As I pulled up in front of my house one snowy evening, a policeman pulled up behind me. I expected he was going to scold me for having parked "against the flow of traffic" so many times & not paying the fines.
But instead he told me that I was seen racing along the main road and that someone had called the police because I almost cut them off.
Am I the only person who finds this absurd? Calling the police because I ALMOST cut them off? Even if I *had* cut someone off... that is just called DRIVING, not ILLEGAL. Am I wrong here?
What's up with that?
Or, more to the point, how do I correct this? The people in, say, Los Alamos, probably lead relaxed, family-oriented lives. They are likely very happy with this state of affairs. Yet I never cease to gripe and moan about the seemingly complete lack of a work ethic of these folk. I feel that it is the responsibility of any business owner to provide me with the service that I am used to receiving (as in New York City). I expect them to remain open more than 3 hours each day, and to be open for business on weekends. In addition, as a customer I expect to be treated with the same amount of respect as they might offer anyone who is paying them.
I see now that I cannot maintain such high standards. These people sincerely do not care whether or not they get the money from my wallet. They just want to make sure that they are home, perhaps playing with their kids, most of the day.
The trouble being: I cannot seem to accept their way of life. And so I force myself into a pit of despair. Everytime I approach a restaurant to find that it is closed, which is invariably, I rant and rave and throw my arms in the air from disgust and desparation.
It is easy to derive from this, unfortunately, that the townsfolk are superior to me. This is a hard fact to realize, but what else can I conclude? I am running around filled with frustration, longing for a city that I am not in; while they are joyfully closing up shop at 2pm each day and taking their families camping every weekend. Those children will never feel neglected. On the other hand, I think I would have gone mad if my parents spent that much time with me. Actually, I am mad nonetheless. Mad, I tell you.
Boy, this sure qualifies as a rambling, doesn't it?
How I react to bugs:
A few weeks ago, I was pacing around my room at about 2 or 3am, when I was suddenly struck frozen with fear at the sight of the Most Enormous Bug I Have Ever Seen In My Life. As a point of fact, it is with amazing frequency that I find myself face to face with yet another creature that turns out to be the Most Enormous Bug I Have Ever Seen In My Life.
After spotting the bastard, I stood paralyzed for what seemed like hours, studying its agility, and trying to determine if it could detect my presence. After my panic subsided, I made a mad dash for the door, and ran into my roomate's bedroom.
Let me reiterate that this was taking place during the wee hours of the morning. Allow me to further inform you that my roomate has great difficulties falling asleep each night, and also has to wake up for work at about 5am.
Needless to say, these facts seemed trivial in comparison to the monster that was fluttering around against my bedroom wall. I began to shake my roomate's arm rather violently. He was just beginning to reach consciousness when I started to chatter incessantly about the dire situation that had arisen.
Due to his sleepyness, it took a good minute and half before he started screaming "YOU WOKE ME UP FOR THAT ?!?!?&@%" followed by a reminder of the facts that I have mentioned previously about the time and his sleep schedule. There may have even been a few profane remarks made. I can hardly recall, because what matters is what happened next.
My roomate, in a very agitated state, wandered into my room, looked at the creature, screamed at me again, and finally took action. He grabbed a piece of paper and waved his arm in the general area where It was located. This succeeded in causing It to flutter away behind my dresser!!! What could be worse than to have it hiding in my room? Then, despite my fears, my roomate said something along the lines of, "Kill it yourself, bitch," and then he shuffled back to his bed.
At this point my fear was turning into anger, at the Thing, for causing my roomate to desire my death. In one big blurr of movement, I grabbed my dictionary with both hands... approached the dresser... kicked it a few times to cause the beast to emerge from behind... and WHAMMM! The bastard was dead on my floor. I went to sleep with a strong sense of triumph.
How Native Los Alamosians react to bugs:
They don't.
As a simple example, a few days ago my roomate saw a bug in the house, and decided he did not want to be around when I noticed it.
So, on the bleedin'
spur of the moment, he decided to drive off into the woods and sleep on nature's
rug! Yes! Outdoors! He actually lay down over perhaps thousands of insects,
fell asleep, and woke up to brush them off without so much as a shred
of disgust.
Figure that out.
I am sitting in my office, looking around. Here is what I notice:
I have managed to completely fill four shelves with books and scientific papers.
