A curse

I have a friend who mocks me whenever I make allusions to fate or karma or any other such ephemeral force.  But it is at times like these that I must, even in the face of his derision, assert that, when it comes to cars, I am cursed.
Let me give you a brief history first.  Well, I'll try to keep it brief.

1. My first car (affectionately referred to as "The Carcass Mona") developed a fun quirk of blowing smoke in through the vents--you know...to keep life interesting.  The last time I drove her I was bundled up in hat, gloves, coat, and scarf as I drove her through the Provo canyon in mid December with all the windows down.  She promptly retaliated such harsh treatment by enveloping me in a choking cloud of smoke the moment we stopped moving.  So chalk one up to attempted murder by asphyxiation.
2. Next car that I drove wasn't actually mine, but my brother's.  I borrowed it to drive to work the summer he spent in Alaska being manly.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a job till half-way through the summer, and as such, was without any money for to procure insurance.  Unfortunately, the week I finally got my job with Target (but had not yet been paid) was the week that the police decided to pull me over for the tail light which had been out on my brother's car for the last three years.  I would have gotten off with a warning had he failed to ask me for my insurance.  Instead, I got a hefty ticket, a nice tow to an impound garage (plus the fee to keep Steve there for three days, as my dad couldn't take me to pick him up any sooner) and the cost of insurance.  In a matter of three days I burned through a little over $1000.
3. A week or two after posting bail, I was driving to my second job when my tire blew out.  Not just blew, but shredded entirely, all the way around.  One helpful biker, three family friends, and a call to AAA later, I drove on Steve's little donut tire over to Les Schwab (one of my favorite companies of life, by the way, right after Geico) where I showed them my impressively shredded tire and they told me that, not only would I need to buy a tire to replace that one, but I'd have to buy three others as well.  They were all dangerously cracked from the heat and in danger of the similar fates.  My brother informed me that it was my job to pay for all four tires.  Another $400 dollars down.
4. A few weeks after that my brother returned from being manly in Alaska and took his car, with its four new tires, down to Utah.  Having recently payed out almost $1500 dollars in the last month I had deferred out of school.  Which meant remaining in Oregon and continuing to work.  Which meant I still needed a car.  Which meant borrowing $2000 from my dad to purchase a "new" car from a Mexican man whose wife was deported so he needed the cash.  But hey!  It came equipped with a BYU sticker in the rear window!  What are the chances?
5. Two months after that, as I was slowly digging myself out of debt to my parents, yet still cherishing dreams of returning to school in winter semester, my head gasket died, causing my engine to overheat.  Against all the expert expectations of my mechanic, the engine block did NOT crack (I do have small blessings here and there), but the new head gasket, water pump and...um...some other stuff came to a nice round total of $1600.  Goodbye school.  
6. After a year and a half in Oregon I finally accepted that I would never actually come out ahead on the financial front.  I moved back to Utah and re-entered school.  I was promptly pulled over by some bored Provo policeman for driving 9 miles over the speed limit on University Ave.  Ticket.  Can't even remember how much.  It came days after witnessing my friend walk away scott free after being pulled over going 65 in a 35 zone.
7. Driving my roommate to the airport a few months later.  My brand new tire, purchased mere weeks before, blew out a smidge past Thanksgiving Point.  After calling my friend to rescue my roommate and get her to the airport on time (at this point my friends are beginning to notice the curse) I drove 40 mph on a donut tire down about 15 miles of a Utah Interstate, nearly get killed by a semi truck, and finally make it to my friends at Les Schwab (seriously.  love these people)
8. Its the end of the semester and I'm booking it up to campus to make it to a test.  Turning left on the tail end of a yellow light I get in a fight with an SUV who also wants to spend time in the intersection.  My car, being made of metal, comes out ahead, with only a shattered headlight casing and a peeled back fender (but leaving the bulb in tact) as opposed to his mangled fender and door.  Unfortunately, the police don't see things quite this way, and give me a ticket.  Bless my dear friends at Geico--the only people I love more than Les Schwab--they don't hike my insurance.  Another sneaky blessing.
9. I am at a friend's house the day before I am supposed to leave to drive up to Oregon.  I've run inside to grab her and the car is idling out front waiting.  At least, that's how I leave it.  We return from the house to find it dead and nothing will get it started.  After a huuuuge favor in the form of a ride up to Oregon, my brother takes the car to be fixed while I'm gone.  I still don't know what they said was wrong with it.  I just remember that it cost me another $600 to get it fixed.  
10. Fixing the fixing over the next two months costs me another $200-ish.
11. Despite my almost obsessive habit of clipping my keys to my purse the moment I take them out of the ignition (a habit born of one too many desperate hunts through the apartment for keys 10 minutes after I am supposed to be gone for work) I somehow manage to leave them in the ignition and then lock them in the car.  Thankfully my dad was in town and was able to break into my car (we don't talk about the clanking sound my window now makes when you close the door) and rescue me.  And then rescue me again when the car battery, which was dead, marooned me at the grocery store an hour later.
12. It's been a year and I've not had any problems.  It's about time for something to go wrong, especially as I'm leaving again to Oregon the next day.  Always to be counted on, the curse comes through and again, the day before my planned departure, my car refuses to start.  This time, however, it seems that time alone is all that is needed.  As soon as my expert is called in to diagnose the problem Sharry Baby starts like a dream.  I am left to drive in Oregon in an uneasy state of mind, wondering every time I turn my key if this is the moment she'll choose to shaft me...
13. A few months problem free and I've been lulled into a false sense of security.  Just to keep me on my toes though, I get another two days of car failure.  She wont start and she also wont tell me why.  Again, as soon as the mechanic friend gets in touch, all problems mysteriously disappear.  I am still waiting, therefore, for the other shoe to drop.
14. Interspersed throughout this four year history are innumerable dead batteries caused by my failure to turn my headlights off, culminating in the purchase of a new battery ($70) when the old one starts dying WITHOUT the lights being left on.

