Eating Copies of Food and Wine for Sustenance
I like leaving the house and I like seeing new things, so that means a good portion of my memory space is taken up by time I spent in stores. I vividly remember walking into Electronics Boutique and coming across Road Avenger for the Sega CD, then asking the suited salesperson if it was actually good and mulling over the purchase for at least 30 minutes (intro was great, game was fine). There’s a warm place in my heart for the fake red pen “hand writing” on the Kaybee Toys clearance price tags. Some day as the last neuron fires in my brain, I’ll tell some Kia-sponsored elder care A.I. about the time I found Machine Gun Joker and Harley Quinn figures in a Bradlees that was going out of business.
But when I think of the Borders magazine section, I think about how my body would often run out of gas while perusing the stands, stranded next to polybagged copies of Easy Rider magazine, lacking the internal combustion to produce enough energy to get in the checkout line or even just go to the car.
I used to spend a surprising amount of time reading magazines at Borders. Not enough that I personally killed the company—I did my part by using my credit card to buy monthly import issues of Terrorizer and Computer Music at premium prices—but I’d say my visit:buy ratio was hovering somewhere around 5:1.
It was far away, but somewhat near the laser tag facility I worked at, so I’d often treat myself to a visit to the bookstore for making the 30 minute journey to spend a couple of hours telling kids and surly teens to not run in the laser tag arena.
I found the magazine section fun, because it seemed full of possibilities. Honestly, the whole store seemed like a well of knowledge to me, but the magazines seemed easier to drink. Like if I decided I wanted to be a bike guy, I could pick up Mountain Bike Action magazine or if I wanted to be an insufferable prick, I could pick up one of the various skeptic magazines. Again, I hate being outside, so it was the prick’s path for me. Please don’t ask me about ghosts.
But on many occasions, it would be time to leave and I just couldn’t for some reason. Like all of a sudden Car and Driver magazine would become really interesting to me even though my car was a 4 speed Toyota Tercel that handled like a Mario Kart and the process of approaching the exit line felt like following the instructions for assembling a shelf purchased off of Amazon from one of those companies that seem to pull the letters of their name out of a hat. Possible, but difficult.
If I wanted to crawl up my ass with a lightly plausible explanation as to why I often stalled out next to the racks of Cosmopolitans, Vogues and Cat Fancy magazines, it would be because the brain uses a lot of glucose and my undiagnosed Cystic Fibrosis Related Diabetes meant it was feast or famine. There’s a good chance that my blood sugar was at a hilariously low level and my lack of drive was my brain saying “let’s see you get out of this one without my help” as the exit to the store seemed to do a Hitchcock zoom away from me.
Though perhaps I was just tired. My health was not great and my prescriptions were not plentiful. I probably wasn’t getting as much sleep as I should, because I never have. I dislike going to bed and I dislike waking up, which is a bad combination. Or maybe my body just craves a life amongst the magazines, learning “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Blackberry!” and reading about the latest in digital cameras until the march of progress claims me too.
The DMV
Going to the DMV is like an anxiety dream where you are back in school and there’s a test and you’ve been studying your chemistry day and night, but it turns out the test is on Geography. Unfortunately, the DMV is real.
I recently did a lease buyout on a car, both because we ended up getting a great deal on it and also because I kind of wanted to see if I could figure out how to do a lease buyout. It unfortunately means I get to register a car at the DMV for the first time in 8 years.
Connecticut DMV works by appointment only, which is convenient in that there aren’t really any lines, but less convenient in that they’re usually booked a month out. I spent a lot of that month studying up on the registration process and making sure I had all my paperwork in order.
Long story short, if you car is newer that 4 years old, you don’t have to do emissions, but that’s calendar years not model years, so when I brought my paperwork up, the very nice lady made a lot of “hmmmm” noises and lightly shook her head. She called a co-worker over to confer and the coworker said “You’ll have to ask the manager. I can’t wait to hear the answer to this one!” That’s never what you want to hear after you’ve handed someone paperwork.
Technically the car was purchased in NY and I’m registering it in CT, which has thrown a couple of very exciting unknowns into the equation, but the manager was very helpful in getting me a temporary registration so I can get the emissions checked. Now I get to wait a month to find out if there will be surprise taxes. I find the suspense riveting.
Things I Like
I saw two semi-related documentaries that I really enjoyed this week. First, Chop and Steele, a documentary about Joe and Nick from Found Footage Festival and the time they got sued for booking themselves as fictional strongmen on some morning news broadcasts. It’s very funny and I’m a sucker for a story about people who continue to do the weird thing even when it’s difficult.
They also produced a documentary called A Life on the Farm which is about a very strange video/series of videos that I don’t want to say anything about if you’re not familiar with it. The documentary is funny, odd, a little sad and surprisingly beautiful by the end.