In Defense of My SUV

I was car-free for nearly 3 years.

I was able to do this because all the stars aligned just right and it was easy for me. I worked at home. My kids went to school just a few blocks away. I live in the center of a busy, large city where I was just a few blocks from groceries, a pharmacy, a couple of Targets, and four hospitals. And I had access to the services of ZipCar and Relay Rides when I ever really needed a car or just felt like getting out of town.  Despite what many people thought, it was quite easy and a significant reduction of stress on my resources and myself.

 

Then I got married and started a job in the real world. And suddenly my house had four kids and two adults going off to school and jobs each day.

That’s not to say we couldn’t still be car-free. Yes, we could. However, for us, the logistics of two working adults and four school aged kids made the trade off of convenience versus money leaned more and more towards convenience every day.  

So we bought a Suburban.

Yes, the giant, gas guzzling SUV that is probably the biggest SUV out there, aside from a Hummer.

We looked at smaller SUVs but realized that 1)they get about the same gas milage and 2)the whole point of “going big” was so that we could do things like all go places together, go camping and have room for family AND stuff, and so when we were in a car for longer than 10 minutes, it wasn’t uncomfortable a cramped. Again, all things that we of course could live through if we had to…but we didn’t.

We had a finite number of dollars, and it wasn’t practical or realistic for us to finance a new car. So with our finite dollars we had to find something that fit the criteria we wanted that was also within our budget. Hence, the older model Suburban that now sits in my driveway.

Why am I explaining myself so much?

Well, I’ve found that I get treated a lot differently driving a giant SUV than I did driving a tiny economy car. Other drivers and pedestrians seem to automatically assume I’m going to drive like an asshole or be an asshole and the only difference I can see is my car. I get honked at A LOT more. Maybe it’s because I drive worse in my SUV, but honestly, it’s not that hard to drive. And I’m a pretty conservative driver.

I am actually still primarily a bike rider. So I like to think I’m pretty aware of pedestrians and bikes when I’m out and out. I don’t speed. I park way out in the boonies of the parking lot. Generally, as I always have, I try to be a safe driver.

But I get dirty looks and honks and people yelling “watch it!” at a much higher rate. Does my SUV really look that scary?

Recently, I woman I know and like very much, who also happens to be a very vocal advocate for bike riders in my city, twittered that her new neighbor owns a Hummer and she “doesn’t think she’s going to like him”.

Because of what he drives.

Now, I admit that, I too judge Hummer drivers because it seems like a huge excess of money to spend to have one. I just could never justify that, but then again I’ve never had that kind of disposable income.  

But I don’t know that I could ever tell you for sure that I would most certainly dislike someone PURELY based on what they drive.

And maybe I’m a little defensive because I now drive one of those hulking behemoths.  I’d like to think I’m a nice person, concerned with my community, and just trying to do my best with what I have.  You can’t tell any of that about me when I’m behind the wheel of my car, though. Why would you think you could anyways?

If I had a gajillion dollars, I’d buy a brand new Tahoe with the FlexFuel option, but I’d keep an electric car of some kind for most of my driving. I’d own a fancy-pants Madsen cargo bike and all my kids would have expensive bikes too.

But I don’t have that money so I don’t have those options. I needed a car that fit my whole giant family of 6 for a really tiny dollar amount.  It is what it is, man. Why does that make you a better human than me?

 

As I’ve been mulling this over the past week or so, I had a scary thing happen to me yesterday. I was riding home through the city center and noticed a smallish pup running down the street I was biking down. He was running straight towards a very busy through street that feeds onto a highway…..so traffic is usually going along at a nice healthy 50mph clip. I tried to coax him to me but he was skittish and ran. He turned the corner, and a pedestrian was approaching so he did the scariest thing and ran dead into speeding traffic as I watched in helpless horror.

Two small cars barely missed him, but only by the grace of God, as both drivers were not paying attention and one was texting. And then the pup barreled into the path of a giant black Tahoe. And the driver screeched to a stop. And the pup tried to divert his path but ended up running himself into the screeching rear tire. He bowled over, yelped, and then got up and hauled ass down the side street. The Tahoe driver pulled over, obviously shaken. But no one else did. No one else even slowed down.

A man on a bike came tearing around the corner behind me, screaming for his dog and the Tahoe lady and I both yelled at him and pointed out where he could follow his dog, and he took off.  And the Tahoe lady looked at me and looked pretty sad, and got back in her car and got back on her way home.

 

The only obviously nice person there yesterday was the SUV lady.

Maybe most people who drive SUVs are jerks. I don’t know. But I like to think I’m not a total jerk. And I just saw a stranger who very obviously wasn’t one.

So, really…..judging a human being as worthwhile or not based on what you happened to see them get behind the wheel of? I just don’t know about that.