And there you have the history of my car curse.  I grant you, plenty of those are caused by my own failures--of memory or whatever.  But you must admit that plenty of them aren't.  Enough to make anyone start to wonder if she is suffering from a car curse.  Brand new tires blowing out for no discernible reason.  Mechanics who mess the job up, but still charge you full price to fix it.  And a neurotic car that plays mind games...

...and last night the curse struck again.  Upon walking out of the [Two] Dollar Theatre in Provo I was confronted with the rather confounding sight (or rather, lack thereof) of nothing but air where my car was supposed to be.  It would seem another hidden blessing of my colorful car history is that I have learned to take such disconcerting blows with a fair amount of equanimity.  At this point I rather expect something to happen to my car than the opposite.  So I stood and looked for a few minutes, as though I thought my car was simply teasing me and would step out from behind a light post any minute, chortling mischievously.  Once it finally registered that a.)my car really doesn't chortle and b.)she certainly wouldn't fit behind a light post I kicked my brain in gear and called one of the other people who'd been at the movie with us.  While my two companions started asking me what my car looked like to begin looking for it around the parking lot (I don't put it past her to do something like that to me, but so far her powers of movement under her own volition have been fairly limited so I had my doubts as to the likelihood of this possibility) I went to examine the signage to find some hint as to the fate of my car.  While I did notice the heretofore UN-noticed red curb that had most likely instigated this entire fiasco, I did not see a sign anywhere telling me how to find my car.  It was around this time that my friends showed up and gave us all rides home.  

I woke up this morning uncharacteristically early, no doubt because of the lingering awareness in my subconscious that my car had not made curfew last night.  I'll make such a great mother.  Anyway, I thought through my options and resolved on calling BYU Parking services.  No answer.  Ok...um...front desk?  Still no answer.  I guess it IS Saturday after all.  One last try to BYU Police, even though I know they can't help.  But theoretically they should still be answering their phones even on a Saturday and maybe they can tell me who I can call.  Turns out that when you're towed you are supposed to call the police.  Just not the campus ones.  So they transfer me over to Provo police who finally confirm that yes my car was towed last night and not stolen.  Well, at least I know where she is.  To make a long story short, $145 later my car is back home with me, safe and sound and the curse remains alive and well.  Here's to fate!

A bit of philosophy

I’m going to apologize preemptively for this post, as I already know that it is going to be kinda long, kinda disorganized, and kinda less polished than I like my posts on this blog to be…in general.  What can you do?

It is difficult for me to organize my thoughts on this one.  I don’t know where to start or where exactly I want to end up.  I suppose I ought to begin with a little philosophy.  Not Deep Philosophy.  Just a little philosophy puddle, really, of my own creation.  This philosophy states that, in general, every person acts in the very best way they can, according to their understanding.  While I acknowledge that there will always be exceptions to every rule, I am going to say that, insofar as I can ever consider anything absolute or “across the board”, I consider this rule to be generally applicable.  Hence, no matter how bizarre a person’s behavior may appear, or how callous or cruel or insane, if you could only understand his or her thought process, experience, and just the brainpan in general, you would understand why that behavior was, to him or her, a good thing/logical thing/right thing to do.  This does not mean that people don’t make mistakes, or do bad or wrong things.  Just that, in the moment, they almost always think that they’re doing the right thing, or at least the least bad thing that they can.  I find that if I interact with those around me with this assumption it always helps me to understand them better.  If you believe that everything they do has some sort of rationale (as opposed to being specifically calculated to offend or hurt you) and all you have to do is figure out the thought process that led to it, you are much less likely to get your feelings hurt or at least, you won’t hold the hurting of those feelings against the person.  Hmm…did that sentence make any sense?  Oh well.  Pressing onward!

