Oh where to start--such a fun, great and absolutely horrible weekend all at once. Let's start at the very beginning...

Friday night, take off from work early to travel the route to Champaign. Now for those of you not familiar I will enlighten you. Traveling to Champaign is like going across Kansas. It's flat, it's dead and it never ends. Sure there are a few hills, maybe even a dilapidated tree here and there but over all it is a butt-ass ugly trip and boring as hell to drive. Add to this that every slow-ass, afraid to pass driver in the entire state seeming to be in front of me and you get a healthy dose of road rage. It doesn't help that I am no longer smoking and have discovered the car is the *absolute* worst place for nicotine cravings. Words were coming out of my mouth in combinations that I didn't know I knew and if I weren't so pissed off I might have been impressed with myself. But wait, there's more.

Salt is all over the road. Fine, good I'm glad, I don't like ice, but that means that salt was then on my windshield. I can't see so what do I do? Try to use the wiper fluid. But alas! Nothing comes out. Fine, I clean the windshield, continue on my way and stop about thirty minutes later at a truck stop. There I purchase wiper fluid, call a friend and stumble around under my hood until I find the appropriate hole and pour it in. Not until after I've filled it to the top do I notice the label says to only fill ¾ of the way during the winter to prevent freezing and cracking your wiper system. Not a big deal I think, I'll use some of it up. I get in, turn on the car (freezing at this point because it is hellaciously cold out) press the magic button and nothing comes out. I am at this point, more than mildly irritated. Little did I know my car had significantly more dastardly thoughts in mind for me. Unbeknownst to me my car was like and old person's heart, every start was one beat closer to death.

So I make it to Champaign, I curse, I grumble, I chew a lot of gum but I make it. I pull in I turn the car off I step back into the car to drive another block and nothing. No start, no whine, no click, not even a horrible screeching noise to let me know it has some fight left in it. The car is just dead.

Long story long I make it to Chicago. The weekend is fine (get to that later) and about fifty miles on my way home I stop for gas and it quits again. I sit at the gas station for an hour and a half and it starts one last time. I make it home and it will not start anymore. My car is possessed. I used to joke that my mom bribed me to stay at home instead of the dorm when I went to college with a new computer and a car. I got a computer that didn't work and car I couldn't drive. Sometimes life is too evil for words.

There was a time, following my amazing displays of rear-ending every known resident of Mac-town that family members referred to the car as "devil-car". I shook my head and said no, no, it isn't the car's fault, I'm just a bad driver. Now I may be a bad driver, but that car is definitely possessed. I no longer doubt it. I refuse to be careless and allow the car to hit other cars so it just isn't going to drive anymore. I can hear its voice in my head so clear, a whiny, hissing voice that tickles your ear as it says, "you think I'll let you travel with easssse? If you won't let me hit anyone I simply won't drive!" It is a hideous, evil, twisted thing and it needs to be put down. If only I had enough money to do so.

I cannot stand the insecurity of being without a reliable vehicle. I did it for three years, successfully, but during those three years everything I needed was near me. I could walk where I wanted to go and friends were in Mac-town at school. I had no need to travel alone. Now I have tasted the freedom of being able to travel on my own. I have felt the release in just going away for a weekend, sometimes without a plan or a destination but just leaving everything behind. I'm not sure I can go back to no car if I am still in Mac-town. I know I can't. I hate this town. I hate being an hour to four hours away from everyone I want to talk to and having no way to get to any of them. I don't necessarily know what I want or where I want to be but I know it isn't here. My car taking a big shit on me is further proof that Mac-town is a big black hole. It will suck you in and do everything in its power to keep you here.

Okay, enough of that. I think that is probably my longest useless rant in a good long while. The funny thing is I am in surprisingly good spirits. Irritated yes, but angry, no.

As to the no smoking thing it is going fine. I don't have cravings, at least not for cigarettes, but just like before I am now having the burst of energy that comes from not smoking. And as before there are not enough batteries in the country to wear me out. You want an aphrodisiac? Put away your cigarettes for a week. You're not jittery because of cigarette cravings.

Well that is probably enough of an update (more than most of you probably wanted to know but when have I ever pulled punches here?) for now. I look forward to getting completely plastered on New Years wherever up north my ride takes me. Hopefully I won't have three beers and puke on the outside of the bar like last time. That was just plain pitiful. Until then I bid you adieu, and watch out for purple Berettas. Stephen King's Christie has nothing on my egg-plant colored monstrosity.