Gravel kicked across the passenger side window as the car careered merrily down the narrowing dirt road, dusk nipping at my heels. I hit a straightaway and swerved to avoid a cleverly concealed pothole, the likes of which had ended the life of many a hubcap for the less watchful drivers in the area. As I passed a gracefully aging farmhouse on the left, I saw the main road up ahead, stretching across the dirt lane with imprecision, and wished again that I had one more gear left to shift into as I opened up the gas and barreled forward.
I have always loved driving in my hometown. There�s nowhere that takes longer than fifteen minutes to reach from my parents� home at any given time, and if you drive for five minutes more, you�re in the country, where it�s doubtless that both policemen and speed limits are still in effect, but there�s no conclusive proof for the existence of either. I�ve always done some of my best thinking behind the wheel when I was able to forget the world and concentrate on the simple act of propelling myself ahead, for once not needing to worry about the guy behind me, the guy next to me, or the guy ahead.
I absolutely cannot stand traffic for largely the same reasons everyone can�t stand traffic, but also because it stymies some basic instinct I have to shed the restrictive confinements of the mundane, to let myself out of the box for a while so I can breathe. My father calls it �heading for daylight�, which strikes me as quite an apt description, and explains at least in part why I�ve become such an aggressive driver over the last year. On the road in LA, I�m constantly trying to elbow the next guy out of the way so I can get a little open space -- a precious commodity anywhere, but especially here.
I think my driving may in fact be a little too aggressive for my hometown, which is essentially a community of former hippies who were forced to abandon the counterculture lifestyle due to its inherent structural flaws, but steadfastly refuse to cleave to the establishment, due to its inherent structural flaws. It�s such an eclectic, intelligent, and supportive area for people of any and all walks of life -- on my street alone, you can find a synagogue, a Zen Buddhist temple, a handful of fraternity houses, and a bar so filthy you need a tetanus shot to get in -- and they all walk a thin line of PTAs and activist organizations, of business meetings and poetry readings, of luxury autos and hoping their teenagers don�t find the weed stashed in the sock drawer, because good hash is expensive these days.
I love this about my hometown, and am so grateful to have grown up in a place where I never felt like there was something wrong with me because I happened to be gay. I love that I grew up in an area rife with diversity, where I learned about other cultures not just by reading about them, but by sitting next to them and seeing them for myself. I regret, though, that my hometown is starting to outgrow itself. Every time I go home, I spot another SUV on the road, another crowd on the sidewalk. As the rest of the world cottons on to the many great things I�ve known about the place my whole life, the traffic there -- both man and automobile -- gets steadily worse.
And so, this past weekend, I found myself out on those country roads again, racing the speedometer and turning up the volume on the CD player to let Garbage spur me on. Fields of corn and soy blurred past me on either side, and the fragrance of wildflowers permeated the summer night air, except in stretches where the heady scent of livestock took over. Up ahead, recent rains had caused a field of standing water to swallow up the road, and I gunned the motor -- an action that would have been reprehensible, were there any other signs of life for miles around. As it stood, it was just me and road, and when I hit the water, I hydroplaned; my tires lost contact with the road, my soul lost contact with its earthly cares, and the car and I just glided along together for a blissful moment.
Someone Got Here By Searching For: matthew mcConaughey�s ass And: water weenie pictures I�m Reading: Not sure yet. I just finished The Vendetta Defense on the plane (very good), and I have a huge stack of books to choose from. I�ll let you know. Tomorrow I�m: Going to suffer. A lot. I hate the first day back after a vacation.