This being said, we’re going to leave my philosophy puddle sitting there on the mental sidewalk for a moment and turn our attention elsewhere.  Which is to say, we’re going to talk about me for a second.  I can’t help it.  I have to tell the story that goes with a new idea.  Anyway…

See, here’s the thing.  While most of the time I walk around doing a fairly good impression of a sane person, every now and then my disguise cracks and I become perceptibly crazy for a few days.  Not terribly frighteningly dangerously insane.  Just a bit unhinged and irrational.  I daresay it happens to more people than like to admit it.  Or maybe I just tell myself that to make myself feel better.  The point is, when this happens I desperately need to be around my fellow human beings.  If nothing else I can ape their behavior as a means to moderate my own.  Of course, it is inevitable that when one of these spells strikes all of my favorite people are out of reach.  Out of town here and there doing good and worthy things that I nonetheless resent them for because it means that I, in all my selfish glory, must deal with my unhingedness all on my lonesome.  Which is a very bad situation for me.

Such was the situation last weekend.  The insanity was coming, inexorable as the tide, and I was desperately seeking to stem the flow and failing on every effort.  My last hope was a visit to a dear friend of several years.  Alas, it was not to be.  I am still ignorant as to the explanation of his behavior, but upon my arrival at my friend’s home I was quickly made aware that something was wrong and my presence was not just a burden, but utterly unwanted.  Suffice it to say, I only spent a few hours in my friend’s company.  After those few hours I left in a state of such agitation, confusion, and hurt that I wished earnestly for the release of tears (which, of course, would not come), a thing I have never wished before in my life. 

I promise I’m coming to a point eventually.  

You see, I was sharing this painful experience with my mother this evening and she, like one or two other friends, advised me that I had done nothing wrong, and this dear friend of mine had treated me terribly.  She told me not to punish myself or go groveling to my friend trying to apologize for some unknown offense when he was the one who had actually acted wrongly.  She told me that it was up to him to make amends with me, and that until he did I ought to try to put it out of my mind.

Here we come to another puddle of my personal philosophy.  Is it philosophy when you just have a particular perspective about something?  Whatever.  The point is that I believe that all relationships are, ultimately, an exercise in cost-benefit analysis, where the value of the relationship in question is weighed against the value of one’s personal will.  The higher the value of the relationship to an individual the more likely she is to defer to the health of that relationship at the cost of her personal will.  Of course, in any good relationship both parties are engaging in this balancing act, saving one person from having to give up their entire self for the other.  Ultimately, it is this give and take which defines the importance of the relationship to you.  And when it is really and truly a deep and abiding connection you might be amazed at what “nonnegotiable” opinions/resolutions/behaviors you are suddenly willing to negotiate in order to maintain it.

This post isn’t meant to be so specific, related only to my bad experience of this weekend.  That experience simply serves as a very effective example of the point I’m trying (rather unsuccessfully) to get at.  I am trying to bring my two philosophy puddles together into one great big giant doo-HOO-zey of a puddle.   See, when I first considered my mother’s advice I thought she must be right.  That I had been mistreated and I ought not succumb to the impulse to abase myself at the feet of my friend and beg forgiveness when I didn’t even know what I had done to offend him.  But then I began to wonder why that was such a bad idea.  You see, if I know that my friend is acting with a reason that is valid to him (puddle #1) then does it really matter what that reason actually is in the determination of my reaction?  To answer that question you have to ask yourself why it is so important that your friend apologize to you when he or she mistreats you (rather than vice versa).  Again acknowledging that nothing in life is ever an absolute, I will put forth that essentially it is always nothing more than an affirmation of the value of your will over the value of the relationship (puddle #2).  This, by the way, is a fancy way of saying pride. 

What am I saying?  That that need you feel to be recompensed for abuse, even if with nothing beyond an apology, is actually a demand that your will be acknowledged as more valuable than the person who wronged you.  But what is our will, that it should hold such a valuable position?  What are we gaining from such an evaluation?  Really, I want you to think about it…  

Perhaps what is more important is to ask what would it cost us to evaluate things differently?  In the case of my friend, I can say without a moment’s hesitation that our friendship is infinitely more valuable to me than the ephemeral satisfaction I might gain from “holding strong” and forcing him to admit HIS error.  Indeed, to do so would cost me so much more than simply accepting that I am in the wrong, though I may not know why.  So in the case of my friend, I am going to disagree with my mother and go ahead and apologize.  Clearly I have done something to cause him to act like that, so in the end, it doesn’t really matter what it was because I am more interested in fixing our relationship than in proving myself to have been in the right.

