I mentioned I drove a Jeep Cherokee. What I didn't mention is that lights did not flash, rockets did not flare and my dick did not grow by more than about three inches. It's a nice car, but the seat isn't all that comfortable, although I'm sure I could get used to it, and it handled OK, but not great. The model I liked with the six way adjustable seat and the moon roof only came in automatic and the price was some five thousand dollars more than the price I didn't like all that much to start with and I have learned that five thousand dollars more means you eventually have to pay it back to the banks with interest not to mention the money it was more than in the first place. I drive maybe 90 miles a month. Perhaps I am beginning to get the picture.

This isn't really about money anyway, it's about something else that has obviously been eating at me for months. Getting out the door and down to the bottom of the hill to Oakland's auto row was an interesting exercise. Maybe at some level I understood I've been paying off debt now for the last six (million) years, a whole bunch of money to the feds and a whole bunch of money to the doctors (via the credit card companies), and I am just tired of being strapped to the table. Who's fault? Mine. Still.

Although I've been living comfortably compared to some other years I can remember, I've been making a payment every month for these past six years on what amounts to a really expensive car (think Mercedes with a model number well into the hundreds, 5% down and 72 monthly installments) while driving a '78 Toyota Corona that cost me $800 when I bought it and I'm really tired of making these phantom car payments to banks and various governments. The banks are up front and vicious and the governments are laid back and vicious and between them they do their best to hack you apart and cart off the pieces. I really don't want to pay anybody anymore, Mr. Jimmy, honest, so, if you don't mind, I'll pass on buying the Jeep with the seat. (I have nothing but admiration for the '78 Toyota Corona, by the way. God be with it.)

So I've got things going on that get me prattling about cars and debts and whatever else and I'm tired (and anyone who has actually read this far is even more tired) of my carping. It's probably the summer weather. I'll just make a truce with myself and get on with it as I did when I flew down to LA last month to meet and shoot some pictures with Chuck and Steve. That was good. I'm going back next month to shoot some more pictures and attend a party. Time I was doing more of these things. I've been shooting parades in San Francisco. Maybe I should shoot a parade in, I don't know, Boston. Or Peoria. I'll fly to LA and I'll rent a car. No way in hell I would drive anyway.