TransTangent

Last night we watched Transamerica. Here's the imdb plot summary: "A pre-operative male-to-female transsexual takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she fathered a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York."

So it's basically your typical rediscovered long lost son/travel movie, with a transsexual thrown in for a twist. Felicity Huffman plays Bree/Stanley, the lead. I guess she filmed this right before starting on "Desperate Housewives."

The funny thing is, I'd interviewed two consecutive female to male transsexuals the other day (which prompted M-N to rent the dvd). Plus, we'd just done the same basic trip, east coast to west. Other things hit close to home, too:
Toby: Your parent's house is a lot nicer.
Bree: My parent's house comes with my parents.

Anyway, this was a good movie. The plotline is formulaic, but Huffman is very good, and there are several great small parts, especially Bree's parents and an unexpected party full of transsexuals.

The misadventures of the journey in this movie made our cross-country trek seem a little easier (not much easier, but we didn't have quite as many traumatic things going on... though we didn't have a crazy cat).

3500 Miles: Day Four

Day Four seemed simple enough. We were done with the small states. Only big states to go. This day was all about going from Kansas City, KS, across I-70 to Colorado, then heading up around Denver to Longmont, where my uncle has a ranch. This was the first day without any cities to go through, without much at all to go through, just Kansas.

It was hot, though, and windy. There was a strong wind from the south the whole day, a hot wind that pushed so hard against the truck that by the end of the day, the steering wheel was turned several inches from battling to stay on the road.

Plus, the heat and the slow uphill climb towards the Rockies caused the truck to almost overheat. We were in the farmlands of Western Kansas when we nearly got stuck. Fortunately, we stopped a few times and all was good. One of those stops was at a drive-in fast food chain where we saw a woman driving a pick-up truck, trailing a beat-up little two-door, with a dummy in the passenger seat. That doesn't sound so strange now, but 500 miles from any city big enough for a carpool lane, it was odd.

Reaching Colorado was a huge milestone. We'd cross the halfway mark. We were in the Rocky Mountain Time Zone. We weren't in Kansas anymore. But then, there were still a couple of hours until Longmont, the first couple looking a lot like Kansas.

I lived in Denver for about a year in 2001/02. I didn't have a car, but I'm pretty sure the toll-based bypass road didn't fully exist then. Somebody went and built a road around Denver with toll booths every couple of miles. We hit the first one, paid $6, thought ok, so it goes. Then, a few miles later, another $6. Then another. And we were only going about a quarter of the way around the city.

By this time, the big scary mountains were in view. M-N, never a heights-enthusiast, and I, thinking about the truck barely making up the hills of Kansas, were cautious. Of course, driving to my uncle's ranch, near Boulder, were close to some of the biggest mountains in the range. (Fortunately, we'd head north to Wyoming the next day.)

This ended up being the second longest day of the trip, one we were glad to have over, finally reaching the ranch, sitting by the pool, relaxing for a bit. This ended up being the breaking point for long, grueling days. If this was The Oregon Trail, we'd have to adjust the pace after this day (and maybe do more hunting).

There were mountains ahead. And Mormons. And casinos. And, eventually, California.

3500 Miles: Day Three

All along, day three promised to be rough. The goal was to get from Columbus to Kansas City. That's about 650 miles. In between start and finish are Indianapolis, St. Louis, all of Illinois, and some thriving farmland.

To be honest, I don't remember much about this day. It was the longest day in terms of miles. I know we managed to go the whole way without getting stuck in traffic (except for a bit around St. Louis). This was a pleasant trend of the trip as a whole. Very little on the way of traffic jams, even with loads of construction. Also, it never rained. It rained every day in Massachusetts for approximately 3 years while we lived there. It poured while I was picking up the rental truck. Then, Sunday, it stopped. We hit some sprinkles in Utah (or possibly Wyoming), but nothing of note.

But back to Day Three. We just drove and drove and drove. We discovered some things about truckers, as we parked among them at rest stops. Many travel with small dogs. We also saw quite a few trucker couples. These couples often didn't fit the overweight, shabbily dressed trucker stereotype. Maybe b/c they had someone to look nice for on the road.

