Today, July 12, 2007 is my mom's 58th birthday. My mom is one of the hardest working, most ambitious, and caring people i have come to know in my three decades here on earth.
Happy birthday mom. For her birthday, I sent my mom a copy of Derrick Jensen's book 'Endgame.' The truth of why i gave it to her is because i ordered it off Amazon (in the used section of course), and somehow, i received two copies. I contemplated trying to get money back for the purchase, but as I began to read the book it became apparent that it was my responsibility to give this book to someone who would read it. To my knowledge, she has read every book I have given her, and seeing as it was her birthday... it fit. Jensen's book ties into the bigger theme here, as does my oil-addicted industrial age upbringing in ways that will become obvious. But it's also an aside. I will just say that the two books I am reading right now are Endgame and Miranda July's new collection of short stories ' No One Belongs Here More than You. I love July's work and I love to simultaneously read books that have nothing to do with one another... because inevitably, they always do. point: i highly recommend them both.
Coincidentally, as of today, I am carfree. It's true... I have lived in NYC for a few years now for many of which I did not have a car registered and never used one. But that doesnt count. Living in New York without a car is like living in the desert without a boat. When you have one, you don't know what to do with it; when you don't, you dont know the differenc. But at the end of last year I bought a house. The house is in upsate NY... Troy, to be exact. Many New Yorkers (one of which I am not and never will be) believe that "upstate" includes the range of the Metro North train system and beyond that is Canada and some other states. Actually, one can drive for 6-7 hours straight north before reaching Canada. There is also central and western new york state, which most New York City dwellers are simply unaware of at all. It includes cities and towns such as Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, etc. By NYers, these are often confused with "Albany". Troy (where the new old house is) actually DOES happen to be near Albany, but that doesnt help at all as an explanation so "upstate" has come to suffice.
Having the house upstate required gettig there on weekends until I was due to move there in August, so I decided to register my longlost college-mobile and face the facts that despite having been aroused to the fact that our years on this planet withstanding this unsustainable civilization are severely numbered, and being a daily bicycle commuter whose #1 enemy is the automobile. Whenever I put my red VW, Lulu, back on the road I found that she was uninspectable after being abused by various renters, and waterlogged from sitting for a long time. After putting an embarrassing amount of money (though probably roughly the amount I had saved while not having a car) into her, I was told that her computer was dead. bla bla. this part of the story is annoying to tell, and the short version is that I traded her for a silver beater VW Jetta which I named Rusty. I named him Rusty because that described him. After the trade I did not pay much for Rusty and decided that we would drive Rusty to his death and then figure it out.
After all, the point of getting a car back on the road was to support the commute back and forth to Troy while still living and working in NYC, but renovating the house (2.5 hrs away) on the weekend. It was not as simple as driving him to his death. Upon getting a small leak in the fuel system fixed (for a reasonable amount of money) I found out that Rusty's brakes were shot. crap! So I had to fix the brakes. I saw them after they were off the car. They WERE shot. Then a couple weeks later (a couple days ago) on the way to Philadelphia with Vickie, Rusty overheated and blew a head gasket. double crap! I was faced with another short end of a stick that I never wanted to be holding in the first place (owning a car), and had to decide what to do. The VW guy where i got Rusty (after I vented to/at him on the phone) said he would give me a new engine if i could get the car to him... but I would have to pay for labor. But getting a car from Philly to troy would cost over 500 dollars with a tow truck and I figured out how to borrow a truck and rent a dolly, it would be several hundred dollars still. the problem is that Rusty is just that. Rusty. Although I had groan (spelled correctly) attached to him in the few months during which he was my mechanical slave, he was not worth the trouble of all this money crap. As my mom once said to me ( I think it was her, but it doesn't matter) - "Cars are the worst possible investment". That quote is like a mantra that plays in the back of my head with every shitty financial transaction that cars inevitably seem to require.
Good Bye Rusty. In sending the car to the junkyard for a total rip-off price, I was actually making a giant life decision that has been upon my for the last couple years. Like I said, living in NYC without a car is easy stuff. Pulling it off in a less metropolitan place is harder and some would say impossible. Today, in giving Rusty away, not only was i sacrificing a couple thousand dollars, and a bunch of pride - that kind of capitalist pride that you lose whenever you are forced to make an economically illogical decisions, by a series of consequences sometimes called bad luck. But rather than revel in my disgust for our social dependence on petroleum, i am shaking off car culture and embracing this new chapter in my life. I am officially carfree!!!
Here's a couple quick CarFree links to browse:
the real cost of car ownership
a list of carfree places
the 'living carfree' section of bikeforums.net
general list of carfree resources
carfree usa blog
and of course,
the wolrd carfree network
So, as you can tell (this is likely the longest blogpost i have ever written), i have been putting a lot of thought into this whole thing..... Living without a car in the capital region of NY will be a huge challenge. The bus system is decent, but far from comprehensive. Plus - the house renovation! The winters can be frigid, but even when mild usually include several feet of snow. Am I ready? Probably not. but i am excited, and up for the adventure. this is the first of many carfree related blogposts. ovr&out.
blog feed
email me
facebook