Everyone has their tribe

I've been struggling for the past few months with the internet and dysfunction.

Lot's of people make very compelling arguments for why the internet is, overall, good, but those arguments never sit well in my soul. And I finally figured out why.

Everyone has a tribe on the internet. Everyone can find a group of people who totally, completely accept them....and that's not always a good thing.

The thing is that everyone can find 100 people on the internet to tell them they are awesome. Even when they are doing shitty/dysfunctional/harmful things. There are dozens and dozens of people who will tell you "Don't listen to the haters! You're awesome!", even if the haters are right and you aren't being very awesome.

And humans take that validation and corrupt it to look like fact. "See!? Look at all these people who say I'm awesome and what I'm doing is totally ok!"

The true validation should come in real life. Your family, your close friends, your church, your school.........whatever community truly knows you. That's where we should be getting our validation or, sometimes, it's where we should be called out.

But being convicted is super uncomfortable. Sometimes painful. And it's much easier to retreat to the safe haven of people who only e-know you but will tell you "You're awesome!".

I find all this really depressing. Because the internet takes up more and more of our lives lately and people are having fewer and fewer authentic real-life relationships, at least as far as I can tell (but, you know, there will be 100 people on the internet telling me I'm full of crap so, clearly, they must be right).

can we be honest about some things?

My brain has been mulling over something quite a bit over the past few weeks:

Atheists are kind of jerks. 

And,  if I'm being honest, I just say "kind of" to be socially acceptable. Every atheist I know is real life is a jerk regarding their beliefs (or lack there of). They are generally perfectly normal, nice folks in other areas of life.........and huge, huge jerks about believing.

I'd like to have some real talk about this.


My atheist friends are quick to jump into discussions about religion and immediate bash their believer friends. And those discussions typically take one of two turns........the "You're stupid to believe in fairy tales" approach or the wider "Look at all the problems that religion causes!" argument.

Let's start with the later. "Look at all the problems religion causes!"

Here's some real talk: In my day to day life, in my town, in my circle of friends, in the community I participate in every day,  I don't know any abortion clinic bombers. I don't know how any jihadists who have suicide bombed a building.

I do know people who go out of their way to attempt to make me, and other believers, feel badly about themselves. I do know people who regular call others "friend" and then seek to tear them down.

You want to talk about making the world better or worse? Let's be real about it. Let's be honest with what our contributions are to our community on a day to day basis. Because I think we could all agree that America is kind of messed up right now and a huge part of the messed-up-ness we find ourselves in lies in how disassociated we are from one another.

What makes my world worse, real life, day in day out, in my community, in my circle of friends, in my town........is people who find it ok to insult and demean others because of differing beliefs.  What makes my world worse and what demonstrates bad behavior to me is people calling me "friend"...and then seeking to hurt me.

The former argument my atheist friend use...the "You're stupid to believe in fairy tales!" argument... is just a tag-along to this. That argument was only created to tear others down. Because...lets be real... on a day to day basis, how many believers do you know personally who are going around deliberately trying to harm you? And, let's say you know some. Is the best contribution you can make to your community divisiveness? Resistance of compromise and understanding? That's really your best choice? That's really  helping things? What does it matter if someone doesn't believe the exact thing you do? How does it make anything better to take something someone finds very important and scoff and call it mere fairy tales?

At the end of the day, what makes my community worse is more conflict. More unkindness.


And I'm gonna go off on a little tangent here:
When you post your snarky little memes on social media, and you are aware you have believers as friends, you are being a jerk. You are insulting those you call friends. Let's just be honest about it. I don't know if you're trying to pretend your believer friends don't see it or you're falling back on the ol "It's my FB page and I should be allowed to post what I want" line. Either way, insulting your friends and calling them names makes you a jerk. (I mean, unless you have a ton of folks on your FB that you don't really like and don't care about.......but it's still a pretty jerk move to willingly insult your audience).

Anyways........


You want to sit around a belittle others for not doing life exactly like you? That's your best contribution to your community?

There is no "right" side of intolerance. There is no "right" side of hate or spite.

When you seek out to tear others down simply for the sake of doing it, you are part of the problem. And that's a truth for believers and non-believers a like.

real talk

If you end up spending a majority of time shoving it in everyone's face how happy you are with yourself, maybe you're not that happy with yourself.

Instead of trying to find artificial happiness in the words of others, what about the idea of being still with yourself for a bit and seeing if you can generate that happiness yourself.

My experience has been that true contentment generally isn't brash.

futile

This blog has not been updated much lately, not that anyone reads or even really knows to read.

 

The silence comes from struggle. I have come to the blogger site dozens of times only to have dozens of entries sit in the “draft” folder, and most likely never to see the light of day. My last entry of any substance touched on my feelings that, months later, still have a strangle hold on my words.

