Hello everyone
yesterday I took a chance and spent $750 an a 1994 olds cutlass ciera. you know what they say about always having a mechanic check out a used car for you . . well i just don't have time to do things like that.. . .
well, the car runs all right but is has a bad vibration problem in the front end at highway speeds. I know it at least needs an alignment, because it pulls to the left some. could also be a skipping tranny or thrown wheel weight, anyway something hopefully cheaper to fix than a stratus head gasket. I just need a car to last me a few weeks until I hit the road in a big rig. who knows if i can even have such a little thing as that
anyway, I own this fucking trailer and ultimately I can sell it and get enough money for anything I'm likely to really need. I also have some other shit I could sell, cameras, guns, guitars. . .sholdn't get attached to impermanet material things, in the face of managing to get on with the overall big picture of my life.
i keep telling myself that neurosis needs to be taken off the table. one must never make hasty decisions based on the thought that one is suffering and the suffering has to stop. you might say that buying this car was a hasty decision, but then i think you could ultimately say that about any car i finally settled down and got.
this blog is not much of a read for people I suppose. It is a regurgitation of the things in my mind. sometimes you have to write things down to help get past them. to lay them all out where you can see them. i guess it shows how stressed I am, trying to improvise my way through life and come up with some good decisions, never having enough money. I'm working towards getting into a financially viable career, not making a very slick job of it, but going.
the wheel of fortune goes round. I decided to walk to the used car dealership to pick up the car, taking care to remember to bring my license plate, but when I'd gotten about halfway there I realized i had forgotten my wallet, and had to turn back home. i did find a ten dollar bill lying crumpled up on the side of the road on my way back though, and I was thinking that the wheel of fortune just keeps turning round and round and you cannot stop it from doing so with a thought process. when you're at a low spot on the wheel you can decide to move forward or you can decide to sit on the ground and whine and mourn your fate and let your self esteem inflict savagery upon itself. I do all of thatSo now I have this other car and it has some vibration issue and I just have to fucking deal with the fact that I was not in fact able to snag a totally perfect car for $750. what the fuck did I expect? someone used that car and got rid of it for some reason. it's a stodgy family car with pretty decent relilability reputation, much better than my stratus does, but it's 12 year old and has 128k on it and it just needs something looked at. hopefully I can afford the fix or I'll just have to drive off highway for the several weeks I need to use the thing for school and/or work until I'm off across the country.
one respect in which it sort of seemed to make sense to replace my old POS with a new POS was that if I wasn't financing a car I would not have to carry as much insurance on it, and I would therefore be able to continue riding my bike in good weather, instead of having to take it off the road to save the insurance money. so maybe in a sense the POS route wasn't so terrible overall, it might need some repair that will cost me something now, but I'm saving on finance payments and insurance, and that's something worth considering, as well as its being less even than a $750 roll of the dice when I get the old stratus sold, for a couple hundred bucks, hopefully.
forgive this regurgitating if you've bothered to read it.
i did have an interesting artistic idea this week. It struck me that it might be cool to draw playing or tarot cards featuring SG's and other interesting persons I've encountered on the site. my life could perhpas be interesting if only I were to do something interesting. on the other hand there's an accomplished artist on the site whose work i highly admire, who spends 14 hours a day for a month per painting. he doesn't think his life is very exciting, but he does do some cool stuff when he takes a break from painting. the fact that his paintings take so long is in a way encouraging to me, in that i might also need a very long time to complete a work of art that I were to undertake, but that doesn't necessarily mean i'm not a worthy artist. Cezanne was like that too, he took so long to paint that he despaired of finishing paintings and used artificial fruits for still lifes because real fruit would rot before the painting was finished.
I managed to give myself a fairly annoying trucking injury this week. big rigs have a yellow square and octagonal red knobs on the dashboard that set and release the emergency/parking brakes for the tractor and trailer respectively. when you set the e-brakes, you have to pull really hard on the knob(s) and they spap out so hard and sharply that you can really hurt your fingers if you don't do it right, and my right index finger is still swollen and red from not doing it right.
my life persists in not wanting to be smooth sailing all the way to prosperity. my natural reaction is to collapse into neurosis, into anxiety, but i'm fighting that tendency. my life moves forward even though it is far from a masterpice of assuredness or grace.
yesterday I took a chance and spent $750 an a 1994 olds cutlass ciera. you know what they say about always having a mechanic check out a used car for you . . well i just don't have time to do things like that.. . .
