By the time I greeted Jules, he was stuffed from very good food at Grandma Viola's house. I stopped by quickly at their festivities, and everyone was about done with the feast of food, working on deserts. I met about 10 people in less than 10 minutes, so I don't really remember anyone I met. I do remember some nice cupcakes!
I updated Jules with the whole car clutch fiasco (I kept him out of the loop in the morning, he doesn't need anymore drama, he himself had a peaceful day out in the ocean catching lobsters). The next day I had to plan out what to do in order to orchestrate both cars' return to Santa Barbara. I called the 76 gas station, and the Arabic mechanic who worked there said it would cost $800 to replace the clutch. I panicked and said to myself, "Well, I have gotten cheap auto body repair in Oxnard before, so let me see if there's an auto mechanic in Oxnard to replace my clutch for less than $800?" I called George as well, and he said the average cost of clutch replacement would be $400-$500.
The first place I found on Google Maps was Tierra del Sol auto mechanic. I called in, and the guy on the phone said in broken English that he would be willing to replace the clutch for $300. I asked him if I could bring him the car on Monday, and he said, "Yes! We're ready!" Now the issue is, how to get my car from the 76 station in Woodland Hills to down-the-Camarillo-grade-Oxnard?! I called "Bob's Towing" from a random hit on Google, and by chance, I happened to talk to the owner of the operation. He said he was willing to do the tow for $60. Man, what a deal! I thought it would be $150-$200 to get the tow done! The owner asked me to call in early Monday morning, mention that we talked, and I would get my deal rate.
So all of this anticipated car-maneuvering drama was at first mentally and orally orchestrated from San Diego, the safety of Jules' house, and then had to be executed on Monday, in which I left San Diego early, early, early Monday morning such that I could dodge Los Angeles traffic. I think I left around 4am, actually! Jules woke up around that time to prep for work as well, or so I think. I managed to have a smooth drive all the way through Los Angeles, and actually arrived early to Moorpark Road, Thousand Oaks area. I think that morning I was waiting around a little bit, and went exploring, in which I jogged by the hills, and when I stopped to take a number two in the bushes off the side of a road that was very nicely landscaped (actually), I ended up finding my first ever plant fossil! Amazing! I still have to show Dr. Bruce Tiffney my fossil find! I have come to realize that fertilizing bushes does have its incidental benefits. Coming to think of it, who in the hxll knows what I did on Saturday and Sunday... Probably in disillusionment of automechanic chaos either working hard or having fun with Jules.
I managed to snap some photographs of the tow-trucker helping move my car from the 76 station down to Oxnard. Locked by metal and chains, placing two metal-attached lights on top of my caravan I caravanned behind him, and I was guided to Tierra del Sol, which happened to be way off the 1 freeway, Oxnard Blvd., at the end of this obscure Citrus street that seemed to have come from a fictional tale of a movie: A run down complex sprawled with tools, functional cars, scrap metal, of open-spaced buildings that were divded into small teams of independent auto-mechanic teams, who each specialized in certain forms of repair (e.g. oil change, general mechanics, auto body, electric, etcetera), but all coordinated and collaborated, such that as a whole, if you had any problem with your car, you could go down this street, and one of the teams would be able to help you with your car problem. In essence, it was an "organically constructed" "Costco" of auto-repair, except in a much more rudimentary, beat-up form, more similar to shops in Tijuana, than America.
No complaints though, the two guys who helped me repair my car did a great job (my clutch is in great shape), and also ended up giving me a bunch of business cards to pass out to my friends at UCSB (coming to think, it's ironic that if someone needed to perform major car repair, it would be cheaper for a student to tow her is her car to Oxnard than it is to do repair down the street in Santa Barbara; goes to show how upscale the town is in general).
When I was waiting for my car to be repaired, I was driving around Oxnard, and happened to find a FedEx Office and a Starbucks near by, a couple of blocks away, but I had to drive, and I had a police officer follow me on a vacant road. I was so nervous, because I was pissed off to drive this dxmn Subaru--I had not renewed the license because the car had to pass smog (which is a whole other fiasco I engaged in during Christmas break, ending in a general failure). Thankfully, the officer did not stop me because of my out of date blue-colored 2009 sticker on my registration. Amen!
Hector was sooo kind to drive me out in the dark to pick up my finished Tercel, as we caravanned back to Santa Barbara. I ended up buying Hector a giant frappucino (and me, a cheapo tea, cut costs) for all of his efforts! I'm quite thankful for the help! And by that time, I believe all has stabilized, and my already shattered lifestyle had consolidated back into one shattered piece. Car drama with the clutch had temporarily settled. This whole ordeal was sooo mind-numbing, I remember talking to Hector about Nothingness of Nothingness. Nothing in my head was processing into any meaning, everything in my head was empty and shallow. Technically, I had suicidal thoughts, but being around people prevented me from dwelling too deeply. I had to find a way to make my brain operate as if I were pacified by psychiatric pills. This whole ordeal would have been a lot more meaningful if I actually learned about car repair and I learned how to replace my clutch and solve my problems, but no, I paid someone else to do it, and chattered my mind away with other meaningless work. Jules knows a lot about car repair, simply because he's forced several times to repair his boat.
During my Christmas Break of 2009 (or early January 2010), I went through another Subaru Massive Fiasco. Despite my expired Registration Sticker, I took the Subaru down to San Diego, because Jules' brother might be able to buy the car from me for $500, and then he refurbishes it to sell for $1000 or more. One day, as a "minor errand," I took the Subaru to some Xsshole Asian at the "end" of Broadway, underneath the intersection of the 94 freeway and the 125, by Lemon Grove. The Asian Bastard took $50 of my dollars when my car didn't pass smog. Most smog-test-only places actually don't charge any money if the car doesn't pass! It's not that the Subaru was a polluter, it was just that there was a "functional" problem: I had this "engine light sensor" chronically in the "on" position, stating that there was something wrong.... I remember wasting practically an entire stretch of four days attempting to contact someone, anybody, who could get this light sensor to switch off for once! Jules helped me tremendously by driving me around and caravanning, and even at one point, I called George to see what he had to say; he had turned off the light sensor one time, four or five years ago, and he said that he himself would have to check out the situation; it's hard to say over the phone. One dude that the tire shop off of Broadway knew said that he would most likely be able to turn off the sensor and get me to pass smog, but I would have to wait till Monday... but I had to return to school at UCSB. Jules said that I have to stop making investments in this car, and just get rid of it... it's already costing too much time and money and unnecessary drama.
Even though my car was still not "legal" to drive, I drove it over to Carmax on a half-cloudy, half-sunny, half-rainy Sunday afternoon. I was extremely nervous driving in these circumstances, superparanoid about the presence of cops. The Carmax was up on the 805 freeway I believe, near by the Fry's Electronics. I could say that the employees of Carmax were very kind and professional, but I felt a sense of uneasiness, as soon as I entered this place. Maybe because I have some pre-conceived notion that auto sales places are all about trying to maximize personal gain, ripping off the customers. Everyone working there was very smiling and professional, almost too a fault--such that it reminded me that I was surrounded by a bunch of very "loyal, perfect, Christians" who were trying to live through Jesus' word, but surrounding this limited lens of existence, they were boiling in chaos... like they all were holding dirty little secrets of sin and shame. Phony, happy people... used cars? I also think they reminded me of real estate agents: image is everything, but there's lots of dirt hiding all around them, you just have to dig... just a little bit.
So some Happy Dude Used Car Quote Guy talked with me about my car, and some other tall Happy Perfect Dude Inspector drove the car around with me and talked with me about the general conditions of the car. The rain and the wet streets and the setting sun amidst the clouds made me more and more anxious about this "test drive." Soon enough, the Happy Perfect Dude and I returned and with much anticipation, I was hoping that the car value may be at least $500, but Carmax valued the car at $200, in which I was pissed, but then I learned later that this car has no value except for its parts, not as a whole entity (by the way, that is Jules' philosophy of females, they don't have to be a "perfect" package deal, but if you have certain key parts that are super-extra-special, like Jules said he likes my eyes, because they are very eager and open and hungry). Maybe I could have gotten $300 from Pick-a-Part in Riverside, but that's the most. Besides, the oil leak is such a horrendous repair on its own! Who would want to do that? If I could, I would have gotten rid of the car on the spot, but I had too much junk in the Subaru that needed to be cleared out, and how would I be able to get back to Santa Barbara anyway?
I found out retroactively that I could have gone to the DMV and received a waiver stating that I could operate the vehicle, even though the engine light sensor would not go off.... If something is not very easily repairable, the DMV offers waivers. And of course, the Asian Bastard who smogged my car would never tell me that, because he, of course wants my $45 without any consideration of the customer's needs and conditions.
So, I drove the car back to Santa Barbara, and let it sit in the Hillview driveway, for at at least 7 months, without even touching that dxmn car that has constructed such unnecessary grief. The Subaru has acquired faded stickers all over it, three of them being posts of potentially selling the car for $2500, in which the penned font all faded from black to a very light red-orange. An abnoxious orange "threaten-to-tow-away-sticker" was coated with my sloppy layer of black duct tape, because the sticker couldn't even entirely peel off the car. A handful of spiders moved into the car space, such that cobwebs were unavoidable to destroy every time I stuck my hand in any space within the car. It transformed into quasi-mobile storage, where papers accumulated from two years of a trashed life that was going just a bit too fast for my own good.
So here, I have paid homage to the 1993 beige Subaru Legacy, which has backed up my xss one more time on the fateful day of Thanksgiving 2009, in a time of clutch catastrophe with the Toyota Tercel. I admit that though this car has transformed into an "annoying tumor" that symbolized my own escapism from myself, my own sense of fragmentation of pursuits, disconnect from myself and my surroundings, my desire for freedom though I felt mentally stuck, in chains... I am glad that I kept that car long enough, just so it could allow my to transport from Santa Barbara to San Diego, such that I could be with my family during a holiday.... Otherwise, I would have cried in grave depression, for the entire weekend.
It's funny, I don't really have many distinct memories of experience with the Subaru Legacy, just a symbol of a fragmented, torn-up phase in my life. I vaguely remembering my escaping Riverside heat, camping and sleeping in the car in various spots near by UC Irvine, with the various unsorted tumors in my mind, even in Ventura and Santa Barbara. I remember transporting a mattress at one point, I think it was to Momma's house in Orange County. I also suppose that the Subaru Legacy not only represents an escapism from myself, but also an escape and detachment from my friends, especially Talei (who I deeply miss, I don't know how to get a hold of her!). I also remembering Talei and I trying to plot how to escape Riverside--move to Irvine? or Santa Barbara? We were both feeling frustrated in the stuffy, black hole Riverside ambiance. Talei tremendously helped me purchase this Subaru Legacy in the first place. In the summer of 2006, I was hunting down a used station wagon on Craigslist, and ironically I found no station wagons in the Riverside or Orange County or Los Angeles area. Though, there were 3 or 4 station wagons advertised in the Santa Barbara region. I found out later on that there was a Subaru manufacturer/showroom in the Thousand Oaks area, so there was a much higher frequency of station wagons in that region.
My budget was $2000 and I happened to come across a Craiglist Advertisement for a beige Subaru Legacy for $2200. I contacted a man named Vern Hunt, and then I made a huge effort to meet this guy and check out the car in Santa Barbara. We started off discussion at the USA gas station off of Carrillo. First off, I made sure that I could fit and sleep in the back. Vern explained to me that recently there was a case of vandalism, and that the two switches for the lights and wind-shield wipers were damaged (both of them broke entirely later), so he showed me how to operate those switches in a damaged mode. I was willing to deal with the vandalism.
We had a long discussion about the car and cars in general and life, and he drove me around. I learned that Vern had some difficulties in his life--a lady he was with that seemed like a tormenting relationship, and an unexpected, young child--and he was strapped for cash--and that was why he was selling the car. Not that the car had any particular problems... supposedly.... At one point I even think I met the child! Vern lived in Isla Vista, and I think he did a lot of house maintenance jobs, based on looking at his massive, dark-blue van full of supplies. We both went to the DMV in order to figure out the process of exchanging ownership of the vehicle.
Vern asked for $2000 in cash. So, within a few days, I went to the bank to get $2000 in cash, and I convinced Talei to come with me so that we could pick up the car, and I would pay for her gas and buy her dinner. I remember having a crazy, fun time, driving frantically through the streets to get all these errands done such as to change ownership. I even remember a smog check done near by Carrillo, and the man who checked the car passed the smog, but he warned me, "Your car is leaking some oil." So, premonition, somehow I was denying the premonitions for later larger problems... like for example... my car making a horrible clicking noise on the 405 freeway by Irvine late at night, and the oil leak had become so severe that it had to be repaired... by a very nice Persian man near by Momma's house in Mission Viejo (A-something Auto Service). I also learned something key: when transferring ownership, state that the car was a "gift" because otherwise you have to pay taxes on the car to the DMV. I had to pay an extra $200 as a result, because Vern reported that I was paying him $2000. Dxmmit. I also remember having Chuck and Jean check out my car: Chuck checked out the generic mechanics of the Subaru while Jean was excited to do a massive "detailing" of the car. One would mistake Jean as a "field biologist" for her epic ability to diagnose stains inside cars. "And this stain is child barf, and that stain was child poo, and this stain was an oil stain, and this stain was spilled food, and this area is generic foot traffic...." And I asked Jean in awe, "How do you know this stuff?!" and she responded, "Plenty of experience." Whoa... Both Jean and Chuck found it amusing to keep a secret from my mom, and tell the story about "Talei's Car." I also faintly remember my parents being pissed off that I kept the Subaru in Riverside for a while. They asked me to transport the car up to Santa Barbara, which started the whole pestering of "get rid of my car" by my housemates. My parents said that a street-cleaning guy placed a notice on my Subaru stating that it will be towed if I don't move it sooner than later.
If there was ONE positive result from this whole Subaru Legacy car purchase in 2006, I ended up convincing my entire family to switch to AAA Auto Club for car insurance. Both of my cars were insured for around $500 a year (killer deal!), and my mother was appalled that I was paying so little, and she and Bubsy were paying so much for their two Toyotas... and my sister's car! So, my mother went to see the same lady, Wendy, at AAA Auto Club in Riverside, and they switched auto insurance, saving over $1000 per year!!! My Gxdzeeks! So, I may have paid extra up front for this tumorous Subaru Legacy, but it resulted a collective auto insurance benefit for my entire family. No complaints there. Lack of knowledge in one dimension, gained knowledge in another dimension. Thanks AAA! (Actually, right after I had the Subaru towed away, I ventured to the AAA in Santa Barbara and notified them that I donated the car to Kars for Kids, and my insurance only went down by $100... sigh).
Cars... *sigh* modern existential drama that's not real drama. This blog is the final indicator telling me that I do need to take a month off of my life and take autoshop. My fragmented consumer experiences of repairing cars is just appallingly embarrassing. I just went to Comic-con and met a bunch of New Yorkers. If any New Yorker took their time to read this blog about Californian Car Drama, I bet they would be laughing right now. Praise public transportation systems! Bless the subways! Except, subways are nice places for terrorists to place bombs... uh-huh, I see.
I announced to Jules that I towed away my car, and that I was not too emotional about it. I was consciously blank as the tow truck dragged the car out of the driveway, placed it on the truck, made me scribble my signature on a few forms, and then off the car was to a auto junk yard in Santa Paula (about an hour away). It's funny to say to Jules, "The car just represents how fragmented my mind and my life has been for the last five years. And somehow you are helping me put myself back together again. I've eliminated the Subaru, and now I have you!" And of course Jules misread that, "Oh, so you traded in a car for me?" I said, "NO! I didn't mean that! I just mean that piece-by-piece, my mind is coming together, through your friendship, and that I don't need any extra items in my life to remind me that I'm free (or at least my mind is). You remind me of that, all the time!" And then he said, "Of Course! I knew that!"
Bad Days Make Great Stories. Period.
An Official Bad Day of Thanksgiving 2009 (Bad Day, but Many Heroic Actions) ~ On July 27, 2010, I engaged in some unpersonal interactions with a man who works for a towing company in Santa Paula, and was contracted to pick up my car--a beige Subaru Legacy 1993--from our rental house on Hillview Dr, Goleta. I didn't feel much sentiment or state of reflection (just dulled, suppressed, internal panic) when he started to move and tow the car. I rescued the car seats as my last desperate move, because I'm sure they could be valuable for my Toyota Tercel (1995), in which the current $3-from-a-yard-sale car seats are falling apart after five years of wear and tear (speaking of which, I need to duct tape my car seats, to its entirety!). Colleen, my next door neighbor, and her three young, rambunxious sons, came out to see what all the hub-bub was about, and I explained to her the pros and cons of having a second car and getting rid of a second car. I purchased the Subaru Legacy in 2006 for $2000 from an African-American man in Isla Vista (with the help of Talei; his name was Vern Hunt, and the previous owner was Scott Barrett, a drum-player, and before that, the car was sitting in Scott's grandmother's driveway for several years, Scott apparently moved to Arizona).
The reason for buying a new car, this Subaru in the first place? I just spent a year learning about geology and that I thought that I deserved a car of optimal size, which is getting the most for the least: a car in which I could carry surf boards, giant rocks, and I could sleep in. I cannot exactly sleep in my Toyota Tercel... I get quite scrunched up and my body complains after a night of crampedness. From a more abstract, idealistic perspective, I think that since the Subaru embodied the notion of "freedom," or "freedom from being stuck in Riverside, Black Hole, California." I was also trying to seek freedom from myself.... I was really "mentally stuck" at that point in my life. So, freedom from myself, escaping across external landscapes because I was struggling to venture into "internal landscapes" is then otherwise called "escapism." Poor me... was I in denial? Or was I mentally stuck? I don't think I was in denial, I was trying to unstuck my mind in space and time. And that required lots of internal and external "soul-searching" and resolution.
I thought I would have a Subaru and then I could get rid of the Toyota Tercel. It turned out that I kept hold of both cars, because the Toyota never let me down (in unexpected ways) since high school (in 1999!), whereas the Subaru had water pump problems, radiator problems, oil leak problems, and plus it was a drain in terms of oil changes, gas mileage (20 miles per gallon is unacceptable to me), and having two cars for insurance and registration. Owning two cars had become cumbersome, like an extra tumor of maintenance, and the last year I even had to deal with major Toyota Tercel repairs (especially after the Roadtrip Nation trip), including clutch replacement, break pad replacements, battery replacements (Txriel, stranded in Isla Vista Fall 2008), car tire changes, radiator-fluid changes, and now car-starter changes. Plus, my Toyota survived several treks and close calls, including a minor accident-turned-into-major-because-the-car-in-front-of-me-was-a-massive-white-truck-with-huge-wheels-and-my-little-car-went-under-at-5-mph-and-the-truck-zoomed-away-without-a-care-though-it-scrumpled-up-my-hood-yet-it-was-my-fault-because-I-fell-asleep-on-the-road-for-split-second-as-I-parked-at-the-Vons-11pm-at-night the day before Thanksgiving in 2000 (off Rose Avenue, Oxnard), a treacherous dirt-road trip in the boonies of Nevada (geology field trip with Seth and Joe in November of 2004), a car tire blow up on the 405 freeway going south toward Orange County, and a minor fender-bender on the 405 going north around the UCLA area, where I was sandwiched because some Bxtch in an Infinity car rammed into me when the traffic drastically slowed down (my car slightly bumped this blue Nissan in front of me, which housed some young Idiot Asian Female, in which the Bxtch and I both pleaded to her "Please DO NOT call car insurance! It's cheaper to take care of damage ourselves!" (I ended up preferring to talk to the Infinity Bxtch than the Idiot Asian when it came to resolving the collision. We were hassled by several angry drivers around us, Road Rage Deluxe!).
George from Bob's Auto Service in Riverside stated that if the Toyota Tercel now has 200,000 miles, these types of major repairs should be expected.... So the question is, which car to invest in? I am so emotionally attached to my little Toyota Tercel (which is probably as fuel efficient as a Toyota Prius hybrid fuel-electric) that I decided I was going to ware this car down to its death (hopefully 20 years from now). The Toyota Tercel has been with me since high school in 1999 (graduation gift from parents).... When the Tercel dies, I will cry... just like I cry for the passing of my relatives, especially for my grandfather, even when I was upset that I lost my stuffed Bugsy, Sparky, and the Bean. So, when the anonymous man towed away my car in the name of Kars for Kids (which is a very LAME non-profit organization, because all the money goes to charities catered to strictly Jewish kids in between ages 8-16 who have supposed teenage and other crises... I thought it would be for cancer patients or starving African children... whatever, and the worst part is that the Kars for Kids website does not make this strict "Jewish Donation" an upfront statement, you have to scrounge through the website a bit before you realize you're NOT helping poor, needy, unhealthy kids in a generic sense; but believe me, I have NOTHING against Jews (no doubt, they went through a lot of disturbing history; I'm not sure why they have been picked on so much!); I'm just pissed that the donation is for JUST JEWS, and not other ethnic or religious or cultural groups; nevertheless I set up the time for towing, and since Kars4Kids is efficient with the towing process, I just told myself to "nevermindthis" and just get the towing process done, no more delaying, since I anticipated on getting rid of this car for the last 2 years).
My friend Kamal was fascinated by the life cycle of cars and the the end-product landscape of junk yards, and I'm sure he would be interested, as I thought it would be interesting to take photographs of such a dismantled car in a neglected landscape. Given my limited timeline and stresses of school, I donated the car, essentially for FREE. But if I had MORE TIME and thoughtfulness, I would have taken the car to Riverside and gotten $300 from a company called Pick-a-Part, or I would have successfully sold a car for $500 on Craigslist, upfront. But no, my father said, "Do me a favor. Get rid of the car and you will do me and the family a service. I'm tired of lying to your mother saying that this is 'Talei's car.'" I think aunt Jean and Uncle Chuck were tired of that little fib as well. I get rid of the car and my father stops "lying" and my aunt and uncle are no longer "holding a secret."
The option of getting rid of this car was on the plate of my entire "family" of housemates. Kyle, the Climate-Energy-Policy grad student (did he finish his Ph.D.?) had been pressuring me to eliminate this car for quite a while, but then he got married and moved out of the house and didn't care anymore. Jay had also been pressuring me to eliminate the car, but then he moved out and didn't care anymore. And then Gwaz, who most recently got a badxss job toward the Thousand Oaks area (internet advertising, I think), started to pressure me to eliminate the car from the driveway. He asked to me to place a deadline and notify everyone in the household, which I did. And then Gwaz moved out... and perhaps he doesn't care anymore, like all the other housemates. Teena said she didn't mind the car, but I was at a point in which it was an embarrassment to occupy the driveway with a dead car (bad alternator, couldn't start on its own, needed a jump start), and not paying any extra rent for occupying this extra space beyond my room. So, out of generic guilt, despite the heightened sensitivity-followed-by-apathy of my former housemates who pressured me... I eliminated the car, though I do wish that I made an extra effort to get $200-$300 for the parts, or $500 sold on Craigslist for whole.
What made this circumstance different? Why did I get rid of the car this time? For one, it was summer, and I had time to deal with the issue. Secondly, cumulative build up of pressure from housemates. On a third level, out of all my housemates, I have much, much respect for Gwaz, and whatever he tells me, I listen, and it sinks down in me. We had a few lengthy "existential conversations" over the time he was at Hillview (since March 2009), and even though the quarter system mowed me over, and I did not have much time to reflect on all the cool ideas we batted toward each other, back and forth... I still have his thoughts, his ideas, his ambitions in my head. He's intelligence + experience + humbleness + enthusiasm, and someone with such diverse experience that I look up to him. I am thankful for Gwaz' humbleness, because as I have learned, most "environmentalists, at least hard core ones," are judgmental, pretentious pricks... just as bad as religious people who are so willing to make judgments about your life (and supposed afterlife).