Another discovery was the rest stop Subway. There's nothing that screams tasty fresh like a Subway in a gas station. Those ingredients have neglect and disease written all over them. That was a one-time mistake somewhere in the midwest.

As for the cat, she was handling the trip well. The cat carrier was a brief pitstop on her way to spending the trip on M-N's lap. She slept most of the way, as cats do, but that's better than crying, as she's been known to do.

By Day Three, I stopped caring about whether the car was still being towed. I'd come to learn that the fastening job Will and I did in MA was solid, which freed me from spending far too much time looking at the mirror, looking for the shadow of the car.

Day Three ended, like every other day, with confusion and turmoil. Kansas City, Missouri turned out to be awful, with bridges and arteries and difficult to follow roads going up and down until I was worried we were back in Illinois. But then we were in Kansas, in Kansas City, Kansas, to be more precise. We stumbled around there, too, but eventually found my Aunt's house, and she was a great host.

3500 Miles: Day Two

Day two was probably the least interesting day. (What a way to start a story.) We didn't get murdered in our sleep. Batman saved the day and was somber whilst doing so. And M-N wisely called her sage of a sister in New Mexico to ask how to unstuck a truck. Pam said to unhook the trailer and move it to where it's not jackknifed. I said, no way, then you're pushing the whole weight of the car. She said it can be done.

6 a.m. (or so): I head out to give it a go. I unhook the trailer from the truck, lift the thing off the hitch, and suddenly realize the lot is ever so slightly on an incline as the car begins rolling towards me. "Nougat," I say, leaping around the car to fling open the door and slam the emergency brake down with my hand, "Jeepers."

A predicament. Fortunately, there was a trucker heading out to his cab just then. I asked him for help and together we pushed the car back to the edge of the parking lot (maybe 10 feet). He looked at me a little bit like the idiot I probably seemed, but he helped nonetheless.

My next problem was backing the truck up to where the hitch was and keeping it at an angle so I could then easily pull out without getting stuck a second time. This involved trial an error, but I eventually made it, having a few times to push the car myself. Turns out, the Ford Taurus is, like an actual Taurus, big and stubborn.

I got it, though, and we were on our merry way. Thus came Pennsylvania, hills and trees, big hills, or so they seemed at the time. The east really has nothing on the west as far as mountains go. Then Ohio, then Columbus. Over 600 miles that day and every one counted.

When we arrived at my parents house (after getting detoured from our triptik, wandering into a park, driving the truck along what probably was a walkway, and finally arriving at their house), we decided to go out for a nice dinner. We'd planned on this, and M-N had asked me to leave unpacked a particular pair of nice black shoes. Thing is, shoes aren't in short supply, there are many black shoes, and damn if I didn't pack the ones she wanted. I rooted around in the back of the truck for a while, producing not one but several pairs of black shoes. I didn't find the ones she wanted. But we went out anyway.

(Days later, she discovered the shoes appropriately buried in the suitcase we had with our clothes in it.)

So ended Day Two.

3500 Miles: Day One

I haven't had much time to write lately, but I thought it would have been cool to keep a journal of our cross-country adventure. Having not done that, I'm going to try to recap the days here and there. I'll have pictures starting around Utah, and then pictures a-plenty, but until Utah, you'll have to go with just words.

We started on Sunday, June 11th. In the morning we packed up the truck. That started well. Will was there to help, and the baby was in Arizona. We focused on boxes first, as most were very heavy with books and other things we probably should've gotten rid of. Things were going well; we stopped for brunch. We went for one last time to Westbury Farms, the local diner that was the first place we went when we moved to the area three years ago.

Then we started loading oddly shaped things, and by the time all was on the truck, it was maybe 3 or 4 in the afternoon. We stopped for a late lunch. We went to Bertucci's, also one last time.

Then Will headed back to NY, M-N and I climbed aboard the truck (with cat in box), and we headed out. I intended to just get through Rhode Island and part of Connecticut. Monday night, we were planning to stay with my parents in Columbus, Ohio, and if we could just get a few hours out of the way, that would be good. But when we got to Connecticut, I realized we didn't have a AAA book for CT or NY. The AAA guy had given me a phone number he said I could call from the road to find a hotel (a little more difficult than just spotting one from the highway due to the cat and parking needs of the truck trailing a car). But that number didn't work.

