I AM A PASSENGER; I RIDE AND I RIDE... Taking Pleasure in Life's Simplicity Beats the Alternative

NEAR THE OHIO-INDIANA BORDER (ZP) -- The crispness of autumn roars through the cab, the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" rattles away in the speakers.

I turn up the volume, light a cigarette, and floor the accelerator for no reason whatsoever.

There's just something about an empty stretch of country road, something mischievous and devilish that spurns all men in automobiles to behave like your average teenager.

Especially when that man's just passed to only cop he's seen for ten miles.

The iPod, through some metaphysical link, reads my mind, telepathic biometrics. The original Generation X version of the classic "Dancing with Myself," twists my lips into a Billy Idol sneer as I bang the beat out on the steering wheel.

Asphalt eats away rubber beneath the pickup's frame. The cracked windshield - the one I've been meaning to fix since, oh, 2004 - shimmers in the bleak grayed sun.

I'm a country road devil, Satan fucking the wives of speed law legislators, the baron of blacktop flying the Badass flag at 70 miles per hour.

Cigarette smoke swirls like a dragon's hellish fart. The harvested cornfields and plowed under soy plants blur into a sea of browns and yellows.

Me time.

Just a Hoosier-Buckeye bound Don Quixote with a slab of plastic and a Ford filling in for Sancho Panza. For miles and miles, just melting horizon and the likes of Iggy Pop belting out songs like "The Passenger," bands like Biohazard bleating out covers of Sabbath's "War Pigs," Eric B. and Rakim spinning and commanding that I refuse to sweat the technique.

I catch my reflection in the rear-view mirror and feel handsome, free, cavalier.

I'm a killer. A goddamn bandito, a highwayman, a motherfucking gunslinger for hire who'll skullfuck an angel with a Louisville goddamn Slugger just for the thrill of it.

I laugh as I talk to the mirror. I'm well-aware that, for a badass gunslinger wannabe, I've got a stomach full of herbal tea and tofu - not exactly a Wyatt Earp style feast.

But the heart's full of adrenaline, brain firing on all machismo cylinders. The asphalt whines beneath the tires of a late-model pickup.

All alone. With just the road and some tunes.

Jesus Fucking Christ, what a ride.

C'est la motherfucking vie.

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THE OXFORD (FUCKING OHIO) DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS:New Wave Legends, House Guests, Dealing with Preacher Profs, & The Post-Grad Blues

"I don't want to kiss you, I don't want to touch. I don't want to see you, 'cause I don't miss you that much."

- ELVIS COSTELLO,
The song "No Action," [VIDEO]
This Year's Model (Radar UK, 1978)

Because, well, my life decisions, while frustrating, are way less confusing than George Clooney's, apparently. Over 30 and concerned less with starting a family and getting married than I am about that article I read last month in Mother Jones...

* * * *

"Look, you're a man and you're a little more comfortable [with maintaining a blog under a horribly kept local "secret" online persona]. I'm a 22-year-old tiny-ass woman, skinny and light-skinned and boobs and all ... you have a sketchy-ass brother come up to you in a club, talking about how he loves what you wrote, creepin', it's different..."

"Man, what the fuck? ... You have all these books on witchcraft and demons and weird shit ... you're a librarian... and, haha, in your glasses? How can you say you're offended by being called Giles?"

- G-MONEY DA HOUSECAT,
Former Woman of Color Blogger,
On her recent visit to Oxford

So... some folks know this already, but I spent a good portion of the last month playing host to a former blogger - and ex, by the way - who made me promise not to put up a "real" post based on our time together. I did not, however, promise to not put up quotes...

So yeah, I keep things offline... sometimes.

* * * *

"Sometimes I feel like professors hide behind their degrees and classes end up feeling like... I dunno... like we're all there to just shut up, like, accept EVERYTHING they believe even if it has nothing to do with class. Sorry for whining..."

- LOCAL U. UNDERGRAD,
Via email, Nov. 12

Seriously... If you're a university student and you feel like you're in a class where the instructor's diverging from the syllabus and course description (both of which a generally viewed as contracts between grader and the graded), it's your responsibility and right (sorry... no getting anybody else to do it for you!) to meet with the instructor and air your concerns in a rational, responsible manner.

Don't wait for a course evaluation form and let a chance for real learning in a class you're paying for pass you by - in all honesty, it's the student who loses when they don't raise hand in classes to say "I disagree" or "Dr.___, what about the other side?" or take advantage of office hours - faculty can't read minds (though some, heh, librarians do read your tarot cards over beer Uptown.)

* * * *

"You guys are such pigs! Do you know how offensive and sexist it is to compare women to disposable razors that you can just throw away? Now, men on the other hand... you all are the disposable ones..."

- DUFFY McUGGS, Oct. 31
Local U. undergrad,
Bringing equality to sexism

See, there's no way to really take the sex out of sexism, especially when there's alcohol involved. Unless, well, you're one of those overly-sensitive prudes who really wishes we could just simply neuter and spay every human being with a sex drive.

* * * *

"Ugh... why didn't you, like, warn me about how fucking dark and depressing life after college is? How hard it is? It, like, fucking SUCKS!"

- UNEMPLOYED ENGINEER, Nov. 7
On the Post-Graduation Blues in a Recession

I thought I'd mentioned that, actually. Dammit. Must be getting old.

* * * *

"Ohmygosh! You're that blog person!"

"Uh, yeah... probably."

"Oh, well, that's great! [Digging through Fendi bag for a flier] Would you mind doing a blog about this? We're doing a fundraiser -"

"Um, chica, I don't take press releases. But I can get you the fax number for the paper..."

- COMMON CONVERSATION No. 238
At work a few weeks ago.

I'm not a media outlet and I generally don't take requests. But I'll be polite about it. Kinda nice to be thought of as a media outlet...

And yeah, a shitload of the Local U's female undergrads - even some of the drag queens - can afford Fendi handbags. Met a few who have one for class and one to go with their nightwear. Actually, I'm a bit worried that I actually know what the hell that means, fashion-wise.

* * * *

"Well that's just ice cream sex with a champagne moneyshot, love."

- ANONYMOUS,
Via online chat,
Glasgow, Scotland

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