The Civility Police

My friend S, the aforementioned Tri-State ex-patriate and FL attorney, and I share many things in common. Most relevant to this posting is our despair at the utter lack of manners and civility displayed on a daily basis by our fellow Floridians.

Motor vehicle operation is one of the main areas in which Floridians (and Miamians, in particular) most egregiously show the world that they don't give a shit about their fellow man. Whether it be atrocities committed while moving or parking, I have witnessed so many poorly executed lane changes, parking attempts, etc, that my road rage has actually improved. Another driver has to do something extraordinarily dangerous to even catch my attention these days, much less inspire anger.

The same does not apply for S. She is the captain of the civility police and will not stand for this type of behavior. I, for one, applaud her efforts, especially her newest initiative, described below in an e-mail she sent me this morning:

so i have this new thing i do at work. when i drive into the parking garage there are a lot of awful people who dont know how to park a car - and they end up taking up 2 spots. Usually my little mini can cram into these little spots - but sometimes people are so awful that they purposefully park straight in the middle of the two spots.

Now you are asking - what is it that s does? There is nobody there to yell at - and I dont want to actually scratch up a car or anything.

Well, my new thing is writing notes to people and sticking it on their windshield. A few weeks ago there was a jerk who got a note and today was note #2. Today's winner was blatantly parked between two parking spots this morning (on the 4th floor of the garage) and as i passed it i was like geez he is a jerk. So i had to go park up on the 11th floor and when i got out of my car I took the elevator to the 4th and wrote a note - stuck it on his car and then went to work. Yes - it was a bit out of my way. And true I wouldn't have gotten the parking spot - but he is still a jerk. The note today said: You are a JERK for taking up 2 parking spots. Next time be considerate of other people in this building and park in one spot.

So it wasn't that mean - but it still said what was necessary.

Drowning in a Tsunami of Nostalgia

I prefer the past to the future. This preference includes not only literature written long before the present day, period films, flea market trinkets, antiques, vintage clothing, secondhand books/records/tapes/CDs, etc. but extends to my own life. I re-read old e-mails often; I am still friends with people I have known since I was a toddler; and in my mind I frequently imagine and re-imagine what might have been had I done a couple things differently.

Now I'm sure that hardly anyone lives without regret of some sort. But it takes on a different form when in your daydreams (and your night dreams) you are interacting with people who are for all intents and purposes, ghosts. People who, although still living, have become fictional characters, living lives I have imagined for them. Going places the real person has probably never gone; doing things the real person has probably never done. And yet the adventures, joys, heartaches, triumphs and failures lived by my ghosts are so vivid that I almost feel like I still talk to them on a daily basis.

My five year college reunion is happening in June. And while I'm looking forward to spending time with good friends and reconnecting with others I haven't seen in years, I also hope to put some ghosts to rest. I am more haunted by personages from college than from any other period of my life, for reasons I don't fully understand.

Two in particular need to be laid to rest. And I don't know how to get rid of them, but suspect the answer may lay in burying them where it all started, on a quaint college campus on top of a hill.

One of the ghosts wrote this to me about a year ago and as usual, he was better able to say what I feel than I ever could:

i find lately, on the sidewalks of my mind, close people walking
freely. it's not to think of them, but more that they're there all the time,
carried without form but with weight.

you i've tried to place at specific moments, not like 'where is she' or 'what's she up to', more like 'at this moment she's getting up from a chair', 'right now she's brushing her teeth on the left lower side'.mostly it's just wondering...

cycles and the ever present. hasn't been too long, time is a storage mechanism.

It's a strange experience to learn that my ghost regards me as ghost, imagines me the way I have imagined him in the five years since he left me standing on a New England small town Main Street on a misty May afternoon, watching him walk out of my life. But somehow I feel a little more real, and a little less crazy, to know I'm not the only one with a vivid imagination.

Purgatory is the Florida Department of Drivers' Licenses

Today I made my third attempt to get a Florida driver's license.

Attempt One was aborted because of a long line.

Attempt Two was aborted when I arrived at the DDL (I'm down with the DMV slang, y'all) at 6:50 a.m. (yes, you read that correctly) in a strategic maneuver to outsmart my enemies (aka other people trying to get a driver's license) and found that instead I had been outsmarted by 30 people who were waiting in a line around the block.

Which brings us to Attempt Three. I heard a mythical tale of a DDL office that never has lines. Well of course it was utterly false, but can you blame me for hoping beyond hope that it might be true?

I arrived at the DDL and took a number and sat outside in the overflow "seating" area (really some uncomfortable wooden benches under a tree). Two hours later, number 46 was called and I moved to an indoor seating area. One hour later, number 46 was called again, and this time I was instructed to stand in Line One. Line One crawled along for the next half hour until I finally made it up to the counter. The DDL employee asked me for my number and I replied 46. But he wanted the actual, physical slip of paper I had been holding in sweaty hands and twisting around for three and a half hours before I finally tossed it into my cavernous purse.

I proceeded to rummage through my purse and pull all manners of paper scraps, wallet, cell phone, keys, tampons, lip gloss, etc out of my bag. The others in Line One did not look pleased about the hold up. Number 48, my new friend of the morning, offered to vouch for me as being number 46. I wondered, could tears melt the cold heart of this civil servant? I decided against crying and as I was about to try to reason with him (which may or may not have involved yelling at the top of my lungs about how I hadn't even had a cup of coffee yet), I found the paper.

The rest of the process passed without incident. The sole amusing moment: when I inquired as how to register to vote, the DDL employee directed me a website and then said, under his breath, "Not like your vote will be counted anyway." Nice.

So the point of this story is that I am now a Florida resident ... a day I never dreamed would come.

Law geek moment: The first week of law school, my Civil Procedure class learned that to be a "resident" of a state required several things, one of which is called "intent to remain" -- basically, that you subjectively plan to stay and live in the state where you are located. My friend S (a fellow Tri-State ex-pat) and I used to joke that since we had no intent to ever remain in Florida, we would never be residents. Fast forward three years, and S is a member of the Florida Bar and I'll be sitting for the Florida Bar in July.

But I guess that's the exciting thing about life - you can't ever imagine how it's going to turn out.

Except if you're headed to the Florida DDL -- it'll turn out with a three hour wait.

Two E-mails of Note

Busy day here in the Hive ... two whole e-mails worth noting!

One comes from the recipient of the Paco birthday card (see "Inaugural Post"). She wrote:

"Hey, I got your birthday card-- that's hilarious! Oddly enough, I am actually going to follow Paco to Omaha in a couple weeks... I am flying in there when I go home to visit my family May 19-24 :) "

Was that birthday prophetic or what? Look out Paco, someone has finally taken you up on your invivation!

Second, my friend and I were having an e-mail conversation regarding being dumped in foreign countries. Here's an excerpt, and I think her response is right on:

--- Stinger wrote: ---
me too ... there's really no point in dating anymore. it's official: i give up!
--- end of quote ---

i know. it's like- hmmm... have my feelings hurt and have a endless crevice of self-doubt put in my life for free dinner and cuddles?? or just be by myself, b/c i'm awesome and i don't hurt my own feelings?!

Well said!

Song Lyric of the Day

"In a town so small, there's no escape from you" -- Belle & Sebastian, "Dirty Dream #2"

I just ran into Rich's cousin and he joined me and my friend from lunch. I just e-mailed Rich to report this amusing coincidence and w/in a five line e-mail he made my blood boil. I knew I shouldn't have e-mailed him, and I did anyway ... I always do stupid shit like this because I must be a masochist. Or I have no self-control, or something. He went to New York over the weekend. I was stuck in a library the whole time.

Miami is not such a small town ... so why do I keep running into Rich's friends and family? And then be so stupid as to initiate contact with him? It only makes me unhappy/lonely/bitter/angry. And yet I do it anyway.

The sad thing is, I realized the other day that the best part about Rich was just having someone to wake up with in the morning.

How bad is that - the time you most enjoy being with someone is when there are no words involved and you are only semi-conscious?

I think that is the new standard for a bad relationship.

So What Happened Next?

If you read Friday's post, you're probably wondering, "So what happened next?" After being dumped in a foreign country, what do you do?

There are many options, ranging from the violent (slap him silly) to the vengeful (wait outside his condo and throw eggs at his car as he drives by) and any number of alternatives in between.

But because I am fairly law-abiding and own over 500 CDs, the answer was clear: make a mix full of songs appropriate for someone recently dumped. I was going to mail a copy to Rich, but he would figure out it was me and I really don't want him thinking that I'm this hurt. I titled it "Songs for Pathetic Assholes" (in homage to Rich) and included the following tracks:

I'm Looking Through You - The Beatles
Tell You Now - Le Tigre
Lost Cause - Beck
Song for the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
You're So Vain - Carly Simon
So Cruel - U2
Like a Friend - Pulp
Y Control - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I'm a Terrible Person - Rooney
Get Gone - Fiona Apple
Femme Fatale - Velvet Underground (not the best fit, but he loves Velvet Underground)
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
Volcano - Damien Rice
one i love - R.E.M.
Betterman - Pearl Jam
Tear in Your Hand - Tori Amos
Blue Monday - (the Orgy cover, not the New Order original - I think it's angrier)
Doo-Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill ("Girl, you know you better watch out...")
Land Locked Blues - Bright Eyes (not the best fit either, but there's a story there, too).

If anyone is reading this and has a suggestion for another good "fuck you" song, please post a comment. I'm all ears.