Passion

 I've been meaning to post...

So, about two weeks ago, I watched the sun rise from my car. From the bottom of a ditch.

It was early in the morning on a Friday. So early, in fact, that the sun was not up. I needed to be at work very early for a financial meeting with my boss and one of our administrators.  I left the house around 6:45. By 6:55 I was in a ditch.

It had snowed the night before, maybe half an inch. There is a long onramp near my house where the speed limit goes from 45 to 70 over about a half a mile. I had just gotten on that. There are two lanes, and most of the cars were in the right lane, still going about 45. The left lane looked mostly clear, so I moved over and started to slowly accelerate, wondering what the holdup was. I mean, sure there was snow, but the road looked clear... Cars had obviously traveled in this lane already, as there were broad clear tire paths...  As I accelerated, I started to fishtail. I've recovered from slight fishtails before, even recently, and was calm and confident as I turned the steering wheel into the fishtail to regain control.  Except... I didn't regain control. The car started to fishtail more, so I corrected again, but it still didn't straighten out, and then I panicked. The car spun in a circle and then suddenly I was in the ditch. I still have no idea what really happened, or how I avoided hitting any cars in the other lane. I must have hit black ice or something. I'm so glad the area isn't two-way. I was very lucky.

Anyway, I checked the car, and checked myself, and nothing was damaged. I was shaken, but not hurt. I tried to get out of the ditch. The car would absolutely not go up the sides of the ditch, which were fairly steep. I made some rather long, mean grooves in the dirt at the bottom of the ditch, both in front and behind me, before I gave up.  I called Jim, who (poor thing) was fast asleep at trucking training in Iowa (where it was 6am...). He responded very calmly to my sobbing explanation and offered to call his dad to come get me with his SUV and winch. I said okay.

I sat in the ditch for about an hour. I left the car on for a while to keep warm, since my giant coat only goes down to my thighs, but I didn't want to kill the environment, so eventually I found an extra sweatshirt in the back of the car and put it over my legs to keep them warm and turned the car off. I had my phone with me, so I chatted with my knitting group friends online. One of them suggested I keep a blanket in the car. There is one there now, alongside my first aid kit, umbrella, jumper cables, spare tire...

A tow truck came by and the driver offered to get me out of the ditch. For $150. I said no thanks.

Eventually the sun came up. It didn't really get any warmer.

A cop car drove up and parked at the top of the ditch. The cop got out, and I got out, and he walked down into the ditch to talk to me.

"How much longer are ya gonna be here?"

"Uhhh, someone is coming to get me. He should be here in 15 to 20 minutes, maybe?"

"Well, you can't stay here."

::blank stare::  "I can't get out on my own. Someone will be here soon to help me."

"Did you try backing up?"

::looks at long deep grooves in mud behind car::  "Well, yes..."

"Let's try it again."

I was dubious, but I got back into my car and rolled down my window. The cop directed me to turn on the car and just back up straight, along the bottom of the ditch, for a good 15 yards.  Then he told me to turn my wheels slightly. I did so. I accelerated in reverse... and the car stalled. I went forward again. He told me to try again, but not to turn my wheels quite so much...  I did so. I backed up about 100 yards at an extremely shallow angle... and then was at the top of the ditch.

I felt like the world's biggest idiot.

I thanked the cop and drove away. I called Jim and told him I was out and okay. I called Jim's dad and told him I didn't need him anymore, even though he'd already driven an hour in morning rush hour traffic and snow after being woken out of a dead sleep to come get his son's girlfriend, and was only five minutes away. He was an extremely good sport. Remind me to take him an extra bottle of wine on Saturday.

I got to work more than an hour late. Needless to say, I completely missed the meeting I'd gotten up so early for in the first place.

Yay winter.

So, we're all moved in to our new apartment, which is fabulous. It's light and airy and there's enough room for my knitting stuff to take over an entire corner of the living room. I have my own "desk" (a table) which is blissfully completely coated in books, two computers, and various useless items like unused rubber bands, game CDs from the 90s, and a broken ceramic wizard waiting to have his staff superglued back into his hand for the third time. It's fantastic. For the first time since September, I'm completely unpacked.

I found all sorts of little treasures while unpacking, such as a book Stef sent me for Christmas, $10 in an old wallet, and a gift certificate to Borders that K la gave me for being a bridesmaid at her wedding nearly two years ago... So I've been reading a ton the last week, which is really nice. For some reason I stopped reading after I qualified, and I never started up again. It's been over a year since I actually finished a book, which is pretty much heresy for me, considering I was the kid who used to get in trouble for reading during recess instead of running around.

Anyway, so this post is really about the most hilarious feature of our new apartment. We have a little balcony (we're on the third floor), and it's got a nice big sliding glass door and a screen and whatnot (and a tiny new basil plant, but that's a subject for another post).

So last night as we were getting ready for bed, Jim said, "I'll go make sure the doorwall is locked."
Me: "The what?"
Jim: "The doorwall! Out to the balcony."
Me: "Oh! You mean the sliding glass door."
Jim: "No, I mean the doorwall."
Me: "What the hell is a doorwall!"
Jim: "The door out to the balcony! It's called a doorwall!"
Me: "That's not a real word; you made that up."
Jim: "Did not! It's called a doorwall! That's what it's called!"
Me: "That's ridiculous. It's called a sliding glass door; it's made out of glass and it slides. There's no such word as 'doorwall.'"
Jim: "It's a door! Set in the wall!"
Me: "All doors are set in walls! You're insane!"
Jim: "I'm going to google it!"

It turns out that people living in the Detroit area of Michigan (and ONLY people living in the Detroit area of Michigan) refer to sliding glass doors as "doorwalls." No one knows why, but apparently it started in the 60s and has taken a firm hold in the area, but hasn't managed to spread elsewhere (possibly because it's a RIDICULOUS term). Jim takes this as proof that "doorwall" is a real and viable term. I take this as proof that MICHIGANDERS ARE INSANE OMG WHAT AM I DOING HERE.

And I thought Michigan lefts were weird....

I made it to Michigan, as most of you have probably already learned/guessed. It's a strange thing to have moved... east... to the cold barren wasteland of Michigan... but I'm no long in a long-distance relationship, and that's TOTALLY awesome. Living with Jim is very very easy.

I had an interview on Thursday but won't hear back about it until week after next. If anything exciting happens I'll definitely update here... but otherwise still no job.

Jim is going to start a D&D campaign with our mutual friends up here, so it turns out I got here just in time to make a character and jump in. Our first adventure is tomorrow and I'm really excited. I learned a few things from the six or eight weeks playing in Utah, so hopefully I've given my character a slightly stronger start for this campaign.
Jim also has a group of friends that decided to start up a campaign D&D-like game called Earthdawn, so at the last second we flipped through the handbook and created characters (mine is a 17" tall creature with wings, whose basic class description can be simplified to "warrior". I cannot WAIT to roleplay a 17" tall warrior) and went to the first adventure last night. There are NINE people in the party, which is just freaking absurd, but the people are all awesome, and the DM seems like a good DM so far. I laughed so hard the whole evening. They seem like my kind of people.

So at least up here it seems like there is a pretty decent social network, which is nice.

Not much else is new. I'm really, really, really, really, really sick of moving. I hate having things in boxes, scattered across different states. I hate not knowing how long I'm going to be in a place. I hate not knowing the streets. Hopefully I can be here for a while.

I miss Claire.