Almost all of these used to live in libraries. They will likely never see their
homes again. The odd thing is that I have only read a small fraction of these
pages. Who has the time to read 1000 math text books? But when I see the title
of each one, I vividly remember the excitement that filled me when I first
plucked it off the shelf. Now it sits on my office shelf instead of the library
shelf. What has this accomplished?
When I was adding the 50th and 60th book to this collection, did I have any sincere intent to read them? It's become a dream. And, oh, what a wonderful dream that is! To be stranded on a desert isle with nothing but a young virile man and my infinitely high pile of math books!
I think I can say that I read the introduction to each book on my shelf. And that probably took place while I was still in the library, drooling over the discovery of the most interesting book I had ever seen. The number of books in this pile that I have read from cover to cover is rather small compared to the entire number of equation-filled entities sitting next to me right now.
Ah! I remember one fine day when I was trotting off to the library, with
the purpose of returning a book that some John had been waiting for, and it
occured to me that it was the perfect time to return a small stack
of my books to their rightful place. But I just could not go through
with it! I have become permanently attached to each and every one of these
books that I have hardly read. I must have a mental problem.
Hmmm. What a dry ramble THAT was.
You wouldn't believe how many teenagers in this town run into the middle of the street without looking in any direction at all. Perhaps they think they are cool. Perhaps they count on the kindness of Los Alamos drivers, or the fact that these people usually drive slower than walking speed.
These kids obviously aren't aware that I am also driving on these streets... and with all this wreckless jay-walking, it is only a matter of time before one of those kids becomes one with the hood of my car. And I will sadly kick their lifeless body to the side of the road, and drive on. Well, maybe I won't be so sad.
For lack of a night-life here in Los Alamos, I have been forced to find a new hobby
for the evening hours. That hobby is smoking.
I know what you're thinking: "That's a habit, not a hobby."
Well, not in my case. I have made this
such an elaborate activity that no one could deny me the right to call it whatever
I wish. For example, when inhaling, I contort my face, and suck in equal parts
smoke and air, creating a unique wheezing sound... this causing anyone within
ten feet to think I have serious
problems. In case I haven't mentioned it, I take great pleasure in fooling people
into thinking that I have mental problems. Also, during the seconds where I am
not inhaling, I wave my arm around, making grand gestures with my cigarrette, while
saying terribly important things.
What could be a better way to kill an evening?
Oh, yes. My parental units flew out to New Mexico to see Little Ole Me. They spent
four nights in a hotel in Santa Fe, and two nights in the Los Alamos Inn.
My father hated Santa Fe from the moment he entered it. The tourism was so
thick in the air he felt he was choking. Too Many People. Too Many Stores. Nothing
to See. My dad loved Los Alamos as soon as he was driving toward it...
leaving Santa Fe behind. The beauty of the plateau and the Jemez, the peaceful
feeling, the smell...
My mother was in heaven in Santa Fe. She could shop from morning til night,
with a few hours in the middle of the day spent at the hotel poolside. With all
the time my mom spent at the pool, it's hard to believe that her hair never got wet,
but that is the case. My mom was absolutely bitter from the moment she entered
Los Alamos. Not Enough people. Not Enough Stores. She didn't want to walk or drive
into the mountains.
So what's the deal with Parental Visits? Why are grown children expected to modify
the appearance of their lives, to have their parents (or one of them) remain under the
illusion that we (adult offspring) are still living as we did when we were ten
years old? Shouldn't the Parent-Child relationship be able to shift, over time,
to that of a peer-friendship?
WELL WHY NOT ??
Don't know when I'll be back again. Oh, yes. Today I bought some plane tickets, and now, barring any mid-flight explosions, I will be visiting my home in NYC for a week, then flying back to Los Alamos where I will pack all my things into my Saturn and a Uhaul. Then I drive to Austin, Texas.
And so I just realized that I don't live in NYC anymore. I dont' like that. I lived in that city for nearly 22 years, and that makes me a New Yorker. It seems that I will have to plant my butt in one spot for another 22 years if I want any right to be called something else. So that means I am guaranteed to be living out of my element for the next 2 decades or so. That sucks.
I've lived in New Mexico for a year now, but I certainly don't feel like a New Mexican. And I don't think New Mexicans want people like me here anyway. Just yesterday, a Los Alamos resident suggested that I "go back to new york" if I wanted to "drive like that". Damn elitist community. I don't want to drive slow, and that is because I learned to drive in New York. This will never change, regardless of how long I live outside the best city in the world.
That's the damn problem with being born & raised in New York City. You can't ever leave. There's no where to go but down.
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