there is a particular anxiety involved in driving around town when you’ve just broken up with someone. it’s worse the closer you are to Ground Zero, wherever that may be for you (in my case Hot Lunch’s home theater, where we broke up in front of American Idol and by the way how stupid is that). because the closer to Ground Zero, the more justified your brain thinks it is to PSYCHOTICALLY WATCH ONCOMING CARS IN SEARCH FOR YOUR EX’S.
this has nothing to do with logic. my stomach inadvertently tightens every time i see a white Ford sedan. Hot Lunch doesn’t even drive a white Ford sedan. he USED to, and that’s enough. now he drives a Jeep Compass. luckily, there are NO Jeep Compasses in town, aside from his. but there are TONS of Jeep Liberties–aha!–and my stomach can’t tell the difference.
so i estimate roughly one eighth of the cars driving the roads in a five-mile radius around Ground Zero threaten to give me the shits when i see them.
i find myself saying things aloud. usually something like:
“is that… IS THAT??”
and:
“no, see, it says Liberty on it. it says Liberty.”
sometimes i find myself muttering colors.
“navy. that’s like a navy blue. he drives a champagne one.”
i KNOW what color his car is, Self! why do you keep repeating things? you make me sound CRAZY!
ironically, today when i spotted a champagne Jeep Compass barreling toward me on a road Hot Lunch is likely to use at exactly the time he might use it were he, say, late to work… i found myself completely unable to speak. struck. dumb.
soon the driver was close enough for me to see a familiar configuration of facial hair, a familiar pair of sunglasses and a very UNfamiliar stern expression.
after all the drivers’ faces i’ve scrutinized–including the ones driving a vaguely jeep-shaped Nissan Armada in fire-engine red–it struck me as so odd and wrong that Hot Lunch looked more like a stranger to me than any of them. hilarious, sweet, frustrating, stupid Hot Lunch looked so odd and grim. like an odd grim man i’ve never met, and would try to avoid talking to in line at Starbucks.
STUPID!
i have no more words. frustration has gotten the better of my vocabulary.
stupid beard!
stupid face!
stupid jeep!
stupid man!
Grrr!!!!! STUPID BEARDY JEEP MAN!
Ugh.
Sexual Reference 