So we pressed on towards NJ. We crossed the Tappan Zee and found a large and sketchy hotel in Wayne, NJ. It was about 10 p.m., we were tired, the cat was upset, we were hungry, the hotel was, indeed, sketchy, and its parking lot was confusing. So I ended up trying to turn around in a part of the lot where I couldn't make it. The trailer, of course, jackknifed, and we were stuck.

So ended our first day on the road. The truck perilously trapped in a back parking lot of a seedy hotel while we ate pizza and tried not to think about day 2. Oh yeah, and our room had two twin beds in it, one with notable blood stains on the sheets. Awesome. But it did have HBO. That gave me the opportunity to reflect that Batman Begins wasn't that great of a movie. I'd liked it in the theater, but seeing it again, the movie really needed some humor. Christian Bale isn't exactly a fun guy.

work, sleep, boy is back

That pretty much sums it up.

Oh, and boy got tall. Real tall.

Home, online, somewhat unpacked

We made it to SF. It only took 7+ days and 3500 miles. There were 16 states we passed through, 2 deserts, maybe a dozen big cities, 4 or 5 casinos (thank you, Nevada), and far too many mountains for our meek Penske truck with car in tow.

I grew to hate signs that said 5 or 6% downgrade, because the truck picked up so much speed it got harder to control. Upgrades sucked too, though they don't put many signs for those. The almost overheated in western Kansas, a rough place to get stuck.

I should point out that those 6% grade signs were made silly once we got to SF and almost immediately came upon a 17% grade sign, including a warning that trucks should stay the hell away. Fortunately, we were in the car by then and the most trouble we had was M-N keeping lunch down on some of the rollercoaster hills.

Rain King

I've grown to hate rain. It has rained all week here. A while back, I made a comment about 40 days of rain. We're past that now. Noah had it easy.

I went to pick up the rental truck and tow dolly this morning. It was misting (which I think I hate worse than rain... I used to like the rain, that's changed). By the time I got the papers signed, it was raining. The guy walked me out to the truck, signed the damage waiver, and left me to figure out how to load my car onto the dolly. It wasn't really that hard, but the first time, and in the pouring rain, sucked. Eventually the errand guy came to help me. He didn't seem like an expert either, but I took what I could get.

20 minutes later, the car was loaded and more or less secure. We were both completely soaked and it was still pouring. I started to drive off, but the dolly skidded against the pavement. The rental guy "helpfully" came out of the office with an umbrella to point out that the ramps needed to slide up. So errand guy and I spent 5 minutes deciding that they don't slide up, I'd just hit a big hole in their parking lot, and I was on my way.

On the 5 minute drive home, I resolved to never trail closely behind a truck towing a car. The jerk-offs who were almost touching my rear bumper the whole way couldn't know it was my first time trailing a car (that sentence sounds like weird innuendo), but still, they were so close I couldn't see their front bumpers.

But now I'm home, still all wet, unloaded the car easily, and I think the rain stopped.

The Last Day

Today was my last day as a stay-at-home dad. The boy is currently en route to Arizona, to spend the next couple of weeks with M-N's parents while we drive about 3300 miles to California (trip motto: "Drive till the land runs out.").

I'm gonna miss this. When I started staying home with the baby, he was a month and a half old, very fragile, and a complete mystery to me. Now he's about 11 months old, walking, eating finger foods, healing from bumps and falls like Wolverine or the Incredible Hulk, and saying a couple of "words." I also learned to cook, got a bit more adept around the house, and completed a protracted and grueling job search process (job search motto: "job searches suck hard").

As for today, in typical fashion, we did about 50 things in a ridiculously small amount of time. We drove M-N to her last day at Suck City, ran some errands, got lost in Westwood (town motto: "too small of a town to get lost in"), packed boxes (ok, I packed, he unpacked), drove M-N and the boy to Logan (airport motto: "Everybody hates Logan"), and now I'm home alone with the cat. Plus, on the way home from the airport, I got lost in Milton (town motto: "Come to Milton, get lost, it's easy!").

