Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz!

As it has been my tradition every season change since I moved here, I have a cold.  My throat is sore, my eyes are itchy, and my nose?  I woke up this morning with a Mississippi River style snot-stream running from of my left nostril.  (How do you like that imagery?) 

I also have cramps, but that’s not so much a tradition thing as it is a double-whammy of reasons to stay in my jammies and eat ice cream all day.

Ah, speaking of that, I’ve been thinking all morning that perhaps my “I hate Suburbia!” tirade was more a result of a hormone fluctuation than an actual feeling.   I don’t hate living here, I’m just a city fish out of water.  I’m not used to being two-miles removed from the nearest Starbucks.  I’m unfamiliar with the concept of planning a day, as opposed to simply deciding “I’m bored.” and leaving the house knowing I’d eventually find something to pique my interests within four city blocks.  My senses don’t know how to take the smell of a fresh cut lawn in the spring, having been exposed for years to the stink of the heat rising off a broken 75 year old sidewalk. 

The truth is that after a year, I still haven’t given the ‘burbs a chance.  Though I’ve been happy in my relationship, I’ve been too busy lamenting over what was to come up with a new what is. 

Part of my problem is Man and I are a one-car couple, which limits my adventuring a bit.  He’s got the car while he’s at class, which isn’t a big deal except for those days when I’m off work and left to rattle around the house all day alone.  There’s only so much laundry I can do before I start snatching at my own eyelashes.  By the time he gets home I’m going so stir crazy I start machine-gunning off places I want “us” (me) to go just to get out of the house.  He hasn’t got his bag off his shoulder yet, and I’m running off to the bathroom to fix my hair and put on my face so he can turn around and we go right back out.

Not fair, I know.

I’ve considered teaching myself to navigate the labyrinth of public transit options down here, but there’s only one.  A bus that—by the time I walk to the stop I might as well have walked to Baton Rouge.  Not to mention it would take two hours and a couple of transfers to travel what should be a 20 minute car ride.  No thanks.  Especially not with the merciless Louisiana summer just around the corner.  You can just call me Em Pit-Stains by the time I get anywhere.

The obvious solution would be for me to stop buying shoes and gnomes and slippers and kitchen gadgets, pay to have my license reinstated in NJ and buy a car.  The idea of the freedom to go shopping, lunching and exploring all by myself makes me absolutely giddy!  I dream of a little red convertible and big sunglasses.  Of the wind in my hair and a caramel macchiato in the cup holder.

Of course, even if I do somehow manage to stop buying shoes, gnomes, expensive coffee and bedroom slippers, the reality is still more along the lines of this: