today i woke up early because i had to get my learners permit.
i went through the motions of
wake up
get up
shower
eat
leave
like i would on any normal school day during the school year.
i thought about how
these things were much easier things to do when i was moving towards somthing that i felt indiferent about- permit.
as opposed to something i was dreading and unprepared for and livid at- school.
we drove to the department of motor vehical in haverstraw.
on the way the black tape with the cord that connects to an ipod and plays ipod music through the stereo...
that black tape got stuck in the tape deck.
my mom tried to claw it out.
while she attempted the hopeless task she talked about growing up in the 70's when tape deck problems were a daily thing.
she said we needed a knife.
we tried a pen.
we pried the black tape up with the pen and the tip of the pen came off
and black bloody shiny ink covered the deck.
well not exacly bloody.
if youve ever seen a large quantity of pen ink outside of its pen
you will be aware that
in the right light (the kind of light which the morning was in... bright light...)
pen ink reveals its true colors...
which is really just one color
which is shiny purple.
so
shiny purple blood covered the tape and the deck
and the tape stayed in the deck
and the deck made strange helpless courageous "i think i can i think i can i think i can" clicking machine sounds when we pressed the eject botton.
and then we arrived at the motor vehical office and i filled out a form
there was a bit at the end of the form that was optional where u could register to vote if you are going to be 18 by the end of the year of the next ellection.
i am going to be 18 ONE month after the next ellection.
FRUSTRATION!
so i filled it out.
and i realized that i didnt have a political party.
and that i couldnt vote in a primary.
so i probobly should have just registered as a democrat even though sometimes they are silly.
they are generally less silly than the others.
so anyway
we got to the front of the line and only had one form of id and my mom had her drivers liscence but they sent us away to come back with a birth certificate and a social security card.
so we left.
and we went to starbucks to meet my dad and my social security card.
and to get a coffee.
we got those two essential items and then were on our way to panera... down the strip... to eat and wait two hours till the next time slot (1:00) when i could take my permit test.
right outside starbucks
under the awning, next to the trash can we waited when we saw a friend drive by.
she parked her car
and then we stood there and talked with her about identical anorexia while lightning crackled a few times
and we kept sharing opinions as it began to rain.
when we finally left her to her coffee we were faced with the obstacal of crossing the bit of parking lot between this bit of under-the-awning-strip-mall-sidewalk and the other bit.
there was a huge puddle in the low bit of that bit of parking lot.
we looked at it with forboading for a moment.
on the far side of the puddle-bit of parking lot there was a modelles
an advertisment in the window of the modelles had a swimmer
she was swimming and she had a nose plug pinching her nose and churned up water all around her.
on our side of the parking lot there was a photographer who was out
apparently
photographing the weather.
we told him we were about to run through the puddle
he told us he was going to take our picture
so we ran.
when we got to the other side he ran after us and told us that the picture of us and the advertisment picture of the nose-plugged swimmer had come together quite nicely in his photograph and could he please have our names.
we gave him our names and continued on to panera.
in panera i read a short story by truman copote.
the story was called miriam and in it there is a old lady who hallucinates (i think) a young girl with silver hair.
the young girl forces her way into the old lady's life and the old lady gets upset.
then i listened to "the weepies" who have a lyric in a song that they have
that goes: "yesterday when you were young everything you needed done was done for you"
i thought about my learners permit.
then i got two text messeges.
on messege was from eliza.
eliza recomended the book of truman copote stories.
the one about miriam was her favorites.
thats why i was reading it first before reading any of the others.
her text messege wasnt about the book.
in her messeges she told me that she was seeing pineapple express at the mall with her twin sister maya.
maya and eliza are my friends who are not friends with my other friends jake and adam.
the text messege from eliza told me that jake and adam were in the theater with her maya and it was followed quite immediatly by a text messege from adam that told me that he was in a movie theater with "your twins" and of course i was already of aware.
i texted them both back and told them about the other ones text.
making it, im sure quite awkward for them...
two faces lit blue in a dark crowded movie theater... strangers to eachother together missing the person-in-common-link that could make an introduction about of anponymousness.
after panera and miriam and the two text messseges
we got back in the car with the bleeding purple stereo
we went back, 30 mins and maybe four towns away, to the motor vehecal office listening to my ipod with one ear-bud each.
when we got there i went in ahead to go to the bathroom.
in the bathroom the toilet paper fell off the roll and onto the floor and rolled away into the next stall
someone on the toilet in the next stall rolled it back to me
neither one of us said anything.
there was another roll in my stall so i left that one on the floor.
i went back outside to get my mother and found that she had lost her liscense.
so we left
and went back to panera.
to look for it
and her credit card.
which had been in the hand with the lisence and was missing too.
on the drive there we called my dad and told him to tranfer all the money on the card into his account incase someone wanted to use it.
if someone had stolen it.
someone hadnt
they hadnt spent anything at least.
but in those few minutes of listening to my mothers side of the please-transfer-all-the-money-using-the-online-transfer-thing-conversation
i realized something
it is this:
i did not want my permit before today
but now
i do
just so that, in future, i can avoid being in close proximity to conversations like that.
and also i realized that i will never get married and if i ever by some illogical crazed choice i do end up married
i will never ever ever have a single cell phone conversation with my other.
so long story not very short:
we found the cards
at panera
i didnt get my permit.
the end.
