road trip

September 19, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 30 – Heads Carolina, Tails California

Country music will always have my heart. It was the first “non-child,” secular music I first encountered and I fell in love with it the moment I heard that steel guitar. (Still one of my favorite sounds.) It’s funny, because neither of my parents were fans of “western” (what they called it) music. My dad was 60’s and 70’s pop rock and my mom wasn’t one to listen to the radio. Apart from them meeting for the first time in a country-western bar they didn’t have any attachment to the genre.

My father would wonder “Where did you get this love from?” He didn’t remember having set the station on my brand new radio to KFRG, before going outside to work in the yard. It was the first radio station it had been set to and it never strayed from it until we moved.

A lot of my birthday gifts were music related. The following year my parents gifted me a walk-man and two cassette tapes: Billy Ray Cyrus (for of course “Achey Breaky Heart”) and Alan Jackson. Apart from that one song I did not enjoy Billy Ray. I was, however, in love with Alan Jackson. I wrote that tape out. That man had the hits!

For my 11th birthday my parents bought me my first CD player stereo. Accompanying it were two discs by Tim McGraw and Jo Dee Messina.

“Heads Carolina, Tails California” was my favorite at the time. There was one moment when I had been listening to the radio at midnight, bedroom window open, and when this tune came on I started singing. A little too loud it would seem, I thought I was being quiet, but both my parents and the neighbors woke up very, very irritated.

I love the idea of the song: getting away, leaving everything up to chance. Maybe then they could outrun their bad luck with the spontaneity of their decision. It spoke to me at 11. I wasn’t happy living in Bakersfield. I felt so out of place. I never fit in. Most of the kids I started going to school with had been friends since kindergarten and here I was this chubby, quirky kid who used to be the smartest one in the class at his old school.

Most of all though, the idea of aimlessly traveling touched a deep nerve.

I have always loved road trips. I got to listen to music, play video games, and watch the landscape change around me. My family’s habit was getting up at the crack of dawn, grab some McDonald’s, and hit the road. That way it gave us more evening time at our end destination.

My husband is not like that at all. He wants to wake up at a “reasonable” hour (aka 11) and lackadaisically pack the car and head out. Any sense of urgency does not exist in his frame. And that BUGS!

Regardless, we have made our two very different ways of doing things work. Primarily I have just given in because fighting him on it is impossible. He will control the situation no matter what I try to do. Even now, where the brother-husband and I have to do everything, this bitch will find a way to make sure we leave on his schedule. It’s truly remarkable.

This October the three of us will be embarking on a road trip to Boston, looping down to Orlando and then on to Vegas for the MTG 30 event. We will make an overnight stop in North Carolina to visit an old friend and a sort-a-kinda-cousin. (Hard to explain.)

It was intended to be a trip for just the two of us, to give the B-H a break from me and Charlie. However, when the husband brought it up that he requires a lot of help and attention he suggested it would be a good idea if he came along. And he isn’t wrong. The vast majority of the trip would be spent on his general care. We are at the point now where there is nothing he can do without assistance.

I am really looking forward to our trip. The open road calls to me. It’s just a bummer we have to have a schedule and not let our own whims and sense of adventure dictate the route. I guess I’ll leave that to the fantasy of the song.

June 17, 2022

The Soundtrack of My Life – 24 – Mad Season

Here I am again with an entire album. I couldn’t help myself. This is one of the few that I couldn’t pick a single song from if you held a gun to my head. Every track is pure perfection, and far surpassed their first album. At least, to me. And that’s saying something since I was (still) absolutely in love with their first release.

For the longest time, I was blissfully naïve. I thought everyone loved Matchbox Twenty. It wasn’t until I worked at Border’s that upon merely mentioning their name everyone in my vicinity rolled their eyes. (It’s not like I said Nickelback.) I find this kind of behavior super fucking pretentious. The notion that one set of musicians is better than another because they’re not as “commercial” or that they hadn’t “sold their soul to music executives” is exhausting. Here is where I roll my eyes. Just because the band hasn’t been discovered doesn’t mean 1) that they’re even good or 2) that they’re better. It just means there wasn’t a mass appeal for them as there was for another.

Anyway! I’m getting entirely off-track.

The reason I chose this album is because this, along with their first, makes me think of summer time. It brings to mind the excitement and energy of travelling. Every time I listen I’m back in the rear seat of my parents car, headphones on, playing Pokémon on my gold GameBoy pocket. This one in particular recalls the summer right after my 8th grade graduation when my parents took me and a close family friend, Nycole, on a road trip to Canada. This album was what drowned out the sound of the constant bickering between my Aunt and Uncle, who had joined us mid-way through and hijacked our trip.

The trip up to the point, after we realized they had joined us for the remainder of it, was super fun.

While Nycole isn’t a blood relative she feels like a cousin. Even now I will call her that, with no relation between the two of us. She’s transcended normal friendship, primarily because we’ve been friends since we were itty-bitty babies.