well, the car runs all right but is has a bad vibration problem in the front end at highway speeds. I know it at least needs an alignment, because it pulls to the left some. could also be a skipping tranny or thrown wheel weight, anyway something hopefully cheaper to fix than a stratus head gasket. I just need a car to last me a few weeks until I hit the road in a big rig. who knows if i can even have such a little thing as that
anyway, I own this fucking trailer and ultimately I can sell it and get enough money for anything I'm likely to really need. I also have some other shit I could sell, cameras, guns, guitars. . .sholdn't get attached to impermanet material things, in the face of managing to get on with the overall big picture of my life.
i keep telling myself that neurosis needs to be taken off the table. one must never make hasty decisions based on the thought that one is suffering and the suffering has to stop. you might say that buying this car was a hasty decision, but then i think you could ultimately say that about any car i finally settled down and got.
this blog is not much of a read for people I suppose. It is a regurgitation of the things in my mind. sometimes you have to write things down to help get past them. to lay them all out where you can see them. i guess it shows how stressed I am, trying to improvise my way through life and come up with some good decisions, never having enough money. I'm working towards getting into a financially viable career, not making a very slick job of it, but going.
the wheel of fortune goes round. I decided to walk to the used car dealership to pick up the car, taking care to remember to bring my license plate, but when I'd gotten about halfway there I realized i had forgotten my wallet, and had to turn back home. i did find a ten dollar bill lying crumpled up on the side of the road on my way back though, and I was thinking that the wheel of fortune just keeps turning round and round and you cannot stop it from doing so with a thought process. when you're at a low spot on the wheel you can decide to move forward or you can decide to sit on the ground and whine and mourn your fate and let your self esteem inflict savagery upon itself. I do all of thatSo now I have this other car and it has some vibration issue and I just have to fucking deal with the fact that I was not in fact able to snag a totally perfect car for $750. what the fuck did I expect? someone used that car and got rid of it for some reason. it's a stodgy family car with pretty decent relilability reputation, much better than my stratus does, but it's 12 year old and has 128k on it and it just needs something looked at. hopefully I can afford the fix or I'll just have to drive off highway for the several weeks I need to use the thing for school and/or work until I'm off across the country.
one respect in which it sort of seemed to make sense to replace my old POS with a new POS was that if I wasn't financing a car I would not have to carry as much insurance on it, and I would therefore be able to continue riding my bike in good weather, instead of having to take it off the road to save the insurance money. so maybe in a sense the POS route wasn't so terrible overall, it might need some repair that will cost me something now, but I'm saving on finance payments and insurance, and that's something worth considering, as well as its being less even than a $750 roll of the dice when I get the old stratus sold, for a couple hundred bucks, hopefully.
forgive this regurgitating if you've bothered to read it.
i did have an interesting artistic idea this week. It struck me that it might be cool to draw playing or tarot cards featuring SG's and other interesting persons I've encountered on the site. my life could perhpas be interesting if only I were to do something interesting. on the other hand there's an accomplished artist on the site whose work i highly admire, who spends 14 hours a day for a month per painting. he doesn't think his life is very exciting, but he does do some cool stuff when he takes a break from painting. the fact that his paintings take so long is in a way encouraging to me, in that i might also need a very long time to complete a work of art that I were to undertake, but that doesn't necessarily mean i'm not a worthy artist. Cezanne was like that too, he took so long to paint that he despaired of finishing paintings and used artificial fruits for still lifes because real fruit would rot before the painting was finished.
I managed to give myself a fairly annoying trucking injury this week. big rigs have a yellow square and octagonal red knobs on the dashboard that set and release the emergency/parking brakes for the tractor and trailer respectively. when you set the e-brakes, you have to pull really hard on the knob(s) and they spap out so hard and sharply that you can really hurt your fingers if you don't do it right, and my right index finger is still swollen and red from not doing it right.
my life persists in not wanting to be smooth sailing all the way to prosperity. my natural reaction is to collapse into neurosis, into anxiety, but i'm fighting that tendency. my life moves forward even though it is far from a masterpice of assuredness or grace.
VIEW 13 of 13 COMMENTS
lizzi:
I wish I could write you more, but all I can say, is thank you so much for your advice! I really appreciate you taking the time and thought to write me! It was very touching to know that you care! I knew you cared anyway, but really taking the time like that makes me feel better about what I have to do....ick. 
salome:
Not to mention Chicago traffic is abysmal, and construction on the major highways is totally fucking with traffic patterns. Nonetheless, if you pass through, we'll have a drink.