Enforced Secret Joy #41 – The Big Gay Jeep

Behold: The Big Gay Jeep, my transportation for the past week, and possibly longer if Ethel refuses to submit to the tender administrations of Wella.

The Big Gay Jeep has saved my ass, as this new job has me driving all over creation, including twice to the tony neighborhoods of Bel Air. Once again, my life is taking unexpected turns, which I don’t mind so much. It’s not like you could PLAN meeting in a superrich home twice in one week to discuss parking passes for a charity event.

But The Big Gay Jeep has been through it all with me, and it has a CD player, which I know is standard now in most every single car (actually, maybe the CD player is already obsolete, maybe now it’s all about satellite radio, or a place for your Ipod player), but Ethel is so old that she missed that boat. Maybe that’s why she’s throwing this fit. Maybe she got sick and tired of the other cars on the block making fun of her shortcomings in the audio department. Maybe she’s on strike until I install an Ipod dock.

Since most of my music is all digital based, and since I have an Ipod, the need for mix CDs is not as pressing as it used to be, so I’ve been taking trips down memory lane with CDs I haphazardly grab from the towering piles that are collecting dust in my room as I trot out to the Big Gay Jeep.

One of them happened to be Paul Westerberg’s Eventually, and this song accompanied my long long drive up and down Bel Air:

These are the days, no one sees.
They run together for company.
I am the day no one needs
There'll never come another one like me

It’s a bouncy little tune, reminds me of anywhere other than L.A., and I can most certainly identify with the blend of self-pity and confident arrogance. HA!

Dear God thank you for the Big Gay Jeep. Thank you for Mella, who’s let me borrow it for the week. Thank you that it runs, thank you that it has a CD player, thank you for long ago forgotten songs that surprise me when they float out of the speakers. Thank you for friends who continue to come to my rescue, thank you for arranging the details behind the scenes, and thank you for Paul Westerberg, who doesn’t know me, but still affects me to this day. Thank you thank you thank you. Amen.