Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Holy Viv

Ok. I've been MIA for a while. Did I finish my story? No. Did I start a book? No. My past few weeks have been more about the people in my life versus the scholarly, creative goals in my life.

I've horribly neglected Food For Thought and well it is what it is. However I've been making up for it in a small way with my favorite app on my new iPhone, "Foodspotting." Object of the app is to "spot" food yourself, take a delicious photo, upload and write up a quick review. The key with this is the photo; it allows you to browse through the database, locating eateries by your current location and lets the photos speak mostly for themselves. Oddly enough, I like taking pictures of food. I really do. And before I even downloading Urbanspoon, Foodspotting won. To any iPhone users, I highly recommend it.

Pushing aside my introductory summary of apologies and whatnot, let's talk about driving.

Yeah, driving.

Throughout high school after the age of 16 and receiving my driver's license as many others did, I did not (like many others) immediately start to take over the driving responsibilities from my parents' when it came to my daily routine. I kinda drove myself to school in the sense that I wasn't by myself and my Dad sat in the passenger seat as I drove less than a mile to school. I would park in the loading zone and that was that. A 2 minute drive over the next few years cumulated to a handful of hours I drove in total by graduation.

San Diego State: I pack my bags, bought new extra-long twin bedding, snag a few of my favorite posters, and got dropped off. No car. Though, I will state here that I was completely okay with the decision and was for the next four years. I tell people that in the end I prioritized the need to have my rent paid then to have a car. I couldn't afford full-time wages and hence could not afford rent, and therefore, I respected what I asked of my parents and the fact that their income doesn't revolve around just me.

So you see, I for the past 5 years, have lead a life that was based off of the "no car" card. Work had to be close or safely close via public transportation (aka no sketchy bus routes that had to be taken cause of where the job was), home had to be close to work and school, and friends had to be close (or I would never see them on the every day schedule I wanted).

When I graduated, Alex still had his last year left, and so did most of my friends, I still had no car, (I got the bright idea of applying to grad schools, and only out-of-state grad schools), and putting these all together I choose to have no car still (possible moving costs vs. car) when my parents asked in May 2009.

For a year, I was basically still at school without really being in school. I worked at school, lived by school, hung out at school, but I just didn't do homework, or had a class, or had finals stress. I was the most relaxed, care-free SDSU student in 2010.


Present Day: Studio City; Los Angeles; Car owner.

When grad school said, "No, thank you. This year was an especially hard year to decide from all the talented writers....blah....blah...you know the rest," I made a decision that benefited Alex as he would have done for me if even I got into University of Iowa. That's love.

Moving to Los Angeles, I approached my parents with necessity of a car. Like rent in years before, like tuition for four years before, like the expensive textbooks every semester before, I knew I needed a car. The rest, I could finally take care of myself.

Holy Viv is my "Phantom Gray" (no joke) 2007 Toyota Corolla.

Viv, or Vivian in length, was bestowed by Kristiana, and Holy bestowed by yours truly because my Dad is the kind of Catholic dad that gets his daughter's first car blessed with holy water by his priest.

Holy Viv.

She's a miracle. Los Angeles is the playground of the evil, dumb, imbeciles of the road. And that also includes pedestrians. Now listen, I was a pedestrian for quite some time and because of that my loyalty is very strong to that community, therefore when you walk, no I'm sorry, RUN in front of my car, I'll actually care about your life and not continue to speed but I'll slow down and then it's like shit hits the domino-effect fan.

You slow down in L.A and you're lower than a tourist. Car language is very existent here, as much as body language. The blinker or the length of one's horn and the speed of getting cut-off tells:

1. Fuck you.
2. Fuck you and your compassion.
3. Fuck you I'm movingintoyourlane. Psychically figure it out.

I like L.A. I don't love her yet, but I want to like her. But inside my car, Holy Viv and I just don't like L.A. We kinda hate her and talk about her behind her back. We contrive of all the different ways we can humiliate her or plain laugh about the cleverly old-fashion nod to burning her at the stake. Holy Viv panics when I talk about sin in a joking manner but then yet another car cuts her off because we're going the speed limit and she shuts up. Secretly I know she's dying to Saran wrapped all those sons of bitches, especially those black Lexusi...Lexuses...Lexus-es?....

That's the devil.

That-and pedestrians.




1 comments:

Kristiana said...

It's you and Viv vs. the (LA) world! Oh, yeah, and Batman.

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