|now candy|

What a beautiful PGH morning. I’m ready. I’m ready to drive new/almost new cars and listen/push through cars salesmen. It’s grey, damp, and bright outside. A good day for driving cars.

This is exhilarating. I’m listening to the new Strokes album, I need to go to Paul’s today and get some more new music. The Trusty Trust has been buying music like mad man, and he has fantastic music tastes. Soon there’ll be more overlap in our music collection, but that’s fine. I won’t be here forever and I’m looking forward to taking pieces of PGH back with me to DC.

Back to cars.

(I haven’t really had breakfast or an adequate caffeine dose this morning, so forgive the incoherency.)

It’s bizarre. Why do I want a *new* so bad? I can feel the American Way creeping in despite my practical self. I keep thinking of my vary own new car that I can break in myself, but all the dings in myself (or, rather, them put in my jackasses who can’t park). I’m fantasizing about having tunes in my car again. It’s been my fate for a few years now to drive cars with non-functioning radios and cassette players who’ve given up the ghost.

Power windows come so standard now. I’ll be able to adjust the windows while driving without half-killing myself from reaching across the passenger seat and wrestling with the damn barely working crank.

I’ll have a windshield I can actually see out of at night for the lack of pock marks in it. The rear defrost will work. The heat will work. I won’t need a stick any more to prop the hatch open (I’ll have to carry it for good measure, though, it’s always good to have a handy stick).

I’ll have headlights that actually light up the road.

I’ll be able to drive to NJ to visit Jenna without wondering if the car will make it. Or wondering if I’ll kill myself from loosing control when the fucking wheel falls off. (*That* is something I wish on no one, checked that off the list about seven years ago. My faithful brother bailed me out of that driving catastrophe.)

I’m stoked. Really fucking stoked. I’m joining the Borg with full force now. I’m constantly attached to the cell phone and am about to own a new/almost new car.

Seven of Nine was hotter than me. I’ll be 73 of Two Million.

I'm alive. I've just been enraptured in car hunting since Monday, on the web. A friend has been gracious enough to lend me his car this weekend so that (a) I have wheels, and (b) I can go test drive wheels.

This will be an extreme exercise in self control. I've narrowed down the search and I've pinned down what I can afford. Must stick to it. Also, I must resist their Jeddi mind games.

I refuse to make a purchase Saturday. I want those bastards to call me with a deal. A fucking deal I can brag about.

Besides, I've got the secret weapon. Pants that make my ass look like sweet kisses from God.

Oh yes. The deal will be mine.

I see a new car in my horizon...

OK. So my comment on wanting to lie about my profession was a bit sarcastic. But it still makes me awkward sometimes to be talking with another person, who happened to not finish high school, that I'm an engineer. I guess it's from me growing up in the country.

It's another beautiful foggy morning and I'm about to walk to work. I need to dig out gloves and my other hats, soon.

OK. I have decided. Tonight I will pick this house up. It is a mess. Yes, I still have half-unpacked boxes everywhere and I have clothes everywhere.

The card table (where the computer lives) is full of whatever was in my hands when I walked in the door. Post cards, pens, address book, empty jars, headphones, small boxes, plates, &etc. NO MORE!

Tonight, I'll take at least an hour to pick up, then half hour or hour clips each night this week. The prospect of actually having company makes me embarrassed. This place looks like a cross between college dorm and crazy cat-lady apartment, complete with two cats. The books aren't going to get unpacked. I will pull out the ones I want and just keep the rest in their boxes. The boxes are already furniture in here, I might as well make it official.

I was hoping to buy a couch while in PGH, not sure it's going to happen now. What ever. I have the one comfy guest chair, the ottoman, the swank coffee table, the card table, the two folding chairs (also swank), and the ever-open kitchen stool that pulls double duty as end table.

And clothes everywhere. Tonight. Must start cleaning up tonight. Otherwise I'll just procrastinate for another four months.

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To hear a newscaster say the word "hummer" on the radio is hilarious. I mean, the gigantic SUV pretty much is an overpriced blowjob anyway. And it happens to be aptly named.

Why can't I just lie?

I'm not incapable of it, not at all. But when it comes to talking about myself, or answering questions about myself, it just never dawns on me.

And I wish it would.

OK. So, this afternoon I went back to the gas station that so kindly let my car stay there until I could get back to it. The tow truck comes and we ride to the auto shop.

I knew he was taking me the longest way possible. I suggested we go the way that I figured was shorter, but it really didn't matter. The difference would have been five bucks, max. That's barely a beer.

Of course we are talking the entire ride (twenty minutes?) and per usual, my southern accent comes out strong. It's not on purpose, it just comes out. It also disarms people. Somehow it's all OK if you are a female with a southern accent, there's nothing to worry about. I don't understand it but it's true.