Gwaz provided great advice on some of my cartoons. In a certain way, I wish Gwaz weren't my housemate (which he isn't anymore), because you can tell that we are both very intense people with lots of ideas, and the house at Hillview is the only place for quiet, private space and time. And it's hard for two people with super intense thought processes to live right next to each other and try to maintain a sense of quiet privacy, when all we would engage in is very lengthy conversation. Gwaz would be a great person to go and visit, and I hope that one day I can follow through and visit him in Los Angeles. He's such an outpour of great ideas, I cannot stop not talking to him!
So, I was using the Subaru Legacy as storage space, practically for the last two years of graduate school at UCSB (for the bullshxt of academia kept piling into my brain! with no time to sort it out). In order to get rid of this car, I went through the pains of moving all these papers, these bags of trash, these memories, these times of intense informational input, eliminating a lot of paperwork back in early July, which essentially, placed my mind in an extreme panic: that the last two years of my life had been an accumulation of trash, chaos. I was standing upon a pile of rubble, and I did not even know what was happening in my own life... like I am living and not knowing that I'm living... I was letting my life slip, hold no control....
I was panicking in mid-July but just set the panic aside, denied it, until it flared up in a $60/night Motel 6 in Escondido in late July (or Ex-con-dido or Mexican-dido)--in which I was alone, with a massive head ache, yes, I could classify it as a migraine--in which I was forced to delay my written exams. Jules reminded me that "I didn't have real problems." I had a discussion with Oran, and things are settled for early October. That's fine. It was the first time that I was forced to seriously look at the state of my life and realize that "If I'm in school and that my life is becoming more chaotic than orderly, then school is not performing its desired function, and therefore I need a break and get out of here... go catch fish or something for a few months." I refuse to stand on my own pile of rubble. If there is faith and loyalty to anything and anyone in this world... it will have to be to myself. And right now, mentally, emotionally, physically--if I stay in school--I will be in trouble. I can't do it anymore, for now....
Well, even though I stalled on eliminating the Subaru Legacy (which was threatened on being towed one time, last August of 2009; I had to hire a company to tow my car from Evergreen to Hector's driveway on Padova), which was about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile away. The tow cost $50, I was stuck in San Diego, and was not interested in driving up from San Diego to Santa Barbara, just to move a dxmn car 1/2 of a mile. On its own, that was $50 of gas and 10 hours of driving life. Not fun! )... So, even though I was stalled on eliminating the Subaru Legacy (or should I call this car an "unnecessary tumor of responsibility" from my life (funny how my mind seems to meander in streamline form), I have one more heroic tale to tell about this car. And why I am glad that I kept this car just one more year after I should have gotten rid of it.
And just yesterday, when I was pressing hard down on the clutch to make it to the top of the Camarillo Grade on the 101, all the memories of this bizarre experience of Heroism of ancient technologies, kind roommates, and friendly strangers just flared up, and I realized that every time I passed by on the Camarillo Grade, this memory will keep flaring up, and that it's time that I should just write it down, pass it out of my Mental Space and onto Blogger space, so that my mind is freed up for more new memories. This "Annals of the Bad Day Syndrome" is a major symbol of how my mind had "runned over" by academic information overload from last year, with absolutely no time to myself, absolutely no time to reflect, no time to account for my existence and for my relational interactions with the context of my existence... until now... a random day in the late summer where I'm revolting and saying "F-You University!" I can't cater to your arbitrary bureaucratic needs when my own psychological needs need some tending to.
Even Teena and I had a little discussion about this story with Gwaz a couple of nights ago. I'm tired of holding this Heroic Story in my Head. So, here's a brain fart, a brain dump... about 8 months since its passing (of course, it won't be so dramatic this time, because all the immediate emotions and details have passed out of my system, and now they are just memories of reminiscence, skeletal memories, though I have a few details stored in the papers of my massive pile of rubble).
I had always dreamt of missing one Thanksgiving in my life. I have had perfect attendance to Thanksgiving functions since my birth, which in part, I think is worrisome, because it's important to break habits once in a while in order to appreciate them. Heck, even my sister missed a Thanksgiving, potentially in 2004 or 2005, because she was charged to work with her autistic patients that day. She was crying on the phone all day because she was missing all the family. My sister is a living proof that "absence makes the heart grow fonder." It's important to go in absence of elements of your life that you have come to take for granted from mundane, ritualistic routine.
I had also become more appalled by the commercialized aspects of nearly all Holidays in America, long-traditioned holidays... now even more popularized occasions like Quinceneras.... The commercialized element is so meaningless, so plastificated, but when you're with family, then all the plastic crxp sold on advertisements and stores sheds, and you come to feel quite happy in being with your intellectual and genetic kin. That is how I felt at the Thanksgiving of 2008. Grandpa Ray didn't make it, but he almost did... he was off by two weeks or so. So close... so close.... I even showed up a little bit late to aunt Jean's house that year, but I didn't miss Thanksgiving all together.
I thought I was going to leave for Thanksgiving (in San Diego this year with Aunt Judy) on Wednesday evening (which I am sooo relieved that I didn't do that), and finally I let go of my pursuit of ideas and hit the road around 8 or 9 am Thanksgiving morning, hoping that I would arrive in San Diego around noon or one. So, here I was, driving the Toyota Tercel up the Camarillo Grade, and I found myself pushing the gas pedal very, very hard and then when I was about 3/4 up the grade I found myself pushing the gas pedal all the way down, and I started to silently panic as my car started to slow down from 60 mph-50mph-40mph; I was on one of the middle lanes and the closest "open area" I could go to (where there were no cars) was the the extra shoulder lane in the middle of the freeway next to a thin wall that divided the speedy cars on the left versus on the right side of the freeway. My car just slowed and slowed and slowed to a halt, and I'm like "Great. Oh shxt. Perfect location. Spending my Thanksgiving stalled, about one foot away from speedy cars going up and down the Camarillo Grade. What a PERFECT location." Funny in retrospect, but frightening in situ. It was such an appalling point of view, I regret that I did not take pictures from my camera phone about the whole ordeal! I mean, really, of all places I would not want to be in my life, stuck in the middle of the Camarillo grade during Thanksgiving?! Well, thankfully there were not too many cars on the road, which most certainly helps. I remember being extremely panicky, thinking about how all objects I am next to are volatile and could kill me in no time. I was in tears by the time I called AAA auto service. The lady kept me calm and asked me... then stated that she would also send out a police officer to help me out (besides a tow truck, of course). I was just sitting there and at that time my sister Jenny was pissed off at me, and so that delayed a lot of interaction between Mumsy, Bubsy, and me (plus my sister's cell phone was dying), and so I called several times, and the phone was not answered at first, but then once they arrived at Judy's house, I was able to talk to Bubsy several times, but that was way after my time of frightened panic and aloneness....
While the car was shaking and rattling every time that a car zoomed by a couple of feet away from me, I was surprised to find a police officer from Thousand Oaks come by my car (coming from the opposite side, going downhill on the 101). I remember him being very cheerful, helpful, and caring--which was surprising to me, because the last few time I have delt with cops, I have found them to be uncaring and apathetic.
A Series of Largely Unfortunate Interactions with Police Officers
(Trial 1: police officer doesn't care about my stolen i-pod shuffle, $129 at the FedEx Office in Ventura, labeled as "petty theft," though the African-American man in suit and tie was caught on tape at Fedex Office taking my ipod, and they even had his credit card transactions available from that day, the officer didn't do anything that day though he said he would, and Fedex was even willing to work with the officer... and then a month later I didn't hear anything from the police, so I asked for a report, which they made me pay $16 for, and then they told me afterwards that the officer didn't do anything about my "petty theft" because the officer was transferred to a different district (aka he "moved," and no one notified me, because no one at the police department in Ventura cared). Things slip... no one really cares in the end....
(Trial 2: police officer and detective did not care that some Bxtch Lady stole my $1450 for a used MacBookPro with several layers of installed software, February 2009, through a Craigslist ad and cell phone interactions; that's why I'm an idiot, I can't make good decisions in the middle of an academic quarter system, especially since I was desperate; the assistant manager at Bank of America didn't care either, even an hour after the transaction... I told him to void the transaction, but he said he couldn't do that, unless a police officer showed up, and the officer did not show up, as the lady gave me a fake FedEx shipping number, and canceled her Sprint phone account... apparently this lady had a track record of fake sales and poor transactions... the officer said that he could not place a "warrant" unless he knew that the warrant would lead to catching the thief, the detective said that this form of Craigslist theft is common and uncontrollable and too frequent for them to do anything... it could be a spammer from Nigeria creating fake accounts... what bullshxt... from this time I realized (1) there's a lot more theft and crime and violence than can be contained by police officers (2) the police choose what battles to fight and not fight and take care of or deal with, it's a random draw of the hat if you yourself receive any level of "justice" for any crime involved (3) true justice is not accomplished unless if you have a lot of money and can hire a bunch of "lawyers" and other "justice people" to do the work on the crime, otherwise... no one cares... (4) it's much easier to become a criminal than I thought (5) it's the law of mass numbers, collective action problems, the lack of containment of crime... (6) I might consider practicing "criminal thinking," like those mastermind characters in Ocean's 11. A crimininal takes chances in not being caught in his crime because (1) the police are under-staffed and under-funded (2) the police don't care and have other things to do (3) the law of mass numbers are on your side. Anonymity is an advantage)
Trial 3: Two "speeding tickets" within four months, with two rounds of traffic school on line (one school called Cheap Fast Fun, and the other driving school called Comedy Traffic School (with two free tickets to see an Improv comedy show!), because I was going 75-80 miles per hour. The two cop dudes didn't really care who I was. I cried the first time, I was too tired the second time. The first time I was sleepy on the road and didn't see the officer behind me in Carpinteria. That young, buff officer was fresh meat, like this was his first day on the job, and I was his first ever ticket. And he was all happy and cheerful about it. Well, what about me?! I wanted to challenge the police officer: why do you give me a ticket when I drive down in Orange County and San Diego, cars honk at me and flash at me when I'm going 75 miles per hour--I'm going too slow? This is bullshxt.
The second time I was driving from Oregon, back to aunt Jeri Lyn's house in the dark, around Yreka, Weed County, and I was the first car in a crop of cars going on the freeway, and this dxmn cop radar-gunned me from the front of the pack of cars and no one else, even though everyone else was going the same speed I was, and so the officer was so adamant about stopping ME, and no one else! I received a speeding ticket but was too tired to care. Jules gave me advice and told me, "Cops are hunters. It's lions and the gazelles. The best thing to do is stay obscure in the middle of the pack. Cops go after those in the front or the back. They're easier to pick out and pin down." I am convinced the officer gave me a speeding ticket because he needed to raise money for his county. Hxck, they can't even bust all the weed growers in the hills! I met a few of them just stopping at a gas station!
Trial 4: Two police officers who just finished their lunch in Isla Vista, decided, just for kicks and giggles, to stop me and give me a ticket for wearing these flimsy $5 dollar head phones listening to Bjork in order to calm myself down, when I was going to visit Oran in concern of my potential for attending graduate school this upcoming fall. I was so stressed out. I learned that police officers only stop you when they really truly have a SEARCH IMAGE, focusing on YOU (as if they're predators and you're ZOOMED-IN BAIT), and that they FEEL LIKE MAKING THE EFFORT to stop you. Otherwise, you can be as free and illegal as possible, and no one will give a shxt. For example, just in my parents neighborhood in Riverside, a house was busted for being a major weed farm.... It's probably been there for over ten years, and no one knew about it. Being illegal seems to be quite easy nowadays.
Trivial Trials With Cops: I had several cops stop me at night for several random, trivial reasons. In northern California, it seems that cops have nothing much to do than stop people for not much an apparent reason. One time I was driving in the town of Winters (15 miles from Davis, California) for about 2 seconds, and a cop stopped me because I didn't have my lights on right away when I was driving. He thought my driving as "suspicious." Bullshxt. And one time I was getting ice scream but the officer was upset that I was driving 2am in the morning (welcome to UC Davis, where cops have nothing better to do than stop little girls from getting ice scream at the 24-7 grocery store 2am in the morning). Another time, the bulbs illuminating my driver's license plate burnt out, and the officer in Irvine gave me a courtesy notice, recommending me to replace the bulbs. Well, I do admit, the police officer was a very young and HOT blond dude, I was actually on a high of hormones from that experience. Ya, cute cop stops me for a very trivial "burnt-out light bulb" scenario. In that case, he was kind to me.
Much more recently, after visiting Shannon in Oceanside, apparently I made a u-turn in an area in which I wasn't supposed to (I was trying to find the local community college in the area, without much success). A police officer saw me do this, and then he followed me, flaring his lights. I was trying to find a safe place to pull over, and at that time, I was such a nervous wreck because I was pissed off about my Roadtrip Nation experience, being reminded by being in Oceanside, and then Comic-con was coming, and I was very lost in the new town I did not know at all. I finally pulled over at a Home Depot parking lot, and the police officer was an older man, and surprisingly he was very kind to me. He asked to see my license... but at that point I was sooo upset, I burst into tears... because I just went through two other occasions of unnecessarily venturing through traffic school because of speeding tickets (Milton Love said that I should expect a speeding ticket about once every five years, it's more so a phenomenon of the lottery than your actual wrong-doing), and I couldn't deal with this drama of being stopped by a cop ONCE AGAIN!, also just because I went through a Microsoft Office 2010 computer fiasco at a FedEx Office in Oceanside just this morning, that psychologically destroyed me to pieces (I was talking to a dude in India and this guy made me do things to my computer I didn't know about, I am seriously doubting the services and products of Microsoft after this experience!), and as the officer saw me as a nervous wreck, in tears, he felt a level of sympathy. He asked me what I was up to in general--that I was a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, and that I had paint on my car because my friend and I were making a film about careers at the intersection of science and art, and the officer was impressed because most paint on cars was very negative graffiti. In the end, the officer gave me a courtesy notice and was very fatherly, guiding me to the community college, for directions, and said that he didn't want to add anymore drama to my bad day of being lost and frazzled about life in general.
So, presently I have a mixed relationship with police officers, mostly bad interactions, but a few good ones. Experience is largely contingent upon the individual properties of each officer.
By the time, this young police officer approached my fragile vulnerable car and soul on the Camarillo Grade on a Thanksgiving, I was just sooo relieved and elated to see him. The scenario was so dangerous and absurd that the officer didn't even bother to check my driver's license. The officer was there within five minutes and we were discussing what to do next before the Tow Truck Dude from AAA would come and tow my car. I was trying to take my unused, ivy-overgrown blue bike (from Sportsmart) down to San Diego, but it turned out that the police officer wanted to push my car from the middle of the freeway to the right side, where no doubt, I would be much safter. As soon as we took the bike off my trunk-strapped fold-out-metal-bike-holder, the tow truck came. I don't remember what exact procedures were performed, but the tow truck dude quickly latched my car up to his truck, and the bike was thrown in the back of the tow truck. The police officer soon left as soon as he knew that I was safe with the tow trucker, in which he and I discussed what to do with the car. At that point, I made some internal decision to upgrade to AAA plus (so that I could have had my car towed back to Santa Barbara, not to this stupid 76 gas station, repair shop off of Moorpark in Thousand Oaks where they would have charged me $800 to replace the clutch!).
The Indian man at the gas station let me keep the car there over the Thanksgiving weekend, as I gave him my car key. I was trying to figure out how to get myself back to Santa Barbara with the utmost reduced cost (Santa Barbara is about 70 miles away), and at first I called Hector and Katia to see if they could give me a ride, but it turned out that they were in a rush to get to Los Angeles for their family's Thanksgiving celebration, and they could not provide a ride. It was tragic I did not have anyone else I could call. I tried calling Oscar, but he did not respond till 3 or 4 hours later. My housemate Gwaz was gone with his family, Jay was gone... I even tried calling Jay, but I received a "wrong number" from him. Teena just recently lost her cell phone, so she was not accessible, and I didn't have the 207 Hillview house number on me. I did call a taxi cab service, but was doubting that I was going to use it, because I was expecting a $200 cost to get back to Santa Barbara.
Oh ya, so WHY GO BACK TO SANTA BARBARA?! Well, I had this idea that I could use my spare dud Subaru Legacy to get me to San Diego instead. I started walking down the street, attempting to call my parents again, when a taxi cab pulled up right by me. Inside was a rather young guy, with blondish brown hair, who asked me if I needed a ride. He was wearing one of those trendy taxi driver caps. His car was quite clean and new-looking. I said ya, but I'm a student, and I don't think I could afford getting back to Santa Barbara. He then asked, "Well, how much CAN you afford?!" I said, "How much would it cost to get there? He ballparked around $120 with no traffic or unexpected stalls. I said, "I am a student, I can only afford maximum $80"... and then he said he would do it. Wow! What goodwill on a Thanksgiving Day! So, I hopped in, and it turned out that the taxi driver was a very spunky guy who had a horrible driving record in the past, but found this taxi job on Craigslist, and has $1,000,000 insurance on the car and the people in it, through the taxi company, and that it's a sweet job because he drives everywhere in this car.... And over time he accumulated clients over time who are basically "rich people who some how fxcked up with driving but still need to get from Point A to Point B, which is usually Santa Barbara to San Francisco." He gets sweet gigs on the side transporting wealthy people around, and so monetarily it has been working well for him. I think it must also be stimulating in a certain way if you actually get interesting customers... after all the car is a wonderful place to really get to know another human being very well in a short amount of time, it's a small enclosed space, so a lot of intense, focused conversation can occur in a short amount of time.
Which is what happened between me and this guy. It turns out that he is very interested in zombie horror fiction and was thinking about writing a book/story about zombies, with the whole story set in San Francisco. I gave him some writing advice that I could provide. I mostly was probing him about the structure of the story: basic themes, motives, plot, setting, characters, to see how well developed his thoughts were. I think he was elated to have me ask these questions, because it challenged him and forced him to critically think about his story. Along the way home, in which I was a nervous wreck (and I was depressed too, impatient, feeling stuck), there was a slow-down on the 101, around the 15 mile scenic stretch in between Ventura and Carpinteria. It was a severe slowdown, and by the time we passed by the La Conchita landslide area, the taxi cab charge box read some hideous numbers, like $140 dollars, and so the cab driver was kind enough to turn off the box and turn on his good will. He was looking up his i-phone to figure out why there was such bad traffic for about a half-hour, and there was some stupid report on the internet saying there were "two dead dogs on the freeway," but it turned out to be regular tourist traffic. People simply slow down in the area simply, simply, simply to admire the ocean. Possibly the best possible reason for a traffic jam--no accidents, no deaths, just beautiful landscapes to stare at since most people have been largely deprived of these landscapes.
Toward the end, I very much felt like that this guy did half-service, did half-something as a friend. I wished I remembered his name... but I bet I can retrieve it once I look through my pile of rubble in the garage in Santa Barbara. I wished I gave him this bizarre book in our house, which is a compilation of existential quotes from taxi cab drivers in New York (published by Chronicle Books), and Teena said I should have given this book to him, out of gratitude... but I didn't know whether that was appropriate at the time... give away my housemate's book to a generous stranger. In the end, since this guy gave me a half-off discount on the taxi ride and went out of his way on Thanksgiving to help him, I was willing to give him $100 instead of $80. We parted by exchanging emails... one day I might find him on facebook, or he may be writing the next best-seller zombie book, sooo... I'll just see him give a speech at some prestigious writer's conference! I could say this taxi driver is a half-hero; he was a humanitarian today... but I still lost $100.
By the time I returned to Santa Barbara, I startled my housemate Teena, who was working diligently toward making 3 or 4 pumpkin pies from scrap in the kitchen! She was alone at the moment, but was preparing for a feast in the afternoon! I was glad to see her and rambled about what happened to me. I rushed out to try to start the Subaru Legacy, but as I feared the car did not start... and even my car salesman neighbor (Colleen's hubby, why do I not know his name, who ended up working with Teena at a car sales place in Goleta) said that my car probably has a bad alternator. Teena went out of her way to rush to her friend's house to get a pair of spark plug charger wire thing-a-ma-jigs and she spend a half-hour helping me trying to start my car. She hooked up her nice white Dodge to my dusty beige Subaru, and we got the car working. We left the car running Teena said she was sad she couldn't help me get back from Thousand Oaks. Teena was also concerned about the long-term running of the Subaru... that it may stall... so she accompanied me to the 7-11 Citgo gas station off of Calle Real off of Storke Road, as I filled up the tank and was able to miraculously re-start the car without the need of any spark plugs. We both then ventured back to Hillview Drive, and I thanked Teena so much. What kindness! She has been so kind to help me, I told her that I would write a blog about all these acts of heroism and kindness to help me make it through a disasterous day on Thanksgiving and make an attempt to still see my family on this day, though it was probably around 12:30 pm by the time I left Santa Barbara for the second time! And it's so sad... it has taken me about a year to finally account for this unfatefully fateful day, to feel that humans have the ability to reach out and help out someone in troubled need on a random, spur of the moment. I am truly grateful for such humanity... and one day, when circumstances of space and time align, I can help to do the same.
(Interruption, just left Starbucks, went to pick up Bubsy, we went to the house, I discovered my driver's license picture, I looked good though my cheeks looked burnt, placed mail on bed, left the house, went to B of A, deposited check, took out cash for George, went to Bob's Auto Service, picked up car, George also replaced the air filter, cool, paid cash, got 1 dollar back, Bubsy took the Tercel, I drove the Camry, felt less repressed driving the Camry, less baggage, will take to Monterey, deposited one more check at B of A, chewed on my nails, went home, talked with Mumsy and Bubsy about Monterey, dropped off Bubsy, picked up suppplies, went back to Starbucks, here I am, talk about a mundane to-do list!)
By that time I remember driving down to San Diego being extremely depressed and having suicidal thoughts comforting me all the way down. It is a 4.5 hour drive after all (given no traffic, but it was probably more so like 6 hours). I could have stopped for a jog in Lake Forest before venturing down. The sun was setting quite early. My mind was blank... I remember though passing by the Camarillo Grade the second time. I was nervous and started sweating, hoping that my Subaru would not jinx the Toyota Tercel, and low and behold, it made it past this steep grade. I bet my brain was fried from the quarter system process, so I didn't think much of anything.
I made it to San Diego just after dark, and I had to frantically call aunt Judy about 3-4 times, let alone change my clothes in the dark by a gas station, my other clothes were soaked with stink and sweat! Judy forced me to take the 8 freeway and pass by Cal State San Diego. It was quite a trek to reach Judy's place from this route. But I found out afterwards that she lived only 1-2 miles away from Jules' house, which is in Lemon Grove. And I wondered why Judy did not guide us to her house through the 94 freeway? Maybe because of the negative stigmas of the 94 freeway? Or Lemon Grove, and that whole area? Who knows. I reached Judy's place around 6, it was dark, and everyone already split. I was very glad to see her--at least one person in the family for Thanksgiving!--We ended up talking frantically and quickly catching up as much as we could--as now I remember talking with Jean and Chuck over the phone, and I was adamant that we MUST have a Christmas get-together, now that I missed out on 99% of the Thanksgiving event!!! Both Judy and Jean retired this year, but Judy was off to romp around the world again, I think for Peace Corps? Or one of the Corps, for a year or two to China? Or some country in Europe to teach English, or do some foreign language education elsewhere. Judy was very excited and told me that I could come by her place anytime whenever I'm in San Diego. The question is, why haven't I? Well, I need to reflect and write ideas down before I am able to alter my thought process and my behavior! Maybe I'll try to visit Judy, or Andy or Robin, next time I'm down in San Diego!
Judy encouraged me to take some stuffing, some caramel popcorn (which I'm sure made me gain five pounds, it's so sugary and buttery, Jenny took the other half), and some chocolate fudge, which was so richly sweet, that I couldn't eat any of it, nor Jules. I threw away an entire tray of sugar and fat and chocolate. By the time I greeted Jules, he was stuffed from very good food at Grandma Viola's house. I stopped by quickly at their festivities, and everyone was about done with the feast of food, working on deserts. I met about 10 people in less than 10 minutes, so I don't really remember anyone I met. I do remember some nice cupcakes!
I updated Jules with the whole car clutch fiasco (I kept him out of the loop in the morning, he doesn't need anymore drama, he himself had a peaceful day out in the ocean catching lobsters). The next day I had to plan out what to do in order to orchestrate both cars' return to Santa Barbara. I called the 76 gas station, and the Arabic mechanic who worked there said it would cost $800 to replace the clutch. I panicked and said to myself, "Well, I have gotten cheap auto body repair in Oxnard before, so let me see if there's an auto mechanic in Oxnard to replace my clutch for less than $800?" I called George as well, and he said the average cost of clutch replacement would be $400-$500.
The first place I found on Google Maps was Tierra del Sol auto mechanic. I called in, and the guy on the phone said in broken English that he would be willing to replace the clutch for $300. I asked him if I could bring him the car on Monday, and he said, "Yes! We're ready!" Now the issue is, how to get my car from the 76 station in Woodland Hills to down-the-Camarillo-grade-Oxnard?! I called "Bob's Towing" from a random hit on Google, and by chance, I happened to talk to the owner of the operation. He said he was willing to do the tow for $60. Man, what a deal! I thought it would be $150-$200 to get the tow done! The owner asked me to call in early Monday morning, mention that we talked, and I would get my deal rate.
So all of this anticipated car-maneuvering drama was at first mentally and orally orchestrated from San Diego, the safety of Jules' house, and then had to be executed on Monday, in which I left San Diego early, early, early Monday morning such that I could dodge Los Angeles traffic. I think I left around 4am, actually! Jules woke up around that time to prep for work as well, or so I think. I managed to have a smooth drive all the way through Los Angeles, and actually arrived early to Moorpark Road, Thousand Oaks area. I think that morning I was waiting around a little bit, and went exploring, in which I jogged by the hills, and when I stopped to take a number two in the bushes off the side of a road that was very nicely landscaped (actually), I ended up finding my first ever plant fossil! Amazing! I still have to show Dr. Bruce Tiffney my fossil find! I have come to realize that fertilizing bushes does have its incidental benefits. Coming to think of it, who in the hxll knows what I did on Saturday and Sunday... Probably in disillusionment of automechanic chaos either working hard or having fun with Jules.
I managed to snap some photographs of the tow-trucker helping move my car from the 76 station down to Oxnard. Locked by metal and chains, placing two metal-attached lights on top of my caravan I caravanned behind him, and I was guided to Tierra del Sol, which happened to be way off the 1 freeway, Oxnard Blvd., at the end of this obscure Citrus street that seemed to have come from a fictional tale of a movie: A run down complex sprawled with tools, functional cars, scrap metal, of open-spaced buildings that were divded into small teams of independent auto-mechanic teams, who each specialized in certain forms of repair (e.g. oil change, general mechanics, auto body, electric, etcetera), but all coordinated and collaborated, such that as a whole, if you had any problem with your car, you could go down this street, and one of the teams would be able to help you with your car problem. In essence, it was an "organically constructed" "Costco" of auto-repair, except in a much more rudimentary, beat-up form, more similar to shops in Tijuana, than America.
No complaints though, the two guys who helped me repair my car did a great job (my clutch is in great shape), and also ended up giving me a bunch of business cards to pass out to my friends at UCSB (coming to think, it's ironic that if someone needed to perform major car repair, it would be cheaper for a student to tow her is her car to Oxnard than it is to do repair down the street in Santa Barbara; goes to show how upscale the town is in general).
When I was waiting for my car to be repaired, I was driving around Oxnard, and happened to find a FedEx Office and a Starbucks near by, a couple of blocks away, but I had to drive, and I had a police officer follow me on a vacant road. I was so nervous, because I was pissed off to drive this dxmn Subaru--I had not renewed the license because the car had to pass smog (which is a whole other fiasco I engaged in during Christmas break, ending in a general failure). Thankfully, the officer did not stop me because of my out of date blue-colored 2009 sticker on my registration. Amen!
Hector was sooo kind to drive me out in the dark to pick up my finished Tercel, as we caravanned back to Santa Barbara. I ended up buying Hector a giant frappucino (and me, a cheapo tea, cut costs) for all of his efforts! I'm quite thankful for the help! And by that time, I believe all has stabilized, and my already shattered lifestyle had consolidated back into one shattered piece. Car drama with the clutch had temporarily settled. This whole ordeal was sooo mind-numbing, I remember talking to Hector about Nothingness of Nothingness. Nothing in my head was processing into any meaning, everything in my head was empty and shallow. Technically, I had suicidal thoughts, but being around people prevented me from dwelling too deeply. I had to find a way to make my brain operate as if I were pacified by psychiatric pills. This whole ordeal would have been a lot more meaningful if I actually learned about car repair and I learned how to replace my clutch and solve my problems, but no, I paid someone else to do it, and chattered my mind away with other meaningless work. Jules knows a lot about car repair, simply because he's forced several times to repair his boat.
During my Christmas Break of 2009 (or early January 2010), I went through another Subaru Massive Fiasco. Despite my expired Registration Sticker, I took the Subaru down to San Diego, because Jules' brother might be able to buy the car from me for $500, and then he refurbishes it to sell for $1000 or more. One day, as a "minor errand," I took the Subaru to some Xsshole Asian at the "end" of Broadway, underneath the intersection of the 94 freeway and the 125, by Lemon Grove. The Asian Bastard took $50 of my dollars when my car didn't pass smog. Most smog-test-only places actually don't charge any money if the car doesn't pass! It's not that the Subaru was a polluter, it was just that there was a "functional" problem: I had this "engine light sensor" chronically in the "on" position, stating that there was something wrong.... I remember wasting practically an entire stretch of four days attempting to contact someone, anybody, who could get this light sensor to switch off for once! Jules helped me tremendously by driving me around and caravanning, and even at one point, I called George to see what he had to say; he had turned off the light sensor one time, four or five years ago, and he said that he himself would have to check out the situation; it's hard to say over the phone. One dude that the tire shop off of Broadway knew said that he would most likely be able to turn off the sensor and get me to pass smog, but I would have to wait till Monday... but I had to return to school at UCSB. Jules said that I have to stop making investments in this car, and just get rid of it... it's already costing too much time and money and unnecessary drama.
Even though my car was still not "legal" to drive, I drove it over to Carmax on a half-cloudy, half-sunny, half-rainy Sunday afternoon. I was extremely nervous driving in these circumstances, superparanoid about the presence of cops. The Carmax was up on the 805 freeway I believe, near by the Fry's Electronics. I could say that the employees of Carmax were very kind and professional, but I felt a sense of uneasiness, as soon as I entered this place. Maybe because I have some pre-conceived notion that auto sales places are all about trying to maximize personal gain, ripping off the customers. Everyone working there was very smiling and professional, almost too a fault--such that it reminded me that I was surrounded by a bunch of very "loyal, perfect, Christians" who were trying to live through Jesus' word, but surrounding this limited lens of existence, they were boiling in chaos... like they all were holding dirty little secrets of sin and shame. Phony, happy people... used cars? I also think they reminded me of real estate agents: image is everything, but there's lots of dirt hiding all around them, you just have to dig... just a little bit.
So some Happy Dude Used Car Quote Guy talked with me about my car, and some other tall Happy Perfect Dude Inspector drove the car around with me and talked with me about the general conditions of the car. The rain and the wet streets and the setting sun amidst the clouds made me more and more anxious about this "test drive." Soon enough, the Happy Perfect Dude and I returned and with much anticipation, I was hoping that the car value may be at least $500, but Carmax valued the car at $200, in which I was pissed, but then I learned later that this car has no value except for its parts, not as a whole entity (by the way, that is Jules' philosophy of females, they don't have to be a "perfect" package deal, but if you have certain key parts that are super-extra-special, like Jules said he likes my eyes, because they are very eager and open and hungry). Maybe I could have gotten $300 from Pick-a-Part in Riverside, but that's the most. Besides, the oil leak is such a horrendous repair on its own! Who would want to do that? If I could, I would have gotten rid of the car on the spot, but I had too much junk in the Subaru that needed to be cleared out, and how would I be able to get back to Santa Barbara anyway?
I found out retroactively that I could have gone to the DMV and received a waiver stating that I could operate the vehicle, even though the engine light sensor would not go off.... If something is not very easily repairable, the DMV offers waivers. And of course, the Asian Bastard who smogged my car would never tell me that, because he, of course wants my $45 without any consideration of the customer's needs and conditions.
So, I drove the car back to Santa Barbara, and let it sit in the Hillview driveway, for at at least 7 months, without even touching that dxmn car that has constructed such unnecessary grief. The Subaru has acquired faded stickers all over it, three of them being posts of potentially selling the car for $2500, in which the penned font all faded from black to a very light red-orange. An abnoxious orange "threaten-to-tow-away-sticker" was coated with my sloppy layer of black duct tape, because the sticker couldn't even entirely peel off the car. A handful of spiders moved into the car space, such that cobwebs were unavoidable to destroy every time I stuck my hand in any space within the car. It transformed into quasi-mobile storage, where papers accumulated from two years of a trashed life that was going just a bit too fast for my own good.
So here, I have paid homage to the 1993 beige Subaru Legacy, which has backed up my xss one more time on the fateful day of Thanksgiving 2009, in a time of clutch catastrophe with the Toyota Tercel. I admit that though this car has transformed into an "annoying tumor" that symbolized my own escapism from myself, my own sense of fragmentation of pursuits, disconnect from myself and my surroundings, my desire for freedom though I felt mentally stuck, in chains... I am glad that I kept that car long enough, just so it could allow my to transport from Santa Barbara to San Diego, such that I could be with my family during a holiday.... Otherwise, I would have cried in grave depression, for the entire weekend.
It's funny, I don't really have many distinct memories of experience with the Subaru Legacy, just a symbol of a fragmented, torn-up phase in my life. I vaguely remembering my escaping Riverside heat, camping and sleeping in the car in various spots near by UC Irvine, with the various unsorted tumors in my mind, even in Ventura and Santa Barbara. I remember transporting a mattress at one point, I think it was to Momma's house in Orange County. I also suppose that the Subaru Legacy not only represents an escapism from myself, but also an escape and detachment from my friends, especially Talei (who I deeply miss, I don't know how to get a hold of her!). I also remembering Talei and I trying to plot how to escape Riverside--move to Irvine? or Santa Barbara? We were both feeling frustrated in the stuffy, black hole Riverside ambiance. Talei tremendously helped me purchase this Subaru Legacy in the first place. In the summer of 2006, I was hunting down a used station wagon on Craigslist, and ironically I found no station wagons in the Riverside or Orange County or Los Angeles area. Though, there were 3 or 4 station wagons advertised in the Santa Barbara region. I found out later on that there was a Subaru manufacturer/showroom in the Thousand Oaks area, so there was a much higher frequency of station wagons in that region.
My budget was $2000 and I happened to come across a Craiglist Advertisement for a beige Subaru Legacy for $2200. I contacted a man named Vern Hunt, and then I made a huge effort to meet this guy and check out the car in Santa Barbara. We started off discussion at the USA gas station off of Carrillo. First off, I made sure that I could fit and sleep in the back. Vern explained to me that recently there was a case of vandalism, and that the two switches for the lights and wind-shield wipers were damaged (both of them broke entirely later), so he showed me how to operate those switches in a damaged mode. I was willing to deal with the vandalism.
We had a long discussion about the car and cars in general and life, and he drove me around. I learned that Vern had some difficulties in his life--a lady he was with that seemed like a tormenting relationship, and an unexpected, young child--and he was strapped for cash--and that was why he was selling the car. Not that the car had any particular problems... supposedly.... At one point I even think I met the child! Vern lived in Isla Vista, and I think he did a lot of house maintenance jobs, based on looking at his massive, dark-blue van full of supplies. We both went to the DMV in order to figure out the process of exchanging ownership of the vehicle.
Vern asked for $2000 in cash. So, within a few days, I went to the bank to get $2000 in cash, and I convinced Talei to come with me so that we could pick up the car, and I would pay for her gas and buy her dinner. I remember having a crazy, fun time, driving frantically through the streets to get all these errands done such as to change ownership. I even remember a smog check done near by Carrillo, and the man who checked the car passed the smog, but he warned me, "Your car is leaking some oil." So, premonition, somehow I was denying the premonitions for later larger problems... like for example... my car making a horrible clicking noise on the 405 freeway by Irvine late at night, and the oil leak had become so severe that it had to be repaired... by a very nice Persian man near by Momma's house in Mission Viejo (A-something Auto Service). I also learned something key: when transferring ownership, state that the car was a "gift" because otherwise you have to pay taxes on the car to the DMV. I had to pay an extra $200 as a result, because Vern reported that I was paying him $2000. Dxmmit. I also remember having Chuck and Jean check out my car: Chuck checked out the generic mechanics of the Subaru while Jean was excited to do a massive "detailing" of the car. One would mistake Jean as a "field biologist" for her epic ability to diagnose stains inside cars. "And this stain is child barf, and that stain was child poo, and this stain was an oil stain, and this stain was spilled food, and this area is generic foot traffic...." And I asked Jean in awe, "How do you know this stuff?!" and she responded, "Plenty of experience." Whoa... Both Jean and Chuck found it amusing to keep a secret from my mom, and tell the story about "Talei's Car." I also faintly remember my parents being pissed off that I kept the Subaru in Riverside for a while. They asked me to transport the car up to Santa Barbara, which started the whole pestering of "get rid of my car" by my housemates. My parents said that a street-cleaning guy placed a notice on my Subaru stating that it will be towed if I don't move it sooner than later.
If there was ONE positive result from this whole Subaru Legacy car purchase in 2006, I ended up convincing my entire family to switch to AAA Auto Club for car insurance. Both of my cars were insured for around $500 a year (killer deal!), and my mother was appalled that I was paying so little, and she and Bubsy were paying so much for their two Toyotas... and my sister's car! So, my mother went to see the same lady, Wendy, at AAA Auto Club in Riverside, and they switched auto insurance, saving over $1000 per year!!! My Gxdzeeks! So, I may have paid extra up front for this tumorous Subaru Legacy, but it resulted a collective auto insurance benefit for my entire family. No complaints there. Lack of knowledge in one dimension, gained knowledge in another dimension. Thanks AAA! (Actually, right after I had the Subaru towed away, I ventured to the AAA in Santa Barbara and notified them that I donated the car to Kars for Kids, and my insurance only went down by $100... sigh).
Cars... *sigh* modern existential drama that's not real drama. This blog is the final indicator telling me that I do need to take a month off of my life and take autoshop. My fragmented consumer experiences of repairing cars is just appallingly embarrassing. I just went to Comic-con and met a bunch of New Yorkers. If any New Yorker took their time to read this blog about Californian Car Drama, I bet they would be laughing right now. Praise public transportation systems! Bless the subways! Except, subways are nice places for terrorists to place bombs... uh-huh, I see.
I announced to Jules that I towed away my car, and that I was not too emotional about it. I was consciously blank as the tow truck dragged the car out of the driveway, placed it on the truck, made me scribble my signature on a few forms, and then off the car was to a auto junk yard in Santa Paula (about an hour away). It's funny to say to Jules, "The car just represents how fragmented my mind and my life has been for the last five years. And somehow you are helping me put myself back together again. I've eliminated the Subaru, and now I have you!" And of course Jules misread that, "Oh, so you traded in a car for me?" I said, "NO! I didn't mean that! I just mean that piece-by-piece, my mind is coming together, through your friendship, and that I don't need any extra items in my life to remind me that I'm free (or at least my mind is). You remind me of that, all the time!" And then he said, "Of Course! I knew that!"
