The radio, driving, and thinking

I was driving around aimlessly last night, and I was upset to find that there was no good talk radio to listen to. Cruising in my trusty/sexy 1998 Nissan Maxima (beige, leather interior), biding my time before meeting up with some buds for a night at the bar, all I wanted was to hear some thought-provoking and insightful commentary on some interesting topic. But Saturday night is the wasteland of talk radio. A Prairie Home Companion finishes up at 8, and then all of the NPR stations in my range switch over to instrumental music (one station was blaring some God-awful Celtic crap last night). All I could find on the AM dial was the play-by-play for a high school football game, which I think was a rerun. I was left with no choice but to pop in my CCR greatest hits CD, which I did grudgingly--it only took me a moment to settle into a relatively contented state of singing/shouting along to "Lodi" and "Bad Moon Rising."

I find that I do most of my best thinking behind the wheel. Something in the nature of driving engages my mind like no other activity. The act of driving is a series of instinctual motions and reactions. Muscle groups contract and extend in response to images taken in through the eye and processed in the brain via the miracle of cognition. Pistons fire, fuel burns, wheels spin. As with any habitual activity, the mind is given ample room to wander.

Last night was a particularly splendid driving night. Pristine road conditions (prior to this morning's powdery dusting of snow). Dark, with only the tiniest thumbnail sliver of moon visible. Chilly, but not frigid. One small pleasure of mine is rolling down the driver's side window and letting the cold air stream in. Talk about head-clearing, and anyway it keeps the windows from fogging up.

What was I thinking about during last night's drive? Lots of things. I wondered what winters are like up in Lenox, Massachusetts, and what they're like down in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. I wondered what they'd have on tap at the bar we were going to. I tried to remember where I thought I'd be spending this New Year's Eve a year ago. Most substantially, I arrived at the conclusion that my current lifestyle is self-perpetuating and self-justifying. (How to describe this one...hmm. Here goes: Because I'm unemployed, I am lazy and unmotivated. Because I am lazy and unmotivated, I am unemployed. It might be a Catch-22; it's definitely a vicious circle.)

I really, really want to get one of those jobs I applied for last week. No more excuses: if I get one, I'm taking it. Fuck how far away it is, or how much it pays, or how much I think I'm going to dislike it. I graduated from college six months ago, and I'm sick of being a loser. It's time to become a person. Writing pretentious bullshit about the radio and driving and thinking isn't turning me into a person. It's turning me into a joke.