In the words of Ringo Starr, "It don't come easy!"

Get ready for this. Pop some corn, grab a pillow and blanket, maybe a box of Kleenex. It's a long one...

I got into my pre-packed car yesterday morning at 6:45, pumped for my day of driving the 700+ miles to my parents' house in Maryland. I had my latest mix cd ready to go (which, after the first 45 minutes of listening to Rufus Wainwright, did not leave the cd player. It will most likely be put in the archives and only be revisited thirty years from now when I'm feeling up for reliving my Winter Break Sojourn '09), some of my more perishable foods (a carton of strawberries, avocado, and two packages of Earthbound Farms mixed baby greens, all of which were had has finger foods), and a back seat of belongings that made it appear as though I was slipping out of Maine altogether. Take the money and run.

Officially "slipping out of Maine" via the Piscataqua River Bride into Portsmouth, New Hampsha.
I love bridges.

The night before I'd called my author friend down in Boston to set up a long-overdue and impromtu first-time face-to-face meeting since being employed by him as an illustrator for his children's books since November 2007. I was shooting for lunchtime in Boston, and made really good time all the way down, getting waylaid only when I was circling Bryan's decadent Back Bay neighborhood looking for a legal parking spot. In the posh locale, I wasn't about to chance it; my fifteen year-old car, perpetually caked in salt, bumper stickers and rusting around the edges, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the clean luxury automobiles with their slick paint jobs. This was not time wasted; the buildings were lovely, enhanced even more by the spring-like day.

We had a delish lunch at a little bookstore-cafe a few blocks away, on the swank and illustrious Newbury Street. Afterwards, he showed me samples from his homemade t-shirt line, and I'm soon going to try my hand at creating some stencil designs for him to use on these shirts that will eventually be selling for $600 a pop at elitist boutiques (even in a recession, there are still those of us with half a grand burning a holes in our pockets; one-of-a-kind t-shirts will always be necessities). We're talking some pretty dope designs; on our walk we were bouncing around ideas: Communist-themes with images of Stalin and sickles and scythes! Judaica! I'm all over it. I dropped him off in South Boston for a t-shirt meeting, then got back on the road, anticipating dropping in on my unsuspecting family just before bedtime. Boy, was I ever wrong...

Having a premonition of things to come while exiting Beantown.

Connecticut was going by speedily until some hellish traffic around New Haven. While inching along, trying to stay conscious of the Ford bumper in front of me, I suffered an allergy attack in both eyes; they both started watering profusely, and the salination caused an intense burning sensation, forcing me to fling off my glasses (used primarily for night driving), alternate keeping one eye closed and frantically rubbing at them, fearing impending blindness. I imagined it all going down just like that: losing my vision on Gov. John Davis Lodge Turnpike and subsequently wrecking my car whereby the vast contents would be fished and pillaged out of the New Haven Harbor (I should've labeled the violin that belongs to Alice! Who would know to return it to her? ). "The Fight" came over me, and I grabbed my gallon jug of water, nearly empty, and splashed the rest into my eyes. Problem solved.

Slightly more clear than the way things were lookin' in New Haven.

Onto the Merritt Parkway, almost into New York. I called my brother, itching to unload my secret onto a trusted family member. I gave him a few hints: Stamford, I told him as I passed through that town, making an Office reference that he'd appreciate, if not totally understand. Then I told him that a friend of mine had been to my apartment at some point during the day - without my being there - to feed the cats. Still not clue enough. I'd been waiting till I approached the Tappan Zee Bridge, my New York City bypass, to drop that hint, but it never came, so I told him anyway. He got it that time. However, the TZ Bridge remained a phantom in the night. The scenery started looking unfamiliar; I wasn't recognizing the names of the service areas, and I no longer knew in which state I was. It got very dark and the service stations stopped appearing, as did all road signs. Medians were guarded, so opportunities for U-ies, even of the illegal sort, of which I am never opposed, were nowhere to be had. And then, hark! A green road sign, showing my distance to Albany, Buffalo, and Montreal! I was going in the wrong direction, too far north on Route 87, and the TZ Bridge was some 30 miles behind me. It was ages before I was able to turn around, well after traversing under the Appalachian Trail bridge spanning the highway, and a sign welcomed me to the Catskills. How did I let this happen??? I spun it around and high-tailed it back towards the city and got myself on that Garden State Parkway in short order. Though I regretted leaving my Boss cds at home (As a rule, I like to blast 'Born to Run', 'Thunder Road', 'Glory Days', and the rest of the catalogue while passing through the Springsteen State), I was, for all intents and purposes, home free...

