Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Monotony

Category: Observations

I have ended my brief and ill-considered love affair with long-distance solo driving. From P___, Maryland, to Tampa Florida in 2 days. My legs are killing me- my body is altogether quite upset with me- and my mind has not yet readjusted to solid earth.

I have not had the pain nor pleasure to have driven the length of America's interstate highways. At the moment contemplating these in aggregate is tiring, another level of mental exhaustion to lay over those that lay over me at present. They are a triumph of mass labor, of what is possible when millions of man-hours are poured into a collective good. There are of course reasons why the interstates deserve criticism and rebuke, reinforcing as they do a culture of fuel consumption and solo driving that is basically not in our best interest. And of course there is the fact that they are the occasion of skeleton towns built around mass produced hotels and restaurants, and are decked on either side with some consistently by crimes of graphic design, exhorting travelers to watch them Bare It All, to purchase fireworks, to Repent-for-the-End-is-Coming ad infinitum. But there is something glorious about having the ability to drive from each corner of the country with relative speed and ease. Eisenhower, we salute you.

Despite my silly paeans, I am deeply tired of interstates and with the long distance driving that they invite. Someone once asked me if I ever conceived of the lives of people who drive for a living, that is, truck drivers. I think I said I couldn't bear to.
I may be deeply misinformed, and to all professional truck drivers, I apologize in advance, but it seems to me that that life is rather miserable, or at least would be for me. The physical confinement, the loneliness. The stereotypes are that truckers tend to be outrageous consumers of the sex industry, and that many are heavy users of stimulants. If there is any truth to that, it figures.
The things that we tend to associate with the good life (and we is extremely loose here) come from a good balance of stability and variety. Many of us envy the lives of those who travel across the country and world for a living, but few of us envy the massive amounts of airplane food that likely entails. Many if not most of us seek significant emotional connections, a sense of accomplishment and purposefulness, and the other pleasures of life as a foundation to a good life and to happiness.

I simply do not believe I could achieve this as a truck driver. Truck drivers appear to me to have made lives on the very part of the American experience which is least memorable, most aggravating, and least remembered.

Driving a measly 950 miles has further solidified in me that conviction. Despite intermittent beauty, the road is something I bore more than anything else. It was a test of endurance and focus. There are many pleasures of life that are just that, but most of these are games, limited both in time and consequence. A game can be stopped in ways that driving often cannot.

The best I can say about my trek, and this truly distinguishes it from my perception of the trucking life, is that I felt unique purpose in this trip- it was a trip home. It's also the kind of trip I hope not to repeat fro a long, long time.

Holy Crap!

Apparently someone sued Fear Factor for $2.5 million because it sends the wrong message. This is, of course, not what I meant in my post a few days ago. But the coincidence is startling to me.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Lame excuses

Check out this total and unmistakable confirmation that Colin Powell is a tool and would say anything to cover the rear end of his employers:

He defended the Bush administration against complaints it took too long to comprehend the scale of the crisis or respond with money.

"We have nothing to be embarrassed about. Our response scaled up as the scope of the disaster scaled up," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Bull. The only way Bush wouldn't have comprehended that the tsunami deserved more than the $15 million he first proposed is if his only information about the disaster came from Fox News.

There is plenty to be embarrassed about. The first thing is that it took so long for Bush to even issue a statement about one of the greatest natural disasters in decades. The second is that it only did so because Clinton went public with a statement of condolence first. Thirdly is that the White House found it necessary to publically chastize Clinton for feeling the pain of others. Fourthly that its initial offering was less than half the cost of Bush's inauguration. And finally that Bush and his White House remain incapable of admitting a mistake.

I'm sure that Bush and his friends don't feel the slightest bit embarrassed. But I do.