A friend asked me if I’d quit blogging and quit twitter. Kind of? (Well, yes, I did quit twitter, actually).

To be plain…I don’t feel like my words will be welcomed. The things that weigh on my mind often somehow weave into the relationships I have…..and I don’t think I have permission in any relationship (except my marriage) to be honest.

I was listening to a sermon the other day and the pastor said something to the effect of “You’d better have friends in your life that you give permission to be real and honest with you”.  And it struck me…..that’s why I’ve pulled away from social media, that’s why I don’t tweet or blog or post much on FB……I know that I do not have permission to be real with most anyone I am in a relationship with.  

I want to write things. And I write them and then realize that whatever I wrote  might end up hitting a nerve with someone I care about. Someone who I probably don’t have permission to be authentic with. So I realize I will probably just offend them or hurt them or, worse, push them away.  So I say nothing. And I hit “draft” instead of “publish”.

I don’t say any this in a judgey way. I come away from these situations feeling like a pretty horrible person most days. Whatever is going on in life and the world and our culture seems to dictate that I sit back and watch people I care about do harmful things. I feel like a terrible, terrible friend most of the time. Something in the way my brain is wired takes this on and I feel…..guilty. Why can’t I magically come up with the perfect words to tactfully and effectively convey what I’m trying to say? I suck at that. As this blog entry so clearly demonstrates.

So lately I’ve just been running away from it. I’ve been closing myself off from a lot of relationships and closing myself of from even having to engage it conversations.  I really just want to go between work and home and not think about what other folks are doing.  And I’ll be real…….it’s just because I’m tired and scared.

Anyways……….I don’t know if that makes sense. Or sounds just profoundly awful. Maybe I’m a horrible person and I just don’t know it. See? I’m finishing this up thinking “Oh lord, I’m going to sound like a giant jerk and it’s all going to be taken the wrong way and I’d better just hit draft instead of publish!”

 

So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m feeling like…..words are futile.

And no, don’t feel like this entry is a call for smoke to be blown up my butt or that I’m feeling sorry for myself.  I want people to be authentic with me. And I guess I need to figure out what, exactly, is my calling in this area of life. Right now, I just don’t know.

the world has gone mad

There is so much backward logic in the world. Has it always been this way? (a question I find myself asking a lot.......)

Once upon a time in a different life, I had a husband who left me. He ran off to another town with another woman and said many hurtful, horrible things to me. And during those times, back in those olden days, he posted on his MySpace wall (I told you it was the olden days) a quote attributed to Dr. Seuss:

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

I knew it was a virtual slap-in-the-face to me, the bitter ex-wife who criticized his choices and who he was. And it infuriated me because that's not what that quote is meant for, damnit!

I knew he took some smug solace in the knowledge that Dr. Seuss, of all people, approved of him being who he was and that I didn't matter, nor did my opinion. And oh it burned me up inside.

I see this all the time, and I suppose it's much more in my face because of the internet. But every day, I see dozens of examples of people bastardizing some quote that was meant to inspire. They post these quotes and and use them to justify bad/damaging/unhealthy behaviors.

And they are everywhere. There is no shortage of fun little quotes on the internet. Heck, I have a board of them on Pinterest, as do many others.

But lately....I feel jaded when I read them. Just a million and one more excuses to justify shitty behavior/actions.

I see my friends doing it and, oh, it burns me up inside. People I know who are smart and good and kind and wonderful.....and they are also being deliberately obtuse with regard to their own emotional intelligence.

I want to shake them sometimes. "No! Don't make excuses to settle! Don't make excuses to accept less than you deserve! Don't make excuses to waste another year less happy than you could be!"

It doesn't burn as badly as that stupid quote my stupid ex posted that one stupid time on stupid old MySpace. (Sorry, Dr. Seuss....you know I don't really think you're stupid.....) But sometimes, reading these quotes and how seeing how folks corrupt them.....it burns a tiny bit.

I sat thinking about this while on Pinterest this morning. I should just stop pinning quotes. I mean...what if I'm just as guilty? What if I've done the same thing? I probably have. That thought burns a bit, too.

It's just another frustrating thing that people do that I have no control over that makes me just want to throw my computer out the window and take my kids to a remote patch of land in Montana and never be heard from again.

100 words - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Her name is strongly Japanese, although she looks anything but. Through the grainy veil of a webcam, though, she can be anything you want her to be I suppose.

"You're so strong" she says as you suit up in your gi for her. Of course your lessons ended years ago and you haven't actually practiced. Although you'll tell anyone who will listen that you will kick their ass if you have to.

"What is that over there?" she asks, gesturing towards the corner of the room. The little toy robot is your daughters. But you lie and say it's yours.

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This entry is for my friend Lance's 100 Word Song writing prompt. This weeks is 100 words based on the song Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips.