undrcvrtrucker

Since I last posted ruminations regarding the travels of commuters or the perils of perfume?

I must be more busy than I was 155 weeks ago! :D

So, it's been a while since I've started the late shift; poking around with my first cup of coffee while others are headed out the door for lunch, taking lunch when others are headed out the door, heading out the door when...well, when everyone else is gone.

The bus ride is different and I'm parking in the church parking lot more often than not. Not as many professional people on the bus, more people for which the purpose of the bus ride is more ambiguous. Repeat riders are less frequent as well - coming and going. The ride home is now filled with the lovely stench of those who have imbibed after work, generally in taverns and less frequently in bars, the smell of each is very distinct and can be nauseating to sit next to if one makes a poor choice in seating arrangements.

Yes, the bus is still that crowded that late in the morning and the evening.

My insomnia is well played to, sleeping pattern is quite adapted. Friday nights can turn into Saturday morning rather easily but it all comes back around just as easy again. Some sleepless nights are still to be had, but that's how it is with anyone isn't it?

I'm being asked to develop a specialty at work, rather requested and accepted. One group has asked for an assistant from our group who can be trained to troubleshoot and investigate system issues a bit more before they are handed off for deep cover work by the real systems guys. It will be a very cool thing to do because I'm very interested in how all the systems function and work together. Already there are some in our group who come and ask me questions about things because I have a knack for discovering just what is going on. It's pretty cool and there is so much more to learn.

Some of the training I want is all booked up, database stuff; I'll have to let the boss know and see if we can't get someone bumped who really doesn't need the training all that bad.

Today my boss surprised me with a little award that ties in to the company culture, something to display on my desk that shows I embody at least one of the ten tenants of the cultural foundation. It's very cute and kind of cool, especially the one I received as it is one that has been part of my personality since the womb I think. If you don't ask why or wonder how something works, you will never come close to understanding even a little part of something. Sometimes curiosity doesn't kill anything...

Alrighty then...

So, since I can't get to the chiropractor because of my nutty schedule I asked if my shift could be shuffled around. I was hoping for an earlier shift - even though I'm not a morning person - because most of the rest of the world (and M) runs on an earlier schedule. What I did get offered is a two hour shift later...yes...later, that means an 11 o'clock start time and an 8 o'clock quit time.

Now for the bus schedule (which, by the way, will change in another week) changes:

The bad thing is that buses do not leave as often that time of day. I'm kind of stuck taking a 10 o'clock bus and arriving about 20 minutes early which is ok because that leaves some wiggle room. It's also kind of cool because any traffic woes will be pretty well over with by that time PLUS I don't have to get up so daggone early in the morning and, quite frankly, I do hate that.

Coming home is rather tough as well because, of course the buses don't leave as often that late either. There is a bus right at 8 o'clock, but that is my punch-out time, so the next bus is at 8:30 which leaves me sucking wind for about a half hour. I can wait in the lobby of the building and stay warm until time gets close for the winter so that will be ok and a teensy bit of overtime won't ever be a problem. Last bus out is at 10 so, no longer than 9:45 that's for sure.

I have discovered something about the church parking lot up on the hill though. A few folks say that cars have been broken into up there but you know the place is half deserted!!! I drove over there in a pinch one morning, thinking I could squeeze in at the end of a row if necessary, and beheld the most beautiful commuter sight you could ever want to see - a half empty parking lot! OMG...sweet mother of Pearl. It is quite a hill, I mean the kind that hurts your knees walking down and your hips walking up, but it's pretty well guaranteed parking! And here I had written the place off as being packed because of all the cars that park on the edge of that hill and those that park on the curb of the street itself make it look totally packed.

Nice.

Seems that with the start of the school year again, the volume of traffic at 7:40 quadrupled as well so I'm pretty stoked about changing shifts really. I mean, I don't have any bloody reason to be getting off work at a certain time anyway, do I? Not really. The iguana light can be adjusted so he can get fed later, so what the hell. No worries, and I can make a chiropractor appointment before work!

Very nice.

Now all I gotta do is get my student loans paid...urgh. At least my diploma came in the mail last week. A very expensive piece of paper.

So...back to the lost love...and running away, or getting myself together thing that I finally tried really hard to do.

I think I did ok at it, although I did get myself mixed up in a couple more foolish man things (extremely short lived), for the most part I went to the University, worked pretty hard, got my degree, lived in the Nevada desert for four years, and got the hell back out of there again.

M and I stayed in touch, he would send cards for my birthday and at Christmas...I would send cards around his birthday time because I could never remember quite exactly what day it was (I know, I know, don't say it)...he would call once in a while and we would chat for a few and catch up in an awkward kind of way. I never really talked much more than nervously, I just really listened never thinking he really wanted to hear all the crappy loneliness junk I was going through. And how much I really wanted him to be right there in the same room looking into my eyes and talking to me...but I wasn't going to say nothin' 'bout that.

After a while, my life got so nuts and I had moved so many times and got so busy and wrapped up in life...well...I had moved an online friend in with me (BIG BOO BOO to the NTH POWER) and he had a shotgun pointed at his head oh, like the week after we were supposedly settled in to a fresh apartment.

So, here I am, trying to talk this guy down from blowing his brains all over his half of this apartment...it had been going on for about, well forever it seemed like, and I had just told this guy that I was going to my closet to get a sweater and would be right back...like...dude, don't blow yourself away...hold on a second...

...and the phone rings...

...THE SON OF A BITCH ANSWERED THE PHONE!!!!!!!

In a voice that was as calm and normal as you can imagine..."Hello?"

I'm pulling a sweater off a hanger, thinking to myself...WHAT THE HELL??? HOW CAN YOU EVEN ANSWER THE PHONE LIKE THAT???!!!...and I hear...

"Yes, just a minute." then "It's for you."

Just as I come out of the bedroom on the other side of the apartment to see this scrappy little guy that was just holding a shotgun to his head and scaring the living crap out of me thinking I was going to be cleaning brains off the walls...HOLDING A PHONE OUT TO ME LIKE IT WAS THE MOST NORMAL DAY ON THE PLANET!!!

Oh my GOD...I can't even begin to describe the scrambled eggs this made out of my brain. So, I take the phone...

"Hello?"

"Guess who?"

I take a sharp breath in...it's M

"I can't do this right now." and I hang up...

And you know, that son of a bitch with the shotgun stood there looking me straight in the eye the entire time until I hung up the phone then turned around, went in his cave, closed his door, took his shotgun apart, put it back in his trunk, and STARTED WATCHING TELEVISION!!!

I don't know how long it was that I stood there with my hand on the receiver before I realized I hadn't moved. When I did, I just took my hand off the phone and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

And that prick of a roommate walked over me later and got food and what ever else he did that night without even batting an eye...I think I missed class that night too...I'm still not sure. It was days before it registered that I had hung up on my best friend...I was so ashamed I never called him back, never sent him a letter or anything to explain what went on.

Shotgun moved on to knives and other things...I gave my word I wouldn't turn him in to the authorities...looking back, I should have gone back on my word that first night.

The timeline is really unclear to me now, but I remember that M sent me a letter later telling me about some things that had happened in his life and we even talked on the phone once or twice. I got caught up with what was going on with his life but I never did tell him what was going on in mine...just silly nervous stuff...

...I still wanted him sitting on the other side of the table, looking into my eyes, talking to me...but I couldn't say a word...and that was a year after I left...

Had to stay up pretty late and sit outside on the deck, but there is nothing like the sound of the rain on a tin roof...

...even if it is washboard aluminum over the carport in a high-density housing apartment building.

It's nice riding the bus, not having to drive in heavy traffic and all; I can zone out in a great spy novel (written by Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlam) or a magazine (Realms of Fantasy is my current favorite). I can sure do without the company...there are plenty of people that don't smell so good after a day of work just as well as there are plenty of folks who smell to high heaven in the morning.

I just wasn't cut out for being part of a high-density community I guess.

As long as I can ignore the players discussing their tawdry lives at 1000db on their cell phones, a good time can be had in the half hour to fourty-five minute ride from downtown Seattle to the Renton park and ride. Some days are difficult, especially when there are two or three players competing for the same air space...wow...mostly they sit in the back and that's generally where the available seats are. Tears up my back muscles to stand, makes my stomach ill to sit in the sideways seats, so...I'm kinda stuck. Today was kinda one of those days where I was reading the same paragraph two and three times...I hate that.

But, you know there certainly are people who are a lot worse off than me so I try to keep that in mind.

I've been offered a different shift, well this shift kind of sucks...nine to six...not much livin' you can get done around those hours really. The trouble is, and what I mentioned to a manager, is that I can't make any chiropractor appointments without taking a whole bloody day off! The last two times, the doc had something going on and cancelled on me so I'm 1-for-3 in three months for chiropractor when I'm supposed to go once a week.

You think my back hurts some?

Anyhow, I've been offered a chance to work an eleven to eight shift. That would give me the morning to work with the medical community but I would be getting home a bit after nine. Not like it matters much really. Nobody around to give much of a shit. Would have to work something out with the iguana so he can get his evening meal, can't seem to get his true owner (a daughter) to take him. I have to admit, the prospect of regular chiropractic care is so VERY tempting...and this chance is only going to come around once.

I've got the weekend to think about it. I'm leaning that direction...at least my back is.

Parking for the bus would be dicey, I would have a fifteen or twenty minute wait after work for the home bus...there's a lot of things to think about.

A lot of employers wouldn't even have come up with any sort of compromise, solution, or offer...I'm fairly blessed in that regard really.

Thought I would share a short essay (rant if you will) regarding the state of low-cost housing in the Puget Sound area as I've had a bit of a reality check recently and have been wondering just how families are making it around here these days...and escaping the high-density housing conspiracy:

Trolling through the MLS (real estate Multiple Listing Service) for home listings under 200K that are not condominiums brought me to a couple lists in south and east King County of manufactured homes, several of which listed for under 55K and a handful listed for between 90 and 120K.

(I hate low-density housing...apartments...condos...shivers...blech)

Now, you would think that the way mobile homes depreciate in value they would be reasonably priced and for around 40 to 60K you could pick up a decent one set up in a park and for 90 to 120K you could obtain one fairly used up on a small plot of land perhaps situated quite far out of town, but not too awfully far away - right?

BIG WRONG!!!

For 10 - 60K, if you are 55 years of age or older, you can buy a mobile home that could be a single or double wide in a park at least 15 years of age (the home that is) that may or may not have been maintained and upgraded recently. This means, should you have the ways and means to do so and you are of the right age, you can obtain a personal property loan, plop down five percent (mobiles are five percent down, personal property loans), pay two or three hundred dollars a month for your little slice of mobile heaven PLUS anywhere from four to six hundred dollars for the lot the thing is sitting on.

Now, think about this for a second kids...that's...anywhere from 600 (on the low side, the very run down low side) to 900 (on the up side, and maybe not that up depending on the home and location) dollars a month! For a mobile home that is probably at least 24 years old if not older (about the median home age I'm seeing) and will need some major keeping up on if not changing out of some roofing materials, siding, appliances, etc in the near to very-near future by God.

Ok, so for that kind of money per month, you would not have a tax break but you could be maintenance worry free in an apartment! It wouldn't be yours, but if something broke someone else would be out the money, heartache, and time to fix it!

How could someone nearing retirement, or nearing the end of their earning potential, or trying to plan for retirement, or goodness knows if one were to become ill, afford that??!! Add utilities, car payment, car insurance, medical, dental, blah, blah, blah, oh my goodness. Crazy.

Is this the way people are being herded into low-density housing?

Wait, it gets better:

Let's look at the family offerings.

My trollings had hooked a few mobiles on small lots for 110 - 120K and I thought - "Not bad, at least there's a little dirt under it."

BIGGER WRONG!!!

Close friend says there's a mobile in his park for sale, about 10 years old, double wide and I'm thinking it should go for about 60K tops - riiiiight. NINETY THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's right folks, 90K for a 10 year old 1400 square foot double wide in a family park that doesn't have a pool, security gates, or anything else that you would call special. It gets better, the others that I had seen for over 100K were also in parks where you pay lot rent as well (cleverly disguised as being on very small plots of land).

Disgusting.

Let's do the math on this one, shall we? How about 110K with five percent down for a payment of around 550 without taxes and insurance, add the lot rent of an optimistic 550 and we're up to an 1100 dollar a month housing payment without blinking (more with taxes and insurance). Again, you have the possibility of the place falling apart, being poorly insulated, needing repairs and replacements, or some such thing, and fluctuating lot rent to deal with as well.

How about a family of four, lower income or lower-mid income, add on car payment, how about two cars, insurance, medical, let's clothe and feed the kids while we're at it, how about some entertainment or goodness knows the family would like to have a holiday or some such. Plant a couple credit card payments and college tuition planning, oh, let's not forget retirement planning on top of all that.

Good God, Man, how are people supposed to afford something??!!??

No guarantee the neighborhood is going to increase in value, maybe you can't even sell the darn thing for what you paid for it - it's a mobile home, it REDUCES value over time instead of increases (supposedly) like a stick built home. Goodness knows the folks selling these places probably aren't losing much compared to what they paid as an original price! Lucky them, pffffft.

From what I understand, even some of these mobile parks are sticking these things smack next to each other so there's barely room for a guy to sneak in between them and pee, let alone look out your window and see something other than your creepy neighbor in their underwear getting coffee in the morning.

Still think there's no low-density housing conspiracy? Heh.

So, let's look at a brand-new mobile. Same size, about 1400 square feet, double-wide, etc, not too many upgrades, kind of low-end on the manufacturer and POOF you have about a 60 - 65K unit.

Plant that in a park (good luck on finding an empty slot in a park) and you're still looking at around a grand a month give or take.

Let's try sticking it on a piece of land (don't forget about zoning) and be a bit optimistic about it:

How about a half-acre, not too close to urbanity, zoned fine, perks ok, water available, power at the street, lightly tree'd, and fairly level. Whew, skated the perfect piece of land (and it only took 18 months and cost 60% of brown hair to gray, sweet). Find a contractor to level out a site in straight exchange for the trees because (fortunately) the trees on the property are nice straight board trees that are sellable. On the way in, the planned driveway didn't account for the fact that the two halves of the mobile don't bend and we had to bring the contractor back out to remove a couple more trees and level more driveway but, it's in and set up.

Water table is fairly high, well doesn't have to be too deep, lucky again. Since the neighbors already brought the power by, we pay a flat fee and tap in to bring it back to the home site. Now, we have a bit of trouble with the drain field for the septic as it seems the planned drain field goes straight toward where the well had to be dug - back to the drawing board, move the darn thing, bend over and take it from the County while another 3 to 5% of brown hair goes to gray and finally make it happen for 75% more than the original planned cost for the septic - but it's in.

All the drawbacks took longer and we moved from July to September rainy season pretty quickly so the place turned to mud and standing water as the porch just got slapped together and the concrete has not been poured for the car to get parked on yet.

Can you see where this is going?

Add the cost of the new mobile to the land and development of the land and we've got a good 250K pretty easily, if not more. That's a good 1200 a month or so with taxes and insurance (not a very accurate number, but a good ballpark). How do people do it? How do families do it?

Check out the real estate section of the paper sometime...all the condominium ads...the exorbitant prices on decent houses...

Still think there's no low-density housing conspiracy?????

Riiiiight...

They won't get me...

Ok, so traffic in Seattle can move in dozens of ways. Roads carry people in a multitude of directions and people can take their journeys in many ways by any choice they have at their disposal.

In the same manner, data can travel and be "manipulated" (for lack of a better description) by a myriad of companies willing to perform business together for a mutually agreed upon price.

Within this business of electronic data interchange (EDI), there are standards and rules as well as levels of service that can be performed. By doing EDI business, there are electronic connections, data matching rules, data translation rules, hardware that must be paid homage and monitored, as well as tracking the many different ways everybody wants to do business.

Hit Google sometime and do a search on EDI or X12, ANSI or data wrapping, try FTP & robots, protocol and job programming.

Take a truck driver and toss that driver (with some computer savvy) right in the middle of all of this.

Whoa dude.

As soon as you think you have something perhaps figured out a bit, another bloody tidbit slips through your fingers and makes you look like you didn't look at one slip of documentation at all. Good grief, make a typo and blow up a transaction that has to travel between five sites and travel half the world (electronically, but think of the human interaction time frame in hours) and the data could be present on anywhere from one to three screens. I discover more all the time, every week something else comes up.

I mean you can take one map for each state in the United States of America, toss them down in front of me, and I can still find my way from west to east, north to south. It's basic, simple. Perhaps the simplicity comes from our culture being one that travels from a very young age. Lots of kids get to "read the map" while one parent or the other drives, or when one parent is "map challenged," right? If you want to get anywhere, you learn how to "read" a map, you learn the rules of the road beginning at the age of 15 or 16 - younger if you were lucky enough to reside in a very rural area.

No wonder driving came easy.

Kids now are raised with computer mapping, computers are toys, programming is a game, most kids know how to write simple programs by the time they are in junior high school as far as I can tell; or at least they know how to deal with technology in a logical manner. They would be able, perhaps, to jump into data interchange fairly quickly.

But they can't write worth a shit.

Young folks can understand technology but not put a simple written document together.

Intelligence does not relate to education, it relates to the way in which a person interacts with the world around them and the logic they can apply to whatever they do.

You can program an iPod, cellphone, make your laptop sing, fly around the internet...but can you write a business letter or correspondence in a concise manner that gets your point across?

Data can be translated by programmers but person to person communication is not translated by anyone but the reader, the communicator is the programmer.

Truck drivers have been using a multitude of media to communicate for as long as there have been wheels on dirt. Freight has been moving between point A and point B fairly well ever since.

Simple communication does not mean it is a lower form of communication.

Who says truck drivers are of low intelligence?

Fear can be a powerful force, even if what you fear is what you want most.

Take love for instance.

You build a life, with someone or for yourself, and you let someone into your life, you run the risk of losing everything you've built.

At the time I realized I loved M, my ex-husband had told me I didn't want to be married any more. Hm, ok. Right after that, six years with someone else who drained me of emotions and I wound up leaving. Thirteen years down the tubes, for what? I never gave all of me to them even though I gave my all.

Standing in the tiny yard of my tiny lot in a tiny recreational vehicle park watching M drive away, I felt fear like I had never felt in my whole thirty-something years. As teardrops fell onto the lenses of my glasses and blurred the sight of those beautiful earrings, I had no idea what I was going to do next but I started tossing dirt on the raging fire I felt beginning in my heart.

Over the next months, M and I still hung out together; enjoying each other strictly on surface value, never really discussing what had happened in my yard. Inevitably we fell into bed together, awkwardly, needing to know, wanting to be in that place and time.

The fear multiplied as the night turned into day and instead of pulling us closer, it caused me to repel from what could be like I was dropping of the side of a cliff with a rope and grapple hook. I verbally beat him about the head and shoulders, hoping to chase him off and assuage my guilt of being so afraid I could not possibly take the ultimate chance.

I ran.

Over the years to follow, M kept in touch. A phone call once in a while to catch up, birthday cards, little Christmas gifts in the mail. My thoughts would stray to him, wondering what he was doing and what was really going on in his life, what it was like to be in it.

Men came and went in my life, those that I could keep at a firm distance and still be involved with. I still gave my all, and lost it too, again and again. the calls from M were steady; he remembered my birthday when those I slept with couldn't and sent gifts of music that he knew I would love when those I lived with couldn't even buy jewelry I cared to wear.

After a while, relationships began to grow shorter and less tolerable for me. I began to realize that I was picking men with whom a completely successful relationship was impossible. All of them began to come up against an impossible checklist - a comparison to M. My subconscious slowly overrode my fear and by the time I realized I needed M, I figured I had been so hurtful toward him that I couldn't possibly ask for another chance.

I had to get myself together, I had to pull myself up and get strong, I had to accomplish something for myself, and I had to move on. To do that, I wound up getting away.

Away would be a place where I would finally realize that I couldn't live without him and by then, it seemed it was too late.

Fear...and love; strange how they go hand in hand.

Ok...so here's the real disenchantment...the real conflict:

In 1992, I met a man. Nice guy, a little nuts - but, so am I and the wit was enchanting. I was working on the Seattle waterfront at the time as a container truck driver, my first driving job. Well, when I met M, it was like my third driving job, but the waterfront was my first so, anyway.

In 1990, the piers were weird to me, being a newbie. I drove a little old Coke-a-Cola delivery truck, something that had an automatic, you just put it in drive and slammed the accelerator into the floor and ran down the road. I ran empty containers for $7 - $9 bucks a piece. Ok, it was my second driving job, my first was for a mattress parts company and I cut a corner too tight and bent someone's bumper and was fired.

Heh, the guy was a city employee parked way too far out in an intersection that was way too tight to begin with. Nice. Wonderful way to begin what I viewed as a glorious career. Glorious? As M puts it "I'm a failure, I have a CDL in my wallet to prove it." You know, that hurts me because I think driving a truck is one of the most admirable professions in the country. I digress.

So, here I am, driving this little cabover day truck that really isn't a truck (because it is tiny and small and takes gas, not diesel) and running empty containers all over the Seattle piers. Freshly divorced, living in my 1980 Chevy conversion van, I'm applying to every company that has trucks, anything that moves containers, anyone that is accepting anybody with a CDL and a shifting arm coupled with two feet to work the pedals for gas and clutch.

(Ok kids, what I really wanted was to drive a real truck, like on the big road, but having the ticket record I did - speeding - I couldn't get the jobs)

So finally I start getting part time work with the local container Teamster companies. A step up eh?

I show up for work, get assigned a truck, and go to work. Actually pulling loads for a change, not that empty stuff and not that "by the move" crap either. Nice.

Strange place, the piers; if you have no idea what you are doing, nobody is going to tell you and if you can't figure it out, you are going to get stuck hanging around waiting for one of the longshoremen to come and take the container off your chasis for quite some time. It can happen that you would be stuck on a container row for an hour or two with no top pick showing up and no little supervisor in the white truck to watch over the place because you were an unknown working for an unknown or unliked company. Really, honest to Godly. Homemade cookies and good Bourbon go a long way man. Once you figure things out that is, but I jump around a bit.

So, here I am, first day on the job at a Teamster outfit. Me, a Teamster, no shit man. Wow, I thought I had really made it. M said he made a bead on me right off. Yeah, him and 80% of the rest of the crew. Good grief, I had so many notes show up on my windshield, it wasn't even funny. I used to answer them just so I could have a good meal and a decent bed for a night. Living in that van was pretty hard core man, don't judge. Don't have to give your heart to give it you know.

After a while you'll give a lot for a decent meal, a regular bed, and a real shower. No kidding.

So, anyway, at the time I get this Teamster job, I'm broke, living in my van, drinking like a fish, freshly divorced, and doing just about anything to get by. Along comes this guy, kinda nuts, a little oversized, nice enough, giving me tips and pointers about the piers and the railyards - not leaving notes on my van which was a major plus - total bonus.

I learn, I find a guy I can move in with that isn't so bad, life goes on. The guy I move in with is an ass, a drunk; I wind up cookin' and cleanin' and all that other stuff while living close to Port Orchard and commuting to Seattle every single day to get to work. Pay the rent, pay the child support, blah blah blah.

Of course, the guy starts hurting me emotionally, psychologically. Bite me, after six years, it gets too bad and I figure a way out. Dad helps me, I get his travel trailer, and I go.

Dad passed away soon after that, a couple weeks as a matter of fact. Like he had to see me safe. M and I talked on the phone a lot, started bowling together quite a bit; come Christmas, I did not want to be alone and we spent the Eve at the movies and at my place watching TV. He went home. Told me a while back he would have stayed if I had asked. Right, like I was going to ask to get my heart broken.

Time goes, we see more of each other, he gives me jewlery:

"M, they are beautiful, I can't accept this."

"I thought you knew."

Quizical look.

"I tossed my hat in the ring"

"I had no idea."

"I want you to keep them."

"Thank you, they're beautiful."

You know, at that time, he was being so gentlemanly. I never in my life had a man behave that way toward me. To give me a gift of the most beautiful silver and torquoise earrings I had ever seen was mind blowing. I had no idea what to say and accepting such a beautiful thing from someone as wonderful and kind as M just did not seem right at the time.

He and I spoke on the phone for hours. We spent Saturday nights together bowling. He came to make sure I was not alone when I did not want to be. Why the HELL could I not accept those earrings from him?

Because he was too good and too nice, that's why.

NOBODY HAD EVER BEEN THAT NICE TO ME AND NOT TRIED TO GET IN MY PANTS

I was so confused. I started loving him at that moment.

Wow, I had no idea that living in the city would bring such a conflict.

After growing up in south King County as well as raising my children there, I never thought I would be disenchanted with my "home". In 1990, I moved to Kitsap County where I lived until my move to Reno, Nevada in 2001. All three environments lend themselves to a slower pace of life, less crowding in the stores and streets, and a much easier view on the eyes in general if you ask me.

Even as a driver, my time spent as a local Seattle driver was never my cup of java. My passion was the mid-haul work I did in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho running bulk liquid petroleum and chemicals where I was running mostly on two lane highways and uncrowded freeways. When I was in the I-5 corridor, it was still not for long or there were stretches of road between the cities like the stretch between Olympia and Vancouver, Washington or north of Everett before reaching the Canadian border.

The smells on the road are different as well. Depending on the season, you have the smell of hay, tilled soil, forest fires, snow, rain, hot brakes, hot rubber, warm engines, diesel smoke, Armoral, asphalt, pulp mills, low tide, high tide, the inside of a rubber hazmat suit, sweat, hot coffee, food when you are hungry, soap when you are dirty, home when you've been gone for a week, pine trees at just about any time, fall when the leaves are turning and it's crispy, spring when it's fresh and moist, and midnight when the stars are still and clear. What? You didn't know midnight had a smell? Well, get out there and try it. Compare it to 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. - it's different, honest.

The smells I have now seem to be very stale. Lots of recirculated air, car exhaust, bus exhaust (vastly different from semi-truck exhaust, trust me), body smells, body waste smells, propane barbecues, other people's food, other people's perfume/cologne, other people's potpourri, smog, garbage, and a multitude of odors that I have yet to identify and really don't care if I do.

Coming home there is no escape from other people's noises either. Upstairs, downstairs, next door, across the courtyard, the next building up, the next one down, you name it. TVs, stereos, fights, kids, animals, you name it, it makes noise.

Bite me. Would it be too much to hear my own noise or no noise at all? To sit with a book and read with only ambient noise from very little around me?

My job wears out my brain which is really good because my brain needs that. Going to the city to work is ok because even there I can walk down to the waterfront and watch the ferry boats and other water traffic during lunch. There are no friends for me here, never were really. I have a staunch bachelor for a boyfriend who would rather call than drive three miles to talk to me. So, why again am I living in this crowded stink hole?

Oh yeah, because to live in the suburbs you have to have MONEY! Now I remember. How silly of me to forget. How frustrating.