This Time Machine

This short thing is based on a conversation I had last week with my mother's boyfriend. There's a little chunk of the conversation removed, but I'm working on that. Enjoy.

“If you had a time machine and had to pick whether you would go forward or back in time, which would you choose?” Hannah tilted her head to the side and brushed the hair out of her eyes, considering the question for a moment. It was this or that. She hated this or that.

“Neither. I would stay exactly where I am,” She answered as Dennis swung the car left. He glanced over and clicked his tongue.

“No, you can’t stay where you are, you have to pick one. There is no staying.” She groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Why is there no staying?”

“Because it’s a hypothetical question, and I asked you to pick one.”

“Then my answer is the same.” She thought he might reach over to smack her in the back of the head, but instead he mimicked her groan.

“Ok, a bomb is about to explode and the only way to live is to jump through the time machine.”

“I don’t have time to find a way out, but I have time to calibrate the machine to the past or the future?” She could feel him getting frustrated with her, which was a bit of a private joy. Nevertheless, she relented and began thinking of an answer. “Well, I most definitely couldn’t go into the past. Just being there would alter the entire course of humanity.”

“Well, you could just be an objective observer, couldn’t you? Do you have to go back and change things?”

“That is impossible. It’s human nature to connect to the world around us, and so you would have to be heartless, soulless, or a vegetable to go back in time and not affect the world some how. “

“Well, ok, that makes sense. Like if you went to the beaches of Normandy,” she grimaced and gave a little twitch of the head as he continued, “you might alter the course of history by yelling ‘Hey look out’ to a guy who would then become the next big dictator.”

“Something like that. It would be too hard not to get into things some how.”

“So the future would be the lesser of two evils.” She shook her head.

“No, no not the future. I couldn’t go to the future either.” Hannah said as they parked the car in the driveway.

They walked up the front steps. Nonplussed, Dennis asked, “Well, why not the future?”

“Because you’d miss so much!”

“Huhn. I’ve never heard that answer before.”

“That’s because I’m a unique and precious snowflake,” she replied as the front door closed.

Condiment Blues

There are things that have been happening, but I find that I have no thoughts on them. I went into the DPS and applied for a replacement ID, which arrives two weeks hence. I found out that I can't get a library card because I live in Manor (stupid Manor). I went into Hollywood Video and asked about a job (again), discovered they have a full staff right now but will be hiring seasonally, which I said was perfectly ok with me. I have also been assigned chores since I don't actually have a job yet. The ones I hate (but will do anyway because I hate feeling like a mooch even more). I also finally got fingernail clippers after searching for them in vain the past- since I moved here. I used them to clip my toenails, which have been disgustingly long for about the same amount of time. Today, I drove for the first time on actual roads, and I didn't kill anyone. I drove from Jim's house to the Mexican restaurant about a mile away. This was actually pretty exciting because I did a decent park job (not perfect, of course). I learned from that experience that I am no longer allowed to make fun of Mom for always making jerky stops.

But I still have nothing to really say about any of these things, except that they happened. I have nothing to say because I feel blocked. Even though I'm getting all these things done, I feel like I'm in a rut. My life is moving and that's awesome, but the things I enjoy aren't coming to me right now. I mean, I can play video games and browse around on the internet. That's great. All kinds of fun. But the things I love above everything, writing and drawing. . . I can't get them to work.

I haven't drawn anything worth looking at in months besides TSL, and that doesn't even come easy. I've been trying to write, but mostly all I've done is delete or retool things I've already written. And it's infuriating to feel like everything I do has to be poked and prodded out, like I'm trying to force the last globs of mayonnaise from one of those easy-squeeze tubes.

Austin was supposed to be my new jar of mayo. I'm beginning to feel a little bit cheated.

Buses are Smelly

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have no interest in getting a job. I'd be happy to laze around whatever dwelling I inhabit and draw or read or write. Yet it is becoming an increasing necessity for me to have one. Not just because I've currently got five dollars and fifty-eight cents in my bank account, but also because I think people are getting annoyed with me being always and forever around. Not in the sense that people don't want me around, but it's nice to not have someone else always footing my bills.

The only problem with this is a lack of transportation.

Of the four children of the old household, I am the only one who was never taught to drive. My dad was an excellent instructor, but by the time my turn came around, he didn't care enough to get the job done, and I wasn't insistent enough to make him. So my instruction will fall to someone else. However, the same problem exists: excuses just keep getting made.

This doesn't bother me. After all, I don't even have a car, so I what do I need to know how to drive for?

Instead, I must rely on other means. Namely, the Austin city bus system.

I woke up early Friday so that my mom's friend Pam could pick me up before she had to drop her car off at the Pink Flamingo mechanic ("Why Pink Flamingo?" we wondered). We spent the day riding around on the bus, going to bookstores, coffee shops, and the library. This being my first foray into bus travel (Arlington lacks any form of public transportation), I learned a couple things.

Buses are smelly. Like stale sweat and people. This is not so bad. I don't like it, but I can live with it. But this doesn't make me any less uncomfortable with sitting around a bunch of strangers. I will admit that while we were riding the Dillo (the free bus system that goes all over downtown Austin), I had a small panic attack. Not the unmanageable, so freaked I literally bang my head into the wall type of panic attack that I am (was) more accustomed to. Just a quiet panic that I pretty much ignored. I may just be confusing it with discomfort. Still, quite uncomfortable.

I also learned that I will not sit on a bus bench if I can manage it. Standing wouldn't bother me so much as long as there was something to hold on to, but I'll be sticking to a regular seat if it's possible. I don't like jouncing around or bracing myself and hoping I don't fall on the guy sitting next to me.

The only problem I have with the bus is that I can't get to it. I don't technically live in Austin. I live in Manor (may-ner). Manor is very close to Austin and home of the water tower from What's Eating Gilbert Grape (as Jim [mom's boyfriend whom we live with] is very fond of pointing out). But Manor is not connected to the bus system. It's not even within walking distance of a bus stop.

This means that I'm going to have to wake up at seven (earlier actually) just so that someone can take me to a bus stop. I guess this is not so bad, except that it is because I hate waking up early.

Correction: I hate waking up unnaturally. This is often the same thing, and as such one is often confused for the other.

To be honest, I could really live without all of this. Mom says that we will be in our own place by January, which really kind of pisses me off since I've only just gotten all of my things moved into her boyfriend's house. But I guess I don't have much room or right to complain. This is
the thing with Mom. She's always in a state of transition, settling and unsettling, unpacking and packing, and even when she says "This is it" it never really is. I knew that when I decided to move in with her, at least in some dusty corner of my brain that I hate going to. So, I'll just have to live with it and hope I can come into a means of supporting myself soon. Because I would really really really love to settle.