incredible hulk

cleaned out my car today. not the one we're taking across the country, but my car, the 2001 little green echo with the ghetto rusted front hood.

i found petrified apple cores under the seats.

i decided long ago that this car would be driven into the ground, so that i could do with it what i wanted to. this was cemented by a fender-bender three years ago and the fact that we had no money to get the fancy matching front hood. so i went with it.

now i hot glue things onto the dashboard. things that make me happy. lots of beach rocks, especially the heart-shaped ones, and sea glass. various sculpey creatures that milo has made through the years. a whale shark. miss piggy.

you get the idea.

it was so hot today in los angeles that the cemented hot glue started to melt, and the aforementioned creatures started to slide down a wee bit, like they were just walking home from the bars and were sleepy and drunk. it made me curse and smile at the same time.

i'm cleaning the car so my friend can borrow it while we're gone, but the truth is clearly that it cannot be cleaned, nor can it be brought back to its former glory as a zippy little pissant car that i love so dearly. no, this baby is loud and raucous and needs a lot of work which we won't pay.

i have a four-minute commute to my job. its the perfect car for this.

the cross-country car is a gray prius, pretty boring and nothing special. i'll be sure to boast of insane gas mileage if it happens, but other than that i can't make it fancy with hot-glueing. we have to have at least one car that's in decent shape.

if i had my way, i'd pepper the back bumper with all of my favorite stickers, like "eating meat is fucking up the planet" and "honk if you collect baby doll heads". but its not all mine, like my echo. oh hell, neither one of them is all mine. i have to share, so i can't put my imprint on them completely.

today i scored a major purchase at pepboys auto, where i walked around in complete and utter bafflement until two lovely gentlemen asked if i needed help. i told them that i was looking for something that i wasn't sure existed--some sort of tray for kids that was specifically for the back of the car.

the first guy rubbed his head and said, "uh, yeah, i never heard of anything like that" to which i replied, "see? i told you!" (having decided that i was going to be all chummy and cute now that they were helping me). the other guy said there might be something in aisle four, "kinda like an airplane tray thing" and i screamed out, "get OUT of here!!!" because, of course, that's exactly what we need.

i would've pushed his chest with two hands, a la elaine from seinfeld, had he been closer to me.

i'm pretty sure they were excited for me to leave the store.

anyway, i got the tray table things, which go on the back of the front seat chairs, and the laptops will fit on them and the kids have places to put drinks and markers and stuff. so its good. its good so far.

the only other new development today is that my neck hurts, giant crick, can't fully turn my head to the left. i'm pretty sure that turning my head in that direction is a requirement for driving in general.