READ ME!
What is this all about? Maybe you should read the READ ME READ ME.
February 16, 1996: finally! my cross country trip ... the journal
february 11, 1996, 5 am.
here i am in sonora, texas. i really wanted to escape texas
yesterday,
but when i saw at 8 p.m. that i had 400 miles to go, and it was dark,
and i was exhausted, i changed my mind and stopped in sonora. it was
either sonora or fort something or other, 140 miles away. there is no
hotel off of highway 10 in between the two.
i'm starving. i wish i could have found a subway for a tuna sub, like i
was craving all day yesterday. that would require civilization, however,
which i saw little of.
moving yesterday was surreal. i had finally gone to sleep at 6:30 a.m.,
with everthing packed except for my electronics, my books, cds,
videotapes and kitchen stuff. the packers -- a 30-something latina and
her teenage son -- arrived at 8:25, and the truck driver -- a tall skinny
middle age man -- and his assistant arrived shortlly thereafter. soon
there were four strangers systematically organizing, boxing up, and
carrying away my things. four hours later i was left with an empty
apartment, filled in part only by piles of cat and rabbit hair, and the
mountain of belongings i had set aside for my car. the driver, on his
way out, told me that he had only one other drop off on the way to san
francisco, and expected to arrive there on wednesday, thursday, or
friday. how speedy!
i proceeded to attempt to sweep up the animal fur, and even cleaned
the bathroom, but just a little, doing all i could to procrastinate the
hellish experience of loading up my car.
it took me two hours to squeeze all of my things, as well as edward and
jennifer, into my car, but i did, and by 2 pm, after saying ta-ta to eric, i
was on the road.
and what a road it was. texas is pretty ugly. mile after mile of
concrete, strip mall and billboards. i felt like i was in a neil stephenson
novel. there were some nice areas, where highway 10 cut though
hillsides, but not too many. mainly just miles and miles of yellow
desert, spiked by the occasional tumbleweed (yes, those things really do
exist) here and there. even though i was listening to cds, as well as
james and the giant peach on books on tape, i was bored silly. 400
miles later, in sonora, i could not drive any longer, and stopped here. i
was asleep by nine p.m.
i woke up at 4:30 am to the sound of edward crying over the unfairness
of being in an unfamiliar place. good thing rabbits don't cry out loud
also, although i imagine that jennifer doesn't have too much to
complain about, because for the first time ever, i let him sleep outside
of his cage and under my bed. he finally emerged out from under it
when i started typing this.
i might as well shower and hit the road soon. i started listening to
"women who run with the wolves" on tape last night, and i must say i
find it pretty inspiring. the author, a female psychoanalyst named dr.
estes (i think) devotes
much time to drawing comparisons and links between sexual energy
and creative energy. although i had never thought of it that way
before, it makes a lot of sense to me.
sunday nite past midnite. nothing on tv. i just totally
cheated and
checked my email i couldn't get through to netcom tech support
(surprise, surprise) to see if they have a local number, so i broke down
and made a long distance call to neosoft.
i am such a loser.
and, to add insult to injury, i had no personal mail to speak of. could it
be that my friends have actually read "read me" and know that i am off
line for a couple days?
i doubt it.
i did get a hate letter, sent from my friend rebecca, bitching that her
friends haven't written her. she sent it to the wrong address.
and my sister wrote a letter asking where i am.
can't these people just read "read me"? i made it lynx-friendly. sheesh.
anyway, i'm in indio. i drove 1100 miles today and i am still not tired.
my goal was to make it to the california border, and i passed that by 92
miles. i'm so proud.
perhaps it was because i got 12 hours of sleep last nite. more than my
average weekly total over the last four weeks. i must confess, after i
wrote the 5 am entry this (yesterday?) morning, i had every intention
of getting out of bed and getting an early start on my drive. instead i
lay back down on the king size bed and slept for another four hours.
when i woke, edward and jennifer were lying nose to nose under the bed.
it was indescribably cute.
what was not cute, however, were the machinations i had to undergo to
get jennifer out from under the bed. 15 minutes and a backache later,
we were all packed up and back in the saturn, hitting highway 10 west
once again.
i wanted to make this an interesting and personable road trip journal.
unfortunately, it will be quite boring and short. highway ten west -- the
southern route -- is about as dull as a road can get.
texas is one hell of a huge state. i didn't make it out of the state until
2
pm. since that was my target time, i was happy. i was also happy to
be the hell out of there.