I’m not going to lie to you, dear reader. The whole reason my parents planned this trip to Canada was so that I could 1) have my first taste of a “foreign” country and 2) so that I could purchase a plethora of Beanie Babies with Canadian tush tags. At the peak of the Beanie Baby craze, the more sought after plushes were those with this specific piece of legal type. Dumb, I know. Even as I wrote this I saw my dad shaking his head at the explanation. I didn’t choose the beanie life, it chose me.

However, because of my Aunt and Uncle, my time in the Great White North was limited to only a few hours. This was due to them having decided they were going to drive everywhere in their extended cab, diesel truck. It was here that I learned to NEVER AGREE TO TRAVELLING WITH ANOTHER FAMILY. EVER. I refuse to relinquish my ability to be able to do what I want, when I want. If I don’t have an escape route available, I will not take the chance.

By the time we had made it to our neighbor’s to the north, my parents had had enough of them, and so had Nycole and I. Looking back, they’re addition truly soured the entire trip. It went from the freedom to discuss what we wanted to do to: this is what we’re gonna fucking do whether you want to or not. It sucked.

It was on this trip that we were forced to spend an entire day taking a ferry over to Victoria Island so we could go to Butchart Gardens. (Fun fact I dated a dude who’s family had owned it!) I tried to buy Beanie Babies there, but I found none and wasn’t even given the chance to really look because my Aunt and Uncle INSISTED on using public transportation. Now their forced schedule was even more rigid to this.

Once we were free of them, the dark cloud that had built over my family lifted. I mean… it truly was night and day. These people were super toxic. And we had no idea until it was too late. Afterwards my parents knew their limitations and limited the time they spent around them to a minimum.

My dad repeatedly apologized for having said anything to them. He took the blame for having our trip turn into the vacation from hell. Even though it really wasn’t that bad, looking back. It was just them. They were such negative, miserable people.

That was the last big vacation my family ever took. From then on it was just weekend trips to somewhere within close proximity to where we lived, and far enough away that family couldn’t invite themselves.

With the exception of (half of) this adventure, I’ve loved road trips since I was a kid. I know most don’t because they’re trapped in a single place for copious amounts of time, and kids like to run. But I was a sedentary child. Proven by being overweight for the majority of my youth. My idea of fun was having my headphones on, staring out at the passing scenery. My mind would wander from one story idea to another, or I would just relax with the quiet from my constant buzzing thoughts.

Today the polycule and I leave for our own road trip. We’re going to be travelling up to South Dakota and then back down to Denver to see Chris Stapleton. (I got tickets for the hub’s birthday.) He actually just performed here in town last night, but when I went to purchase entry there were no handicap seats available. At all. So, I thought why not make a whole thing out of this and pick somewhere far away.

I just wonder what song or album will define this trip?

June 10, 2021

Plan to not have one

It would figure that the day I sat down and actually mapped out our upcoming road trip that my template would get tossed aside. It’s the irony of my life. However, while it is irritating it is for the better.

We have been anticipating this road trip to Nashville since March. (Maybe even February, that whole memory thing though.) Initially, I had outlined a road map with one route but that got set aside because the husband wants to do two. And when the boyfriend joins us, mid-way through, he didn’t want to do the “southern” route. To be frank, I don’t want to do that one either. It’s all Texas. No offense to Texas, but the lone star state in mid-summer… hard pass.

So it was decided that we would do the southern route to Nashville first. That way we could make a stop-off in Dallas to visit the brother-huband’s close aunt. Now, that isn’t even happening.

The husband opined that there was a reason we were dragging our feet. We knew subconciously that it was going to change. That may be true, but I chock it up to us being lackadaisical about any sort of planning and preperation. Charlie just flies by the seat of his pants. I need (at least) an outline. I used to be one that needed a specific plan, one in which we stick strictly to and do not deviate from. That type of mentality does not mesh well with my husband’s typical approach to anything. It’s probably the reason we had such a hard go in those early years. I was trying to force him to do it my way and ended up frustrated at him when he didn’t.

I have since adapted. My husband and general life has taught me that plans are a joke. They typically never work out, and usually the bright spots are ones you cannot plan.

We’re still going on this trip it has just been bumped.

The reason it was moved is that we need to be in Los Angeles for the first dose of the ALS trial drug a week after we were scheduled to set out. I really wish they could have given him the first dose on Tuesday, but they needed to get him vaccinated for meningitis. There is a high risk he could contract it while on the trial drug. He already has ALS, let’s not add to the list.

Plus, it works out that I get to be there to see how to go about doing the injections. This way they can show me and the brother-husband how to do the injections and give us the medication we need going forward. (Side note: I fu-hucking hate needles.)

I wish I could remember the name of the one he’s taking, but (again) I was in two places at once on Tuesday and didn’t pay any attention. What I do know is that the potential of this drug (if he’s in the 75% who get the real medication) is will slow the progression and has a possibility of reversing some of the side effects of ALS. While I hope with every fiber of my being that it can undo some of it, I am not naive. In these situations it’s best to be realistic. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.