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September 5, 2005

In Which I Witter On About Gas Prices, Sort Of

From Megan, September's Guest Literary Chick!

It takes very little for me to wax political, but since I’m just a guest here at the Literary Chicks, I figured I’d leave the politics to Jon Stewart and concentrate more on, say, me.

More specifically, on how rising gas prices have destroyed my favorite refuge: my car.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey, in a preppy little town no one ever heard of, surrounded by much bigger ones famous for all the malls the New Yorkers flock to on weekends—not to mention all the stereotypes everyone else associates with Jersey. What this meant in practical terms was that I did not wear spandex, no one I knew was even tangentially related to any Mafia types, and the hair in town was only sprayed high when sullen teens of questionable sexuality were trying to access their inner Lead Singer of the Cure. (What can I tell you—it was the Eighties.) And there was nothing to do, especially if you were too cowed by your mother to experiment with creative hair and/or ripped and torn clothing. (Which I was. And am.) So to escape the tremendous horror of my adolescence—and it was such a horror, I assure you, that I felt compelled to fill at least ten black-and-white notebooks with Very Bad Poems detailing the experience—I drove. In big, rambling loops around my hometown and the surrounding county.

Every day after school, my friend Josie and I would climb in my parents’ old Chevy Caprice and take to the open road. (Okay, it was the not-so-open suburban road, but we didn’t know the difference.) We made scratchy mixed tapes of songs we felt explained our souls, smoked Marlboro Lights, stalked our crushes, and were free for a brief window between 2:45 and 6:00pm.

In college, I would leave my pretty campus behind and take to the roads of upstate New York, winding around and around the Hudson Valley where Ichabod Crane was said to have ridden after the Headless Horseman. On some nights in autumn, with the stars bright and cold, believe me, that story seemed way too real even from inside the car. The treacherous Taconic Parkway, narrow and terrifying, was better than a rollercoaster as we roared down to New York City. The arterial roads that cut through the “city” we lived in let you shoot through the place at top speed. My best friends and I cocooned ourselves in the car, still listening to mixed tapes, still smoking and stalking, and still free. For whole days at a time.

My favorite time to drive is at night, and my favorite road out here in Los Angeles is Mulholland Drive. Snaking through the mountains, the whole city spreads out before you on one side, the Valley on the other, and it’s as close as you can get to flying without leaving the ground. And the best part about being a grown-up is that I get to be free all the time, and I don’t need songs to explain my soul. (Although I like it when they do.)

Except at over three dollars a gallon and rising, you might be better off chartering a plane.

Frankly, I feel for the sullen teens. Freedom just got pricier.

I’ll be here all month—at the end of which, I’m giving away two copies of my new book, Everyone Else's Girl (out in October, so there might be a lag) and two copies of my first book, English as a Second Language.

Glad to be here, and happy Labor Day!

Megan

Posted by at 6:30 AM | Comments (2)

Comments

Posted by: Maureen at September 5, 2005 12:57 PM

Posted by: beejay at September 5, 2005 7:23 PM