It’s a Wednesday and that means Project Runway. And some blogging.

I originally wanted to write about this a couple of months ago but I guess there was were other things going on that were distracting me. Like, life and memories and dealing with all of that.

So I haven’t had a car in just over five years. I think this is longer than those times when I didn’t have a car in Houston. I’ve realized that, while not having a car is a huge pain in the ass in any American city other than New York, I enjoy driving cars but I don’t like owning them.

The last car I owned was a 1977 Volkswagen Beetle. It was silver, had only one previous owner and 83,857 original miles. It was in great shape and even had air conditioning. I read through the entire owner’s manual and discovered things that VW had learned after 40 years of making basically the same model. For instance, it is inadvisable to drive the car while resting your hand on the gearshift.

I set about doing things like making sure the back seat’s safety belts were available for usage and making sure the oil was always at the proper level. On Saturdays when my landlady’s would be out at their ranch (this is Texas, y’all) I would pull the car—dubbed “Libby”—into their driveway and would give her a wash, in preparation for Saturday night’s cruising. One Saturday they didn’t make it out to the ranch and they moved their truck out of the driveway without me asking, just so I could wash Libby and I thought that was especially nice.

After driving Libby, with The Twins™ inside, to DC with its lumpy pavement, huge potholes, asshole drivers and chemically-treated roads every vehicle inspection was nerve-racking. There was always something to be found wrong, and what was being found wrong was increasing over time, both in quantity and in replacement cost. Eventually Libby had developed the car cancer: RUST :and soon this deteriorating condition was becoming a need for an entire overhaul. Like strip everything out of the car to its shell and rebuild, to the tune of fifteen grand.

It seemed time to put Libby out to pasture, as they say. I guess I should backtrack here. When I purchased the car, the sole owner made me promise to take care of it, so I couldn’t just turn it in to a junkyard or sell it to just anybody. I’d discovered that the father of a high school friend customized old Beetles so I sold it to him in good faith and standing. The Millionaire I was dating at the time was kind enough to offer me transport to central Virginia to drop Libby off but I was able to drive her to my parents and she was picked up there. I said goodbye with a clear conscience.

This is a streamgraph which analyzes the word usage in my last 200 Twitter tweets. More detailed information about its generation (as well as info on how to graph your own tweets) can be found here.

Clickie make biggie!