NOT SO FAST!

Meanwhile, the little purple Civic had been rocking some pretty impressive fuel economy on its first major road trip. I'd last filled up in Yarmouth, Maine, and in NJ, was still trucking along pretty nicely. I needed to fill up again soon, but wanted to see just how far I could make it on a strictly highway trek. I'd exceeded 420 miles, but the needle hadn't yet gone into the red, so I figured I'd hit the next service area on the Turnpike. It'd been a while since I'd driven that route, and had forgotten the significant distance between the last two stops along that road. I was beginning to panic as I watched the miles tick by and the needle sink. A sign said 8 miles to the last service area, and another announced an exit in 2 miles. I was afraid to risk the exit, not knowing how far a gas station would be, and decided to stick to the Pike. With five miles left before my destination, the car began to lurch and stutter. OH NO! It began to slow on its own, and I veered onto the shoulder, putting on the hazards just for kicks. The worst case scenario would involve me pushing the little rice-burner the rest of the way - not a super-tall order considering all the pushing of my car I've done so far this winter. I had a buddy on the phone talking me through it, offering endless amounts of support as I was venturing into crisis mode. I could literally feel the hairs dropping out of my head. The car nearly came to a halt but then rallied, jerking back into forward motion; the fumes were coming to my aid like nobody's business. I was blessedly spared by the whisps of gas vapor that got me all the way up to the line of cars waiting at the Clara Barton Sunoco; with 480.4 miles on the odometer, Civic was pronounced officially out of fuel as I waited for the white Corolla in front of me to be full-serviced by one of the two attendants on duty. Submitting, I turned off the rest of the car and waited, ashamed and embarrassed for pushing my car to its limit. An attendant motioned for me to come around to the next pump and I screamed out the window that I was Out of gas! Not to worry; he came around and, with what seemed like his little finger, prodded me along as I guided it into place. My great-aunt had just called to check on my whereabouts since I'd told her I'd be home in the 11 o'clock hour, and I was still a good three hours away. She freaked out, as members of the older generation are wont to do when hearing that a young woman is traveling alone and is docked at a New Jersey filling station in the dead of night. It's okay, Jean, I reassured her. All filling stations in New Jersey are full service; I didn't even have to get out of my car! Still, she made me lock my doors just in case. The kindly attendant instructed me to turn back my key, turn it forwards, then back again, to engage the engine and help shift the gasoline - a nugget for which he was given a $10 tip. Could've used that $10, though, a few miles later. I lost my ticket (ie. I was sitting on it. I found it just as I got back up to speed) from the Turnpike and had to pay the highest fare of $9.50, and I had $7 cash in my wallet, so now I have a pending I.O.U. from the NJ Dept. of Transportation to pay. I stopped at the next rest area to hit up the ATM, barely escaped an altercation with a local ruffian who was standing closer to me than is comfortable when retrieving handfuls of cash from a machine, and it was the first I'd stretched my legs since Boston, 7 1/2 hours before. It was then that I realized I was tired, and considered bundling up in my L.L. Bean down jacket and hunkering down in the parking lot of the Delaware House for the night. But then my buddy called me back, we chatted excitedly about bluegrass music, albums inspired by Cormac McCarthy novels, books, then school, and suddenly I'd been sitting outside my parents' quiet and sleeping house for twenty minutes. It was 1:45 am.
I should go. I'm home now.

Yeah, you'd better go, or it's going to look like you're casing the house. Good call. Getting accosted by the neighborhood fuzz, as fun as that'd be to recount later on, might have been overkill.

I gathered up most of my things, silently closed the car door - Bruce Michael is the world's lightest sleeper - and let myself in the house. Worried I'd wake the folks, then my visiting sister and her two small children, I stealthily set up shop in the den, grabbed the afghan off the back of the living room sofa, brushed my teeth and washed my face and crashed out, dreaming of my folk group in Machias, of all things.

When I woke up, my mother had just opened the double doors, looking panicked. TAYLOR! I sat up on the couch, revealing my identity, that it was me and not my 19 year-old brother, that the purple car parked out front was not his black Toyota, and that he had not overslept and missed getting to work at Target at 6 am. I laughed hysterically at her reaction. Later, when my grandmother came upstairs to meet a visitor, I peeked around the corner. She said she thought she'd seen a ghost. Big surprises all around.

I like surprises.

It's a gorgeous day, I have a little of my sister's oatmeal and raisins in my stomach, and I'm thinking about a little less driving and a little more running...