most of all i was happy because i was listening to the rest of the women
who run with wolves tape. even though i was hoping for more stories,
the author says some very interesting things. for example, similar to
neil stephenson (speak of the devil), she compares socialization and
religious upbringings to a computer virus, which attacks our natural
"operating system," and we as women should seek to disinfect ourselves
of this virus in order to become all that we were meant to be.
geez, i've known that all along.
she emphasizes that women need to stop trying to care what men and
what society at large think of us, and instead search inside of us to find
our true drives and our true natures. she quotes that saying that i love
-- an artist is asked if he likes to paint, and he says no. when asked,
consequently, why he paints, he says, because he must.
simiarly, dr. estes urges, we must find what it is we must do, and
then do it. like the "ugly duckling," we will often find that, when in the
right environment, we will become swans.
the goal is not to survive, she emphasizes, but to thrive.
she also says some things about bitterness and rage that hit home with
me. she note that at some time in a woman's life, a woman will face
the question of whether she should be bitter or not. she says that it is
close to impossible to live as a woman, in this society, without being at
least a little bitter. she urges women to take the rage flowing from this
bitterness and channel it into a positive, creative force. it will give
strength and power to our art.
what a great book.
well, there's not much more to say about the 1100 mile drive i had
today. it took me 24 hours to find a subway (if you start counting
from the time i left houston and include the time i was sleeping)...
which i finally found close to the texas/new mexico border, when i
thought i was about to pass out from hunger. i was screaming to
myself, "civilization! civilization! give me a tuna sub!!"
new mexico was surprisingly small. looking at a map, i now
understand.
arizona was pretty long. thankfully, i put in my donna summer cd
around phoenix, and listened to it over and over again all 200 miles to
indio.
i almost stopped in blythe, the first town into california, but some voice
in my head (you hear a lot of those when you are in your car alone all
day) was shouting, "no! indio!"
i have no idea why i had to be here, but i like it. it reminds me of the
weekend i spent with john and his family in palm desert, the
neighboring resort town. listening to donna summer also reminded me
of john, as did the women who run with the wolves tape. especially the
part where dr. estes urges us to find a mate who is from the "soul" ...
and who relishes in our creative capacity, rather than tolerates it. i
fear that john will be, as long as i live, the only "s.o." of mine to truly,
and completely, believe in me like that. well, even if, when i die, he
still
is the only one, i am lucky to have lived and to have one such person.
getting back to fluffy stuff, did i mention that california has two
mandatory road stops set up even before a driver reaches indio? even
though i have a half-empty bottle of stohli, which would constitute an
"open container," a cat, a rabbit, and a fairly noteworthy amount of
marijuna in my car, the check-point people just waived me on. ah, the
joys of being a blonde young-looking white woman driving a saturn.
blech.
the front desk guy gave me a great deal on the room rate here. i guess
he didn't realize that i was going to break the phone and let loose a cat
and rabbit in the room.
shit happens.
oh, here's the speed limit low-down: texas is 75 in the day, 70 at night
(don't ask), new mexico is 75 miles per hour, as is arizona, if i
remember correctly, and california is 70 for cars, 55 for trucks. go
figure. i thought that one state had 80 per hour, but i can't remember
right now. what i do remember, however, is that i blew through pretty
much the rest of texas in the morning at a rate of 100 miles per hour. i
even took my saturn up to 105, just to see if it could go there. (of course
it could!)
at times i was the only car for miles and miles in each direction. i
kinda remember a ray bradbury story like that. only that story, i think,
involved the nuclear apocolypse. texas is one big yellow state. it's nice
to be back in california, where i belong.
500 more miles, and i'm at my goal. san francisco.
well, i'm there.
actually, i arrived yesterday, at about 5:30 p.m. i actually was a little
pissed at AAA for recommending that i leave the ten and head north at
san bernadino rather than drive through l.a.. i found myself stuck on a
vast expanse of two-lane highway, winding through an ocean of yellow
desert, tumbleweed, and occasional tractor.
my mantra then became (i never thought i would say this!) get me to
the five ... i want the five ... just the five ...
ultimately, i made it.
february 15, 1996.
i spent tuesday registering my car, getting back my california
driver's
license (it was still in the computer!), setting up a bank account, etc etc
etc ad nauseam.
the movers arrived wednesday.
i am now surrounded by boxes.
that is why i haven't updated the page in a while.
i am also attempting to get my apartment connected to cyborganic's ramona
t-1
router by ethernet. wish me luck!
soon this page will be back to normal.
hope you enjoyed my trip as much as i did. it now feels as if it never
even happened, and i never left san francisco in the first place.
now, off to tnd!
or, if you must, back to Rebecca's Revenge
Copyright 1996 Rebecca Eisenberg mars@bossanova.com