I really could not believe I made it. Today at 11am, with an hour to spare I rolled into the chainlink encircled compound of Dependable Auto Shipping in Linden, New Jersey. The last hour and a half of the drive was the most nerve-wracking I'd ever spent in a car. It was the rain that made things so crazy.

Yesterday after the wedding ceremony, mathew (the groom) and I went swimming in the choppy grey-green waters off Montauk. For days the forecasters said that Hurricane Isabel would come ashore somewhere off the east coast, and that prediction was made very real by the growing swells we encountered. The waves crashed hard on the steep beach, and then retreated at such a pace we were both easily upended by the surging waters. The afternoon light was hazy and wind blew the sand hard against the friends and family who watched us two kooks from lounge chairs on the sand.
I managed to swim past the bone crushing breakers so that I was bobbing up and down in the swell. I felt very intimidated to realize that I was in 12' deep waters, rising no less than 8' with each passing swell. It was indeed a hurricane coming ashore.

But the hurricane really hit back in the city, when i exited the lincoln Tunnel on the Union City side. After fighting my way across Manhattan, continually plagued by engine stalls and leaks in the weatherproofing, I found myself in rain so hard i couldn't exceed 20mph on the NJ Turnpike. I put on the hazards. wiped my brow and said "Goodness gracious!" It was not clear the Cutlass would make it home, oh on my friend, it was not.

Tonight i'm going to meet Cache (like hidden) the most beautiful girl I've ever met, who became my date at the wedding, and spent the night at my room (though nothing happened). She's a vetrrnarian from Trinidad, and she needed her sleep, she explained, becasue she had to spay two cats and neuter a dog today.

I really could not believe I made it. Today at 11am, with an hour to spare I rolled into the chainlink encircled compound of Dependable Auto Shipping in Linden, New Jersey. The last hour and a half of the drive was the most nerve-wracking I'd ever spent in a car. It was the rain that made things so crazy.

Yesterday after the wedding ceremony, mathew (the groom) and I went swimming in the choppy grey-green waters off Montauk. For days the forecasters said that Hurricane Isabel would come ashore somewhere off the east coast, and that prediction was made very real by the growing swells we encountered. The waves crashed hard on the steep beach, and then retreated at such a pace we were both easily upended by the surging waters. The afternoon light was hazy and wind blew the sand hard against the friends and family who watched us two kooks from lounge chairs on the sand.
I managed to swim past the bone crushing breakers so that I was bobbing up and down in the swell. I felt very intimidated to realize that I was in 12' deep waters, rising no less than 8' with each passing swell. It was indeed a hurricane coming ashore.

But the hurricane really hit me when i exited the lincoln Tunnel on the Union City side. After fighting my way across Manhattan, continually plagued by engine stalls and leaks in the weatherproofing, I found myself in rain so hard i couldn't exceed 20mph on the NJ Turnpike. I put on the hazards. wiped my brow and said "Goodness gracious!"

Tonight i'm going to meet Cache (like hidden) the most beautiful girl I've ever met, who became my date at the wedding, and spent the night at my room (though nothing happened). She's a vetrrnarian from Trinidad, and she needed her sleep, she explained, becasue she had to spay two cats and neuter a dog today.

I'm just sitting not believing that I made it here.
Today I left montreal, Waverly St. and the neighbours who always sit out smoking and juicing and shooting the shit. Behind me are those trees with little round green leaves that always seem to shimmer in the breeze, which comes all the way from the north pole.
We made it to the American border, where the men carry live guns, and they will mess with you, and into the state of New York we rolled in the old car, and every mile I couldn't believe that it still rolled along.
We got a flat, but a guy fixed it for twenty bucks, and mile after mile we made it into new York city, where everything demands that you engage with it, and yet friends were waiting, and it was warm and all was well, and i smelled like sweat and sun all the way from my head down to my socks.
I knew at night the old car would have to sleep inside, and i felt terrified to leave it in the garege, where the guys said they'd have to move it every hour, and i tried to explain how startying it can be a biot of a headache, but no matter, for i finally gave the guys a sawbuck and said try to take care, that car's been in my family since i was a little kid, and I just want to get it back to California.

Behind me, I could weep, for my friends on those familiar streets, on their stoops and around the town, where you're never forgotten, laughing over food, or canoing across the lake. Grace was visited upon me today, and for a time there is no sorrow, but only pleasure at still, by some goddmaned fluke, being fucking alive.