Just Drive She Said

If you know me, chances are you've heard me mention my life-changing-drive-across-the-country about a million times. The drive actually occurred what seems like ions ago, but its impression is still fresh. We took 3 weeks to reach one coast, intentionally got lost, and frequented the local watering hole every stop we made. To wit, we drank our way across this great land of ours and I danced with a lot of coyboys.

To pass the time--and since I was verboten to drive the stick shift driveaway we were delivering to Boston--I read aloud to the man in the front seat. It was odd that I didn't get car sick as normally I do. But I guess my body's equilibrium adjusted to all that constant motion. Well, one of the short stories I read was Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. It has since been one of my most dearly beloved short stories. It didn't help matters much that I was extremely crushed out on the man in the front seat with whom I was driving. Oh, and that he wanted nothing to do with me--at least not in the sense I was after.

Well, the other night we went to see Brokeback Mountain, the major motion picture. Me and the same man in the front seat that I read that story to some 4 years ago. I no longer have the crush, and we have remained good friends. And the movie was good and all, but sometimes, some things are just much bigger when they can remain in your imagination. I feel like the short story I read on that road trip has been snatched away from me and replaced by something much more generic and pedestrian.

Anyway, I look forward to finding someone to whom I can again read aloud my favorite short stories. Preferably in bed.

Here's to 2006.