But I said I wanted this post to be about more than just this one isolated incident.  It is obvious that this friend is very dear to me so it makes sense that I’m willing to value him so highly against my own will.  What about people who are not quite so important in your life?  Surely with them you are justified in valuing the relationship lower.  But I ask you again, what are you gaining by doing so?  Nothing more than the satisfaction of being right.  Of course, I’m not implying that such satisfaction is not very…um…satisfying.  But in the end, of what real value is it to you in comparison with real, healthy relationships with those around you? 

Sadly, I am not exactly as good as my philosophies and ideals.  There are still times that I don’t value those around me above myself.  Many many times actually.  But I think that it is a goal toward which I want to work.  

A walk

There is a street in Provo, more commonly known as 200 N, that also secretly goes by the name "Shakespeare Street".  

There is a certain type of pine tree (possibly the Weeping Cedar or Hemlock) whose needles grow in round star-burst patterns from the branch, and whose pine cones are miniature and perfectly shaped.  The needles are soft and waxy, and the branches droop almost like a willow.  The pine cones grow in bunches like some sort of fruit.

No one can resist freshly poured cement, but in Provo you don't just get hand prints.  You get a rendering of the Space Needle.  Go look.  It is on the west side of 700 E, just before 200 N.

Our return missionary population makes itself known by also contributing to the fresh cement artwork.  Asian characters of some sort adorn a slab around 500 E.

When you are wearing shoes puddles are an annoyance to be walked around.  In bare feet they are a refreshing aquatic adventure!

Some cement, when wet, feels slimy under foot.  Why is this?

Walking under fruit trees offers an intriguing experience not unlike walking through a squshy mine-field. 

There is an apple hedge on 700 N.  It is magnificent. 

You eventually stop looking at the ground for rocks if you just keep walking long enough.  

A vivid spring green tree against a bright summer sky, punctuated with black seedpods, is a most arresting combination.  Especially when the sunlight is shining through its small leaves which are shaped somewhere between Maple leaves and stars and the seed pods are round and spiky like little UFOs.  

As I walked down 800 E, just before I got to the park, I came upon a delightful little house with a porch and shutters and a Great Dane on the lawn and bushes under the windows and a tree to one side.  Sitting precisely in the middle of the open doorway, with his little elbows on his little knees was a wee boy about 5 years of age.  He was wearing the most delightful little sandals with delightful little tube socks that came half-way up his little legs, and a delightful little striped polo shirt.  He watched me seriously as I approached his domain, turning only his head as I came along.  Just as I came directly in front of him, without cracking a smile, he lifted one little arm and waved to me.  I waved back, which seemed to encourage him enough to say hello.  I said hello back and paused a moment.  He asked me where my mom was and I told him she was far away.  I asked him where his mother was and he told me that she was in the kitchen.  She was making lunch.  I asked him if the Great Dane on the lawn was his.  He looked around, unsure which dog I was referring to, and then carelessly waving his other arm in the general direction of the dog said "Oh, my dog is right there."  From inside the house I heard a laugh, and his mother appeared at the door.  "Hello!  He just loves talking to people walking by!"  With a smile I continued my walk as I heard my little man asking his mother where I was going.  "She's going for a walk.  Isn't that nice?"  And thanks to you, little man, it really was.

An excerpt

An excerpt from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"The underlying problems are the same.  In each case there's a beautiful way of doing it and an ugly way of doing it, and in arriving at the high-quality, beautiful way of doing it, both an ability to see what "looks good" and an ability to understand the underlying methods to arrive at that "good" are needed...
The nature of our culture is such that if you were to look for instruction in how to do any of these jobs, the instruction would always give only one understanding of Quality, the classic....with the presumption that once these underlying methods were applied, "good" would naturally follow.  The ability to see directly what "looks good" would be ignored.
The result is rather typical of modern technology, an over-all dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be over-laid with a veneer of "style" to make it acceptable.  And that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic Quality, just makes it all the worse.  Now it's not just depressingly dull, it's also phony.  Put the two together  and you get a pretty accurate basic description of modern American technology:  stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized typewriters and stylized clothes.  Stylized refrigerators filled with stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized houses.  Plastic stylized toys for stylized children, who at Christmas and birthdays are in style with their stylish parents...Its the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don't know where to start because no one has ever told them there's such a thing as Quality in this world and it's real, not style.  Quality isn't something you lay on top of sbjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree.  Real Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start."