Gypsy Cab Rides, Part I

My initial Swedish-language entry for Bonamy's (Trailing Twilight's) "Don't Forget Me" photo project. Glöm mig inte!! And I've been drawing that dang spaceship all over things since the NASA diaper experiment. Lord.

Gypsy Cab Rides, Part I

For Joy in Moscow, who is both far bolder and smarter than I…hence, definitely not the “friend” noted in this episode.

I’m not exactly sure what happens to make us seek out things that we know at the moment they’re occurring are not the things we necessarily ought to be doing. Because they pose real danger. Christ. There’s not even anything to disagree about here. They’re just not the things we ought to be doing. We know that.

But for a moment we live outside ourselves and sally forth as a stranger to our own actions.

I’m not talking about kid stuff. None of that “Ooo, you’re gonna get in trouble.” No sneaking a cigarette or staying out too late. No sneaking a peek at a pornographic movie at your friend’s house when you’re 12.

(The first one I saw, by the way, had been confiscated by the principal of an area high school. He’d kept some of that contraband—for research purposes only, I’m sure—and his son had discovered where they were hid, which was simply on top of a book case in the living room. We put one in the VCR. It opened with three women smoking cigarettes—though not with their mouths. I probably developed TMJ right that moment.)

Sure, you might note you’ve entered this moment of danger for certain drugs, especially since many of them come along when you really are sentient enough to know the stakes. Then there was that last drink—and the subsequent drive home, say, through the hills of southern Illinois’ wine country with its curving, tree-lined, shoulderless roads. At night. With only one headlight.

One could, no joke, hit a pig or wild turkey or 400-year-old sycamore out there.

Or maybe it was a different sort of danger, something more emotional or psychological, such as that kiss, or that restraint from a kiss one night, and everything it did or did not lead to. All that “I’ll never do that again” stuff. Vows to override the devices to which we cannot help but be left. But as we all know, anything about which we utter those grand and hilarious thoughts, well, those words usually take years to reach the brain and compel a detectable change in behavior.

But certain episodes do help a lesson crystalize.

All that serves as a hasty introduction. So.

To give one’s eyes a respite, and to provide a bit of cliffhanger drama, such as you'll find with an episode of East Enders, I'll reconvene this post tomorrow. And I promise: in Part II, an actual gypsy cab appears. And someone loses a bit of money over this. In a car barreling further into the mist of reclaimed swampland. In a foreign country.

Today's Cute Moment



Tyler in his "Future Heartbreaker" shirt. Thanks to Julia for sending this one over (and thanks in advance for giving me permission to post!).
-cK