asides

a couple of asides to my last post: I was thinking of suggesting you read it first so you had some context for these asides, but then realized that I cracked up writing my last post because I remembered this aside-al context. so you can go either way.

1. I mentioned that Michelle’s dad ribs me about my cars. He appreciates a smart alec, firstly, so it’s fun to rib him back. he thinks they’re all broke down falling apart (though not the current one) and filthy dirty (this is true of the current one) and he often tries to trick me into letting him get a nice car wash for me. I’ve been driving to long island for: can you believe it? ELEVEN YEARS that’s not even as long as I’ve known michelle. I started, I think, during winter break of 1995/1996 freshman year. Then I was driving a ford tempo, though I would also occasionally drive the dynasty. and then I would only drive the dynasty, and then I would drive my sweet 2-door accord, and then Flo, my 4-door civic who, at the beginning, did not have four working doors and back-seaters had to climb in through the front. All of these cars have had varying levels of matte finish, rust, and/or obvious mechanical problems.

my favorite interaction with him was in the civic – I started it up and a fan belt started to squeal. he said something to me about the noise, and I said “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you – the fan belt is too loud!” it’s even funnier if you know about that ernie and bert interchange on sesame street where bert is trying to tell ernie he has a banana in his ear and finally ernie says “bert, I can’t hear you – there’s a banana in my ear!” ha! comic gold! oh, did I just aside my aside?

2. my brother calls me on the phone on his way into work. it’s always before 7AM, sometimes just before and sometimes on the wrong side of 6:30. we usually have nice chats and it’s one of the few times we can really catch up, because after HIS work I’m still working, and he goes to bed early. I told him he’s lucky that I’m a morning person and not like him because otherwise we’d never speak ever, and it’s true. I wake up right away – sometimes I have to just lie there while he talks, but sometimes, horrifyingly enough, I wake up so bright-eyed that I start the chattering right away. an aside for this aside: my brother used to sleepwalk. a lot. and he would never ever wake up in the morning. I didn’t realize what it was like to not be a morning person until just after I moved to NJ when I was so totally exhausted all I could do was sleep and sleep and sleep, and waking up felt like I lived in jello. That is, apparently, what it’s like to not be a morning person. *shudder.*