The Improv

I'm not sure how I could even begin to explain to you how busy I've been lately. I mean, it's great, but extreme business can cut into the time allotted for other things (like maintaining a blog) and any free time you do have will be spent completely tuning out, zenning out, or sleeping out (hmm, that last one doesn't fit). This has been my life for the last four weeks, hence the naked blog.

Rest assured, over the weeks, I've had a ton of great ideas for posts... I just wish I could remember them all (maybe it's time to invest in a pocket notebook).

I do remember one idea, however, and shall now write an abbreviated version of it. After all, brevity is extremely important in blogging, no one wants to read your ten page thesis paper.

My car broke down last Saturday. I don't know when it will be repaired. I had it towed to a local garage, and of course, they wanted to charge me a less-than-sane amount just to look at the poor gal, so I refused, and they responded with a polite, "Get it the hell off our lot".

"Cool", I thought, "Lemme just call up my peeps at the Triple A. They got mah back."

They didn't. Not in this case, at least. Yo see, when I explained to them that my car was stalled in the parking lot of a service garage, they seemed to think it wasn't so much of an emergency, and that I could only have the car towed for free if they shop couldn't make the necessary repairs or if they were dragging their feet.

It's looking grim now. I've got a ticking clock now. The car has to be out of the lot by the end of the business day, but I don't really have the 120 dollars to have it towed to my desired destination: the house of a friend whose Dad is a dynamite mechanic.

Oh man... here come them storm clouds....

Why must we live through the bad times? Why must the dark clouds appear overhead and shadows stalk our doorstep? Quite simply: Because life would be incomplete without them.

I operate under the philosophy that life is an epic poem (think "The Odyssey"). Everyone is the hero to their own story (and the Villain to someone else's, but that's another post) and are therefore subject to the myriad trials and test any other hero must face along the Journey.

It's important, I think, to not view the bad things in life as the horrible crushing blackness that seeks to envelop your soul until it is crushed into smithereens. Instead, it's just the thickening of the plot. It's just the crossing of the next Threshold. It's just the bitter that will make the victory all the sweeter.

I guess I probably said it better with my last post, which was a shining example of brevity, unlike this post which is already wearing out its welcome, basically, there are very few situations that are truly "life or death", maybe "life-altering", but it's not as if losing my car for a few weeks, or an unexpected cable bill spells GAME OVER for my life as I know it.

It's all cyclical. You take the bad with the good, learn to adapt, and if your back is really up against the wall... improvise.

So, I call my friend about my predicament with the car and the towing and the what not and comes to my aid. We sand in the snow-covered parking lot for a moment, staring at my disable car when an idea strikes. Before I know it, I've popped my car into neutral and my friend and I proceed to push that sucker out of the lot, into Fulton St. (Grand Rapids people, you know what Fulton's like) and about a quarter mile down the road to a safe resting place.

Eventually, I had my car towed (at a fair rate) to a friend’s house (who’s father is a mechanic) and it looks like the old girl might be done for.

Meh. I keep rolling, keep fighting, keep working.

I’ll find a new car eventually, ‘til then, I’m in uncharted territory, uncertain times, so I’ll have to just drink it all in while it’s here.




[Die and succeed. I say it out loud, but you just don’t care.]