A Non-Harry Update
So, my last 58 blog entries have been related to Harry Potter, so I thought that maybe I should give an update on whats been going on in my life, because I clearly finished Harry Potter weeks ago.
So, I moved to New Orleans. Yes, I have left New York. Even I can't believe it sometimes. I'm starting Tulane Medical School on Friday, so last weekend we packed up the Civic and my mom and I drove down here. Let me tell you, it is not fun. Driving for 20+ hours with my mom was quite an experience.
My mom is kind of crazy. She's just nuts. We left New York at 5:30 AM. She started the drive, because I clearly wasn't operating heavy machinery at that hour. She drove for the first 7 hours, which were pretty uneventful. I get behind the wheel and within the first 15 minutes there is a monsoon and we find out that the road we need to take is closed in Tennessee. We had to take a detour on some random local roads. Rural Tennessee seems to be quite the shitty place to live. We spent the night in Chattanooga after what could only be described as an epic battle. At about 7:30 my mom decided we should stop for the night. At that point I was revitalized and wide awake and wanted to keep driving. She wanted to go to Applebee's and check into a hotel and go to sleep. Of course, in the end, she won. I did make her stop at a Barnes and Noble in between Applebee's and the hotel, but it was still a defeat.
The next morning we didn't have to start driving until 7:30, which my mom considered a gift. I drove most of the way through Alabama and part of Mississippi. There is a shitload of nothing in Alabama. Its literally the definition of the open road. I know that New York and the northeast in general is an aberration in comparison to the rest of the country, but it always surprises me to not have roads insanely congested with traffic (hello, the Cross Island) and people cutting you off and not letting you merge, etc. I wonder what some of these Alabamites would do if they were suddenly plopped down in their pickup trucks on the LIE. They'd probably take a shotgun off the gunrack and start blowing out tires.
By the time we got to New Orleans, my mom was driving again. New Orleans has annoying driving rules. You can't make lefthand turns anywhere that you might need to make one. Instead you have to make u-turns or lots of rights. Now, lets go back to my mom, and remember that she's crazy. Something like a traffic law and clearly marked signs isn't going to stop her. No, she needs to make a left and goddammit, she will do it. She didn't get any tickets or anything, but that was the last time I let her drive.
So I drove for the rest of the weekend. The driving through the city wasn't bad. What was bad was my mom. She may be the direction queen in New York, but she's not as skilled in New Orleans. That didn't stop her from thinking she was a human map. The highlight was deifnitely her yelling at me that I needed to develop a sense of direction (looking at a map is a sign of weakness!) and then her directing me into the back parking lot of the Superdome. Seriously, I had been there for 1 DAY! Its kind of a confusing city, because its a crescent shape, and roads are curved to fit with that. Plus, everything has names, which is way harder than trying to get from 72nd and 1st to 84th and 5th. Much less intuitive. Its not helped by the fact that a lot of the names change depending on which part of the city you're in. I was quite relieved to drop her off at the airport on Sunday night.
Spending that much time with just my mom was weird. We definitely ran out of things to talk about by the second day of driving. It got a little bit better once we got into the city and started setting up the apartment. It must have been kind of weird for her. I hope that I never get to a point where I have absolutely nothing to say to my child. I guess its inevitable, though. It made for some quiet driving, which was uncomfortably filled by "I am Charlotte Simmons" on CD, which was really good, but had a bit too much sex to be comfortably listened to with one's mother.
Alas, I'm here now. Its been a little boring because I really don't know anyone yet, so i've been sleeping a lot and watching some TV and trying to get myself psyched up for classes, which start next week. I've ventured out to go shopping a few times (Walmart was completely overwhelming) and tomorrow I might try to go to the mall. We'll see.
So, I moved to New Orleans. Yes, I have left New York. Even I can't believe it sometimes. I'm starting Tulane Medical School on Friday, so last weekend we packed up the Civic and my mom and I drove down here. Let me tell you, it is not fun. Driving for 20+ hours with my mom was quite an experience.
My mom is kind of crazy. She's just nuts. We left New York at 5:30 AM. She started the drive, because I clearly wasn't operating heavy machinery at that hour. She drove for the first 7 hours, which were pretty uneventful. I get behind the wheel and within the first 15 minutes there is a monsoon and we find out that the road we need to take is closed in Tennessee. We had to take a detour on some random local roads. Rural Tennessee seems to be quite the shitty place to live. We spent the night in Chattanooga after what could only be described as an epic battle. At about 7:30 my mom decided we should stop for the night. At that point I was revitalized and wide awake and wanted to keep driving. She wanted to go to Applebee's and check into a hotel and go to sleep. Of course, in the end, she won. I did make her stop at a Barnes and Noble in between Applebee's and the hotel, but it was still a defeat.
The next morning we didn't have to start driving until 7:30, which my mom considered a gift. I drove most of the way through Alabama and part of Mississippi. There is a shitload of nothing in Alabama. Its literally the definition of the open road. I know that New York and the northeast in general is an aberration in comparison to the rest of the country, but it always surprises me to not have roads insanely congested with traffic (hello, the Cross Island) and people cutting you off and not letting you merge, etc. I wonder what some of these Alabamites would do if they were suddenly plopped down in their pickup trucks on the LIE. They'd probably take a shotgun off the gunrack and start blowing out tires.
By the time we got to New Orleans, my mom was driving again. New Orleans has annoying driving rules. You can't make lefthand turns anywhere that you might need to make one. Instead you have to make u-turns or lots of rights. Now, lets go back to my mom, and remember that she's crazy. Something like a traffic law and clearly marked signs isn't going to stop her. No, she needs to make a left and goddammit, she will do it. She didn't get any tickets or anything, but that was the last time I let her drive.
So I drove for the rest of the weekend. The driving through the city wasn't bad. What was bad was my mom. She may be the direction queen in New York, but she's not as skilled in New Orleans. That didn't stop her from thinking she was a human map. The highlight was deifnitely her yelling at me that I needed to develop a sense of direction (looking at a map is a sign of weakness!) and then her directing me into the back parking lot of the Superdome. Seriously, I had been there for 1 DAY! Its kind of a confusing city, because its a crescent shape, and roads are curved to fit with that. Plus, everything has names, which is way harder than trying to get from 72nd and 1st to 84th and 5th. Much less intuitive. Its not helped by the fact that a lot of the names change depending on which part of the city you're in. I was quite relieved to drop her off at the airport on Sunday night.
Spending that much time with just my mom was weird. We definitely ran out of things to talk about by the second day of driving. It got a little bit better once we got into the city and started setting up the apartment. It must have been kind of weird for her. I hope that I never get to a point where I have absolutely nothing to say to my child. I guess its inevitable, though. It made for some quiet driving, which was uncomfortably filled by "I am Charlotte Simmons" on CD, which was really good, but had a bit too much sex to be comfortably listened to with one's mother.
Alas, I'm here now. Its been a little boring because I really don't know anyone yet, so i've been sleeping a lot and watching some TV and trying to get myself psyched up for classes, which start next week. I've ventured out to go shopping a few times (Walmart was completely overwhelming) and tomorrow I might try to go to the mall. We'll see.
posted by Rachel | 10:28 PM
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