leaving

By this time tomorrow i'll be on the road towards Wisconsin. No more bus rides for over a month.

I've procrastinated the planning and the packing for as long as possible and now i'm left, as usual, at the last minute to frantically coordinate everything in my life into a few bags. My stomach is twisted. My mind feels scattered and half broken. And I'm going to visit my grandfather in the hospital in about an hour.

Change happens all the time but i know sometimes it's good to force it upon yourself. This has been a long-term effort that has, until now, been a concept. In retrospect, I'm sure it will seem minor. But for now, the movement from interior to exterior seems like a wide, dark gap. A drive. A simple drive across mostly flat land through New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin—seemingly uneventful but potentially emotionally rugged. Flatness and expansiveness has the tendency to contrast with other areas of upheaval. My thoughts, like a silhouette against the landscape.

It should be interesting.

hot fat

When i left work the other day, it was 113º  and 3% humidity outside.

I have to walk across a McDonalds parking lot, whose oil effluent (smell and material) is hosed down every morning and evening. I always have to navigate the frantic drivers heading towards the drive-up and their hamburger blinders (must get burger, must get burger) but on this particular day, not only was the line for the drive-up wrapped around the building but was forming in other directions, too. Cars angled themselves from the east and south street entrance. A car coming from the west inched forward. They were all converging, converging.

The loud hum of car air conditioner fans temporarily drowned out the sounds of street traffic and my eyes sizzled and choked on a mixture of dryness, dust, car fumes, and ambient cooking oil smell. The parking lot was full. I didn't want to be too conspicuous by staring into the vehicles of the waiting mass—assuming their universal fear of the world outside of a set of doors—but i wanted to try to catch some similarities that would all drive them to this place all at once at 5:25pm.

What was it about the searing dry heat and the comparable and even more unpleasant, searing and stuffy car that lured them to unknown quantities of oil, saturated fat, large servings and non-ice cream ice cream? With gas at over $4 a gallon and the possibility that they could be stuck in the drive thru chute for almost 10 minutes, what could be so enticing as to bring them there? In a city full of eating options including large overly-cooled grocery stores with ready-made dishes, WHY would you choose to remain in your vehicle and watch the gauge on your fuel tank dip lower and lower?

Sometimes i'm like an alien living in this strange land—a place where sweating off your entire backside is preferable to lifting your body up and walking 10 yards to a door. I assume some of them stared at me in wonderment and pity, thinking who in their right mind would choose to walk anywhere.

Are we not humans? Do we not have legs, muscular systems, lungs, blood, brains, etc—all coordinating with each other to make it possible for us to move? Have our bodies become so detached from our minds that a small, contradicting, self-defeating alien shouts out that we should do counter to what we're designed to do? It's a sad view. It's a view from a bizarre dream. It's a scene out of a movie i haven't seen that's about something that we like to think hasn't happened yet.

Nonconformity

I have always had issues with doing things the way everyone else does. It probably started even earlier, but i can remember as far back to the age of 5 or 6. We were riding the bus from Sinking Spring to (probably) Reading or the Berkshire Mall or maybe the VF Outlets to buy some velcroed sneakers or Lee brand jeans for my dad (our jeans were either handed-down or bought on employee discount at Sears). We must have sat towards the back because i remember having a clear view of the backs of everyone's heads. People sat dutifully in place, facing forward, quiet. Me, my sister and mom were probably pretty quiet too considering my mother's tendency towards that and our tendency to not want to piss off my mom by acting up.

I watched the backs of everyone's head as the bus bounded over potholes and around curvy roads. The bus went left—the people went left. The bus turned right—the people leaned right. The bus went over an especially deep pothole—the people's head jostled in uniform movement. It really bothered me. I can't remember if i had a sense of any order in the universe at that age despite my scary ponderings of what existed beyond the stars. Laying awake at night on my top bunk (my sister rolled around too much and would fall out of bed so had to be on the bottom bunk) i would try to imagine what was beyond the stars and then what was beyond that and beyond that and beyond that. Then i was feeling dizzy and crying and completely unable to fall to sleep. The vastness of the universe was too much for me.

