A day behind, Part II - or - Another Day Behind

The next night Carol and I went out for sushi- to Clancy's the Irish Pub cum Mexican Restaurant atque cum Sushi Bar. Tuesdays were $3.00 California rolls, Carol told me, but we had missed that and so settled for Nachos and an eel roll. Not so bad, really.

In the morning, Carol insisted I clean my car out completely then wash and shampoo the interior and run the whole thing through a car wash. Needless to say, I was resistant. While I haven't yet come across a complete explanation of deep messiness, I have read about many correlations between the non-linear method of keeping one's home (or vehicle) and the creative, "visual-spacial" learning personality. Something about the way the thing exists in space must connect in a way to the time in which you last used it, so that time becomes the physical act of archaeological digging rather than the abstract, seeming arbitrary, logic of the organized filing cabinet. But I'm not really sure. At the time this took place, I generally considered myself to be of the undesiring-to-be-cured segment of the messiness pop. So it was with great reluctance that I allowed Carol persuade me to dig through the piles - and puddles - that gave my car its inner distinction.

The process was painless, mostly, but at the end of it, I felt very much naked, like a prudishly trimmed French poodle. Nonetheless, I knew that much like any other bad haircut, the mess would eventually come back. With me it was about 3 or 4 days - some water bottles on the floor, coffee cups, cherry seeds in bottles and in plastic baggies, a couple of napkins, some apricot pits (some ap-flesh still attached) and soon things were feeling like home again.

But we're already ahead of the game.

I wanted to leave - and quickly - to get to my concert in New Hampshire, but my friend Lauren was up in Salt Lake City, and I thought it might be cool to see her up there (and have the tabouli at Omar's again. . .mmmm). But that would be cutting it close time-wise, and after losing a day on my radiator, I would really need to hit it.

So I woke up early and packed up the car. Took fifteen minutes, and I was ready for the road at 9 am. Just one more thing - I couldn't find my car keys. Nowhere. Haha, I thought, they're probably in my car, but I can't find them because it's too clean. But I looked and looked and looked and looked, but nowhere. I retraced my steps, I unpacked the bags, the car, the boxes, repacked, unpacked, repacked, unpacked, maybe 5 times throughout the day. The day ended around 7 pm unpacking the trunk for the umpteenth time.

But before I tell you where the keys were, I have to say that it does a number on your head when 1 and 1 don't add up. You begin looking in irrational places like rooms you haven't been in since the last time you used the keys. You start assuming somebody has stolen them out of the car, that Carol has hidden them, that a bird flew off with them. . .anything. For a moment I tried giving up on the keys and called Chrysler to get a new set made - the locksmith wouldn't do it. But it was Sunday, and Chrysler was closed, and I needed, needed, to hit the road.

This is what brought me to unpack over and over again, fruitlessley for the entire day- that I needed to go. And though it wasn't exactly triumphant, my discovery of the key did send a slight hat tip towards my Capricornian value of perseverance. Retracing the steps I had used to re-organize the trunk, I deduced that my keys might have fallen out of my pocket while I was leaning forward to straighten my tools. But then the keys would have fallen into. . .the spare tire. I'm talking they were inside the metal hubcap on the bottom of the tire, almost invisible but for the setting sun. So there had gone my day. . .it took a little while to cool down, and I decided to spend the night rather than drive through scenic Utah in the dark. But first thing in the morning, off I went to SLC through Monticello and Moab (organic juice bar in both, by the way). A stunning ride, and I pulled in just in time for dinner.

Oomar's Tabouli. . .the best.