Adulthood and stuff.

I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for my lunch the other day--well, it would have been a PB&J if I had any jelly.  Which I did not.

I scavenged through my cupboards to find something to go with the PB and came up with a container of honey.  Mmmmm, peanut butter and honey...so I'm standing in my kitchen, , drizzling honey over the bread, and I start to wonder about how much sugar is in the honey.  Then I realize it's replacing jam--and not just any jam, this is jam my grandmother made herself, so you know it's nice and sugary.  But still, one of them had to be higher up on the chain of "unhealthy."

And that's when I realized I am an adult.  You can go for years getting degrees and jobs, and you can sign paperwork that gives some of your money to the government, and you can get health insurance and pay back loans and vote and donate money to public radio.  You can start running for health, you can buy whole-grain bread instead of white, and 1% milk instead of whole, and you can even start drinking light beer.  You can do all of this, and still retain some youth.

But the moment you think to yourself "I wonder if I'm getting too much sugar in my diet" is the moment you're an honest-to-god adult.

I think I heard my knees crack as I walked out of the kitchen.

Anyway.   Here's some stuff I wrote on Friday of last week (fall break):

Lines Written in a Subaru Car Dealership in Boone, NC.

Yesterday I almost got lost in Elizabethton.  Getting lost in Elizabethton, Tennessee, would’ve been the most embarrassing thing to happen to me in a while, and you have to keep in mind that the day before fall break, one of my classes decided they should “set me up” with one of their instructors (long story, but it came about during a student’s informational speech on the new golf coach.  Er, thanks, guys).

But what happened was, there’s a country road on the outskirts of Hampton that bypasses Elizabethton.  After somebody showed it to me a year or so ago, I started using it a lot any time I had to cut around the city (usually to get to Banner Elk so I could night-ski).  It’s a pretty effective time-saver, unless you realize that the road is closed.  But no worries—there was a detour sign.  So I turn down the road I’ve never been on, assuming it’ll eventually intersect with the original road, or at least get me back to the main highway.  But no.

The first problem is, there’s only one detour sign.  I realized after a minute or so, there should’ve been another sign or two, just letting me know I was going the right way.  I guess TDOT assumed anyone on that road actually knew their way around and wasn’t just, y’know, using a country road to avoid traffic.

Typically when you get that sense of “something’s not right,” you reassess the situation.  In this case, “reassessing the situation” means “turning around, getting back to the main road, biting the bullet, and driving through town”  But I’m persistent, and I kept thinking “there’s no way I can get too far off-track, and I’ve gone too far to turn around now.”  That’s a little mantra that I’m sure will one day get me arrested, killed, or married: “I’ve gone too far to turn around now.”

This day, it all worked out for the better, and it’s all thanks to the fact that last summer I wanted to earn some extra cash.  The road I was on eventually ended at a fork, and at this fork was a church.  The church looked familiar, and sure enough, I realized I’d been on this road before, just facing the opposite direction.  It’s the same road I took to get to my boss’ parents’ house, where I did some yard work last summer.  I checked beyond the church and sure enough, there were the laurels, and there was the park, and suddenly I knew my place in the world, if at least for thirty seconds.

Had I not driven out there a few times before, I would’ve been screwed.  It’s not a straight-shot back to town, and while it’s on the same side of town as the highway, it’s at a different angle.  That’s why I’d rather get lost in the city than t he country.  Finding your way in the middle of nowhere is frighteningly more difficult than it should be.  You almost have to revert to some basic method of navigation, like looking at the sun (or the stars, if you’re so unfortunate as to get lost at night).   When I get lost in the city, I just pick a really big building and drive towards it, because the most important thing in a big city is finding a place to park, and there’s usually decent parking around really big buildings

And yet again, another philosophy which might one day end badly...

Goin' whichever way the wind blows

I spent the past 10 days elsewhere. It was temporary but fantastic, which just reiterates the fact that my four years are up and it’s time to move on. If I really belonged somewhere, I would miss it when I was gone. But I didn’t, so I don’t. So…another year (or less!) and it’ll be time to go somewhere else. I don’t know where. I have no idea what’s there, or who will be there, or what I’ll do.

And honestly, I don’t really care.

I like Johnson City. There are definitely things I’ll miss about it. There are things I am happy I came here, stayed here, was here for…and some things I wish had happened differently or maybe not at all.  Such is life. I have roughly another year to finish up whatever I haven’t done yet—hiking, mainly—and things I want to do one more time—local concerts and one more season of snowboarding. Another year of editing and teaching and hopefully going to some conferences. Another year where Sevierville is the “halfway meeting point” between me and my family on birthdays, etc.

But for now it’s early summer. There are still days to go before anything can change. Here’s to making the last 365 count. If you want in on any part of any of it...let's keep some days clear.

They know I'm something to be caught

I go out at night on this motorcycle I bought about 6 weeks ago, on my 25th birthday. I love this bike. We seemed to be made for one another. Even the license plate (which has long since expired) says "1983"--the year I was born. I don't believe in fate, but at times I wonder.

In order to legally ride the bike, I need 1) current tags and 2) a motorcycle license. I have neither. I have the title, and about 30 minutes of my time and $75 of my money would get me cleared for tags. The license comes from taking a written/driving test, or taking a 2-day class. I plan on doing this. I will eventually go to the courthouse and get the tags, and I'll take the test, and I'll be completely legal.

But for now, I sneak out at night and ride up and down neighborhoods. Not for any purpose other than clearing my head, keeping the engine running, and wasting gas (hard to waste gas on something that gets 70+ mpg, thankfully). The weather is warm, and there's little traffic, so I practice changing gears and hand signals, all the while warding away any cops with a Jedi-like mantra in my head: "You don't see my tags have expired. No. You don't want to pull me over." Seems to work.

I live where the streets are named after presidents. But there's this bigger neighborhood where I go to ride. All of the streets are named after Robin Hood: characters, location, etc. Where I lived as an undergrad, I used to pass this street called "Cinderella Drive." Now I drive through Sherwood Forest. It's like I moved from one Disney movie to another, but at least none of the animals are singing to me. Yet.

I go slowly up and down each street. I try not to go too fast, because the bike can get loud. At the same time, I don't want to go too slowly and appear to be casing the joint. I pass by people and nod; they usually return the gesture. The other day, I saw a guy getting on his motorcycle. We shared a glance of mutual understanding, sort of like we shared some secret. Though, "secret" is not an appropriate description, because our "secret" was the metallic beasts we rode...which anyone could see.

I like to ride through this area because it's really beautiful. The houses are older, and they're probably not what people would think of as "incredibly nice" nowadays--what, with McMansions popping up on every undeveloped property imaginable--but they're old-school nice. Big yards, gardens, colorful trees and plants. You can pass through at night and smell the life: woodsmoke and fresh cut grass in their respective seasons, homecooked dinners, and of course, the flowers.

When I say it's beautiful, it's not because I aspire to live somewhere like that. Nice as it is...it's still a neighborhood. The yards are big, but not big enough. There are fences. Everything is trapped. Some trees are enclosed in brick circles--like they're these massive plants that someone decided to grow in their front yard. It's all too close, and it's all too restrictive. A little ironic, I suppose, that it would all be named after a hero and his crew who lived away from that type of life.

Still, the visuals are intoxicating: it's like driving through a painting. You're not a part of it--you can't stop and touch it--but it's a nice experience to be connected to something and still very much separate from it.