Witnessing people's head dutifully falling into a uniform bus-moving pattern was too much for me as well. If the bus leaned left, i leaned right. If it went over a bump and people's head fell into a rhythm of movement, i would try my best to do the opposite of each of their movements, either by sitting perfectly still or yanking my neck and back counter to any natural force of nature. In the process, i'm sure i must have bonked heads with my sister or rammed into my mom's cool, freckley shoulder once or twice. They assisted in the process by not questioning my behavior or trying to correct me in my proper bus movements.

I still think about it now nearly every time i ride the bus. I still feel a little bit of annoyance that it really does make more sense to just allow myself to move the way the bus wants me to move me. I still want to pull an ever-expanding set of detachable puppet strings to keep everyone from moving the same way. "Break free!" i want to say, or wanted to say. "Loosen the shackles of this thing we call movement dynamics or physics or perpetual motion!". "Determine your own movements! Don't let anyone tell YOU how to move!".

It seemed to make more sense then. "Fools." i thought then. I assumed i had defined my individuality and personal power by fighting that which seemed inevitable. 

Sizzling bacon

Riding the bus this time of year in Phoenix becomes 2 things: Survival Mode and Funky Season.

Survival Mode

I realized pretty quickly after moving to Phoenix 12 years ago that taking the bus here was different than any other place. In the "hot season" (as I'll call it which can start as early as April and last as long as mid-October) it starts to become a matter of personal survival. The strongest, the most resourceful, the most clever do the best and are rewarded by a fully arctic-mode bus air conditioning system. The weakest are quickly dwindled away either by fainting or become so overheated and sun-crazy that they become the person walking down the street gesturing and talking loudly to themselves with a full, leathery tan. I guess you could call either of those a form of heat exhaustion or sun stroke. Neither seem fun to me.

To prevent this, what I've come up with is a bag weighted-down more and more by what become essential travel items. The basics are what they suggest to you on the friendly clip art and stock photography PSAs provided on the bus. Happy smiling people stare down at you wearing hats, white clothing and an umbrella while another couple chug on water bottles. So that starts the bare minimum for me. The full array could consist of:

1. water
2. hat
3. umbrella
4. long sleeve shirt (to cover from sun or to stay warm on the bus)
5. blue ice packs (to keep food, lunch or water cold—it will actually get hot)
6. snacks (sometimes the bus breaks down while running the a/c on full blast in 110 degree weather)
7. book (for waiting and reading on the bus)
8. iPod (so pissed-off people who are waiting un-preparedly don't talk your ear off about how late the bus is—what am I supposed to do about it?)
9. phone (to call for help if you're having a stroke? or when that pissed-off person gets annoyed that you're not as annoyed as them which sounds ludicrous but has actually happened to me "well you're awful patient!")

Funky Season

When the temperature is consistently over 110, despite the "dry heat", the body still is sweating profusely and there's really nothing that can be done about it. It's funky time. Time to start recognizing that all those odors you used to think emanated from things like garbage cans or strange greasy alleys come from human beings. And actually, it's just the guy standing up in front of you while you sit and try VERY HARD to breathe through your mouth, stare as far downward as possible and look intensely interested in the book you're not-reading. Even you could be the funky person—you're only human and you're not different than the other people there. It's not as though people forgot to shower, it's just that it doesn't matter anymore. I think Phoenix was even voted the sweatiest city by some deodorant company (do they sell more to us?). And while we'll never compare to a New Orleans day of 98 degrees and 90% humidity, there's something equally unsettling and apocalyptic about starting your day off at 7am and 95 degrees with a high of at least 110. It is an oven, fair and square. Stand in front of any oven long enough and you will squint your eyes and start to sweat.

Maybe i should add eye drops to that list? Oh yeah, and a dust mask for when monsoon season hits and dust storms hit oh-so-conveniently right around quitting time.

My bag is getting heavy.