Oh, I'm also actively recruiting tutors in SF via phone interviews. That's actually fun. I did so many interviews while running a radio station and working at BN that these interviews are easy. Plus, with the time difference, I've been able to call people late Right Coast time and it's not late Left Coast time.

But now it's late Me time.

Book Report: The Talented Mr. Ripley

This one was recommended by Jim. Jim is about to get his MFA. He's managed to complete the program while apparently reading nothing but thin books and thrillers. Way back when I was an MFA student, I only read massive tomes like the Gulag Archipelago and Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.

Ok, I read mostly poetry books that were under 100 pages. Ok, and I particularly liked writers like Russell Edson and Czeslaw Milosz, people who tended to write poems under half a page long. Love that white space.

But anyway, Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, Matt Damon. I saw the movie of the book back when it was first out, but I've forgotten it, and apparently the movie deviated in several significant ways from the book. Either way, the book is pretty good.

I began reading the book on the beach in SF (see picture in previous post). That's fitting. Ripley finds Dickie on the beach in Italy. I, however, didn't kill anybody and assume their identity. And if I did (though I didn't), I wouldn't kill Philip Seymour Hoffman and then almost kill Gwyneth Paltrow.

However, I might enjoy touring Italy on someone else's dime. I might also go on to star in the kick ass Bourne Identity movies.

That's my book report on The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Box deep in knees

Wait, scratch that, reverse it.

Packing with purpose has commenced. We're expecting to set out in a week, and in that time a lot of things are supposed to happen. Among them, 2.5 days of training for me in Waltham, 4.5 days of work for M-N, 7 days of good time life-lovin' enjoyment for Little Dude, and about 100 boxes to pack.

Despite the yard sale, we still seem to have a lot of stuff. Tonight I've been packing the kitchen, everything I can figure we can go a week without. Having made drunken noodles tonight and planning to barbecue twice this week, the spices are now packed, along with more tupperware than a 2.5 person household could ever possibly need, several kitchen appliances we infrequently use but can't seem to live without (like a blender, deep fryer, and slow cooker), and the coffeepot.

The coffeepot is where M-N stepped in. She has one of those little pots, as she's the only coffee drinker in the apt. I broke it once while washing it (moral of the story: wash your own coffeepot). Ok, the actual moral is: husband breaks coffeepot, husband finds and buys replacement coffeepot. Anyway, she packed the glass part, I packed around it.

2 Sides to SF

Here are two of my pics from SF. The first is traffic. I got stuck trying to cross the Bay Bridge from Oakland to SF the minute I got there last Saturday, then again aimlessly driving on Sunday morning I got stuck in traffic headed towards the Golden Gate bridge, then again Sunday afternoon trying to cross the Bay Bridge back to Oakland to get to the airport. The pic is from that last jam:




Then, earlier Sunday afternoon, I took this shot of my thumb, but the beach and bridge got in the picture:

110% Chance of Rain

So it rained. It started raining on Friday afternoon as we were putting up signs for the yard sale. It continued raining all night. Incredibly, when I went to check on the signs this morning, they were all still up and clear. So I put up more. I got home in the rain at about 7 a.m. and started loading stuff into the garage. M-N helped, and by 8 we had most of the stuff out there. We figured no one would show, as it was pouring pretty hard.

But at 8:05, we were bustling. The garage was packed. People were out in the rain, offering pennies on the dollar for our unwanted stuff.

By 9:15, the bulk of our stuff was gone. We closed up shop early, around 12, because all that was left were books and clothes, and people kept showing up looking for furniture and other things we'd already sold.

The rain, apparently, doesn't stop the dedicated bargain hunters. These are the people who look at a $125 rug, a rug that's barely a year old and is in great shape, and try to talk me down from $20. I also got talked down on things I priced at a quarter.

It's ok. I just wanted them to take our junk. And they did. As for the books and clothes, we can donate those.

Sell it all

Our yard sale is tomorrow. The forecast says "100% chance of heavy rain." Awesome.

Well, we leave next weekend, so this is it. We're going to hope for the best, take advantage of having a garage, and hope all our signs don't melt. What we don't sell, we'll likely put on Craigslist (having just sold a cat, car and guitar pedal there in a week), then donate.

It'll be nice to (hopefully) move lighter.