We're talking about all sorts of stuff and how he likes his current boss and how great it is he has four day weekends and how it's the first time in his life he's had steady weekends off and he almost doesn't know what to do with his time. He's got an ex-wife in Virginia who married his friend, has a two-year old son with her that he sees every other weekend, and seems to be in his late thirties. He says he's pretty happy right now because he dropped out of high school when he was fifteen and is doing alright these days despite it all.

Everything was going fine. Then we are talking about Pittsburgh again and I mentioned I moved here not so long ago from DC and have to head back in a few months.

He asks "Why moving around so much?"

Me: "Work."

He: "What do you do?"

Me: "I'm in the Navy."

He: "What's your rate?"

Fuck Fuck Fuck. I did it. It makes no goddamned since to a native Pittsburgher for a Navy person to be here. There's no Navy in PGH. And I know this. Also, he now sounds like he's familiar with the military, and has assumed I'm enlisted. Which is great, only I'm not enlisted. Trying to recover:

Me: "I'm here for school sort of. I'm an engineer..." (I add a little more to try and dull it down a bit, make it more mundane.)

He: "I was in the Army."

Conversation was awkward for a few minutes. Why couldn't I just have made something up? He was enlisted and thus knows that the only engineers in the military have gone to college. He retracts just a little, now I'm one of _those_ people. Those people who've gone to college. Not only college, but engineering.

Thankfully we started talking about cars again and went back to swapping break-down stories and how much we loved that one car we used to have, &etc, and things got pretty much comfortable again.

Sometimes I just wish there was an easy-out lie. One I could say that wouldn't give away that I've been to school and that I sit at a desk for a paycheck. But it needs to be something I know something about because what the hell am I supposed to do if they actually used to do the job I came up with.

Maybe I'll just tell people I work at the Dunkin Donuts. I did actually work at the DD in high school, so I can field questions like "So, how do they actually get the filling in the munchkins?" It doesn't really answer the "Why are you in PGH for only six months?" question, though. Maybe I can be a DD manager.

However, I'm not actually sure they have Dunkin Donuts here.

OK. The more certain you are that you are saving money, the less certain your car is that it's OK. It's the Hoompty-Ride Uncertainty Principle.

The Red Sled has been so faithful and good natured for so long. She even took the cross-country move (stuffed with 750 lbs of junk) in stride. All she asked for was a new wheel bearing, and I was happy to give it to her.

Now, in Pittsburgh, now that I'm chained to work and can only go out and play in little 20 hour increments every weekend, I'm doing nice work in the debt reduction department.

And of course the Sled can smell it. She smells my self assurance that I'm getting ahead. And she's jealous. A jealous, needy, Red hypochondriac.

Well, that's fine. She can just stay a week at the repair shop across the river out in the cold rain. And she can get a new alternator (unconfirmed but suspected ailment). If she's lucky, maybe she'll get some suspension work. Maybe then she'll stop trying to kill me when it's (a) raining, (b) the roads are rough, (c) I'm turning, and (d) going through turns with joists in the road (bridges, on ramps, off ramps, &etc.).

Can you buy an old car her happiness?

So many thoughts, so little time...

First off, I can already tell that Ugly Casanova's Sharpen You Teeth will be the cd that brings back the most poignant Pittsburgh memories. Every notable period in life has it's soundtrack. Six months in PGH is Sharpen Your Teeth.

"Cat Faces" is playing right now and I just read the lyrics for the first time after listening to the album for, oh, about a million times in two weeks.

I hear it as "cuttin cat faces in the pies" which, when you listen to the cd, makes perfect sense and is a pretty excellent image. Well, it's "cutting cat faces in the _pines_." Still perfect, if more sensical.

Same song, I hear the hook as "I lay down with a sudden rage," which is also excellent. I've suspected for a while that it's "southern range" and not sudden rage. Yep, it's southern range. Still perfect.

All that Modest Mouse stuff was just pre-work for Isaac Brock putting this album together. Without Modest Mouse, the fringe-reality fan wouldn't have gotten his package of dead rodents and writing to Isaac Brock, and the album would have never happened. If Modest Mouse spoke to you, this album holds you. Tightly.

For those of you who think of magazines as a treat, go treat yourself to the November Esquire.

First off, Britney is on the cover and looking hotter and more womanly than ever. Yes, I have a fascination with Britney. I can't quote you any trivia, but I think she's going to be around for a while, unlike the dirty ho Christina A.

Next, they have pictures of hot men wearing hot clothes. They also have hot women wearing hot men's clothes, nice mix.

You learn that random zippers placed in useless places in clothes (80s) is the new black (Dolce & Gabbana ad, page 32). And pairs of dudes wearing black clothes with random zippers hanging out in dim rooms on beds is in.

They even recommend decent music (and make fun of slods who still think FM is primo listening pleasure). The Rapture, Death Cab for Cutie, Lyle Lovett, &etc.

Oh, and the fabulous article: Is it Just Me, or is the Hand Job Making a Comeback? Helloooo! Everybody wins here.

OH OH OH OH– I'm on the Britney pages!!! They photoshopped the hell out of her, but whatever.

... OK OK, I have to get out of here and start the day.

By the way, Pittsburgh is full of penis monuments.

They are _everywhere_. Downtown, the burbs, rising stiffly out of neighborhoods, adjacent to churches, you name it.

Every time I see another smokestack, I think "Wow. Penis!" and "Holy shit! Another Penis!"

The way the top of the brick smokestacks usually bevel out and curve back in, yep, it's a head.

And some of the masons took the time to lay decorative brickwork as they built the smokestacks. And I see them thinking "Hey! Tattooed penis!"

I love PGH.

I was just looking back over the pictures I took today. I was also doing something I do often: have pretend conversations with people.

It's not like I sit here and talk aloud to myself, but I think through conversations that either happened earlier, haven't happened but should have, ones that might happen, or ones that will likely never happen.

I've always done this.

And the pretend conversations are usually with people I know. But, yeah, I'm just talking to myself. Silently.

And as I was looking through the pics, the imaginary conversation sparked up about how I take pictures. Now, I must admit, I really really enjoy taking pictures. Also, I happen to like the pictures I take. I'm working to get better, but I also enjoy where I am now.

And the imaginary question was posed something along the lines of "What are you thinking when you see something to shoot," or "How do you take such great pictures, mine usually don't catch what I see." (This conversation probably falls under the conversation that will never happen category.)

And, I replied to the question. And the conversation went toward the greater meaning other things. Work with me here.

When I see something I want to catch, I'm try to filter it down to *what* is is about that image that draws me in. Is it the whole context? We as humans are not physically able to take into our eyeballs and focus on everything in our range of view. We focus on single points or small areas at a time, quickly. We don't see things like cameras. When you look at a picture that covers tens or hundreds of feet of stuff, it's not like you see it. And that's OK, but it makes it challenging to actually catch what you _saw_. (And sometimes you aren't trying to catch what you saw, but what you _want_ to see, and that's the great thing about cameras.)

Back to the image. Color. I love color. Or lack of it. When looking at something, is it the contrast that attracts me? Is it the stark juxtaposition of of something brilliant against something worn down? Is it how incredibly bright it looks?

What makes me look at something? What attracts me? Does it stand along without the context? We hardly ever know all the context anyway. I don't care if someone can't figure out what the hell this little piece of something is part of. It doesn't matter. Like a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, you don't know his story, but he's still there. Like the chef, in his full work gear (tall crazy chef-hat, apron, and everything), with a happy little wiener dog on a leash, striding down the sidewalk with the happy little wiener dog trotting along happy and curious as can be– where the _hell_ did the dog come from? It wasn't in the kitchen. It doesn't matter. It's the fucking most awesome sight anyway.

I give up on some shots, just can't catch it. I either can't filter down what I want to catch, can't figure out how to filter out the crap in the picture, or I haven't mastered the camera to make it catch the brilliant sunshine through the yellow leaves while still getting the cornfield to come out. It's OK. I just stare at it longer so it's fried into my brain for later.

&ect.

The greater extension:

People. When there is a person I really enjoy being around and has qualities I would like to have myself, I try to boil it down to just what it is that I like so much. You can't go around emulating people or just copying what they do, it isn't you. Down the road you'll do drugs and kill yourself because people like you but you can't figure out who you are. It's like cheap paint on thin metal– it flakes off later.

People who actually _listen_ to other people is a good quality I've been fascinated with for a while. At first I tried just listening. The problem is that I want to talk too. Talk about things that I try to relate to what the other person is saying. But, then, the conversation leaves the previous thought and the poor person never got to finish the thought.

OK, try again. Why listen? How to listen? Well, you have to get interested in what the other person is saying. You need a reason to listen. I finally realized this is what most of the good listeners were doing. It works. You already know what you are going to say, shut up for a minute and find out what the other person has to say. Their frame of reference is usually fascinating.

This whole filtering thing is great. It's useful when you are lacking something. Most of the folks you tend to keep hanging out with either have something you lack (but like) and/or they complement things you do have (and together you are unstoppable). If you can figure out which friend usually has a calming effect, that's the friend to call when you are freaking out. When you need more guests in your own personal drama party, you call the drama queen (males can be drama queens, too). &etc.

Then there are friends you can't figure out. It doesn't matter. Ten years from now you'll get it. It sometimes comes from meeting another person down the road that, even though completely different from the enigmatic friend, they keep reminding you of them. Ding ding ding! They have a little nugget of something that you like so much about the other friend. It filters out.

Haircuts. Why does that haircut make your friend (or random person in the airport) look so fucking hot? Because it fits them. It suits them. The same haircut will look like ass on you. Cut it to suit you. Cut it to your current state of affairs, and wear it and enjoy it.

&etc.

You can't catch a picture of what you don't know you are drawn to. And you can't improve yourself without knowing what you are trying to work on.