Clean, glorious clean

I took a bath today.

I had to, as I had no shower curtain.

I wish I had been bright enough to bring my brain, I mean, notebook into the library with me, but there you go. Rather than leave half the people I know with the wrong address, I will simply wait to post it. It has a land line. I will have to get a calling card to make outgoing long distance calls, but those are $5 at Wal-Mart.

Yeah, I don't know the phone's number, either. It's like you know me or something.

I think my sis, via mom, gave me a spare card. I have no idea where it is. And, anyway, I will probably use the entire thing to speak to Michela, whom I miss terribly.

One of my roommates has not been seen.

The other plays drums, and keeps his full kit in his room.

Charming. I mean, he's charming. A nice kid. I intend to fill his brain with King Crimson.

I see lots of little kids down here. My sub-lessor is father to a six year-old with way too much energy.

I pointed Gregg from Pfizer here via email. All my Pfizer buddies should be warned that I keep saying I will post about why I made this move (aside from the blatant, financial reasons) but I never do. I will. Someday. When I have the Internet access and the time. And a monitor. And a keyboard. And maybe a mouse. (Hey, I live in a building filled with parental wealth-burning, stupid college kids. I should go through the trash!)

My skin feels weird. Almost like air, and drafts, are getting to it or something. Almost like I'm... exposed.

I think I should retrieve my brain and eat, now. Oh, and I no longer look like General Longstreet. I was trying to trim around my goatee until I lost my mind to burning impatience to get in that tub and, hey—no more hair.

Okay, what's Latin for "fear of parking lots"?

Spoke to the police today.

I've found an apartment to sublet; the lease expires July 31st. It is in Murfreesboro, which means I am getting farther and farther South. So last night I slept in the Murfreesboro (that's a lot harder to type than Nashville) Wal-Mart. I shared my corner of the lot with an RV and a couple SUVs and cars.

Last night, back in Madison, I shared it with one of those NASCAR RVs (with the mini-garage in the back over about eight wheels) and a delivery truck. And the Zamboni. How could I forget the Zamboni? Parking lot sweepers have haunted my dreams for a week. I'm surprised the Devil hasn't chased me with a Zamboni across the Abu Graib Skating Rink in my dreams yet.

*brrrrrrr-rrrrrr-rRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr-rrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrr....*
*brrrrrrr-rrrrrr-rRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr-rrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrr....*
*brrrrrrr-rrrrrr-rRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRr-rrrrrrrrrrrr-rrrr....*

But it was not sleeping in a parking lot that attracted official attention. I needed to go to the bank to check my available balance. Showing up before the employees did may not have been the wisest move, nor was kicking back in the car reading Borges for hours. My sister called about 10:30 am CDT and as I was talking to her the police showed up.

I have ended up in nice, polite conversations with many inquisitive policemen in the past. Being 20, long-haired and bearded in a leather jacket will attract far more attention than you think, a lot of it mistaken or unwanted. Especially if you're given to wandering around a city at night on foot, thinking poetic thoughts, as I was then.

So, the policeman and I had a nice conversation, revealing that I was in fact a customer of the bank, with an account, I had just made a handshake deal on a sublet and would be working for Dell Tech support soon. He noted that Nashville had suffered a rash of bank robberies (as has Michigan) and police all over Tennessee were keeping an eye on banks.

I suppose the fact that I look, now, like a Civil War general (Grant or Longstreet) does not help me much. If I don't shave soon, I'm afraid my beard will start consuming things independently.

Afterward, Sis called back, somewhat concerned and wishing to know if I was, in fact, on my way to the bank or the pokey.

I move in tomorrow.

Can a cop tell if you're thinking poetic thoughts?

What's the Latin for "fear of forms"?

I have both an online application and a paper application to fill out. Both fill me with dread. Heck, I can't even remember when I moved into Dave E.'s place, and that was barely over a year ago. The address of the apartment I had in K'zoo has completely fled my tiny little mind. Apartment F, I think, occurs to me now, but who knows in what context?

The worst, undoubtedly, will be the online app. Forcing my weird, confused, complex life into tiny little boxes will, I'm sure, prove the end of me.

Time to make some calls on my housing possibilities. I saw one or two that would be ideal, assuming the people I'd be sharing those digs with wouldn't be serial killers or PETA fanatics.

In the continuing reports of Nashville roads, I woke early enough to see morning traffic in Nashville. Ouch. Saw more of the city, though, driving to avoid it. In other news, I discovered that, contrary to my previous post, I had only been on the third downtown bridge, the I-24/I-40 bridge. In fact, my map does not show the fourth bridge: I think it connects Shelby Avenue with Demonbreun Street (what a name, eh?). It is a wonderful bridge; I crossed it last night. Twice. Six glorious lanes landing just south of Downtown. I still feel shivers to think on't.

Of course, I drove past the bridge (on 2nd Avenue) about four hundred times this week before I noticed it last night, but I still have very positive feelings about the whole experience. ;-)

Oh... my... God...

I have a job offer.

It was on the Tennessean's web page, I filled it out... boom. I don't believe it.

Spherion is a temp agency hiring for Dell Tech Support: the bottom of the IT food chain, for sure, but I don't care. I have six pages printed out, three to fill out, three to help me fill them out. May 1st is some training, I think, and it will start May 8th.

This... will be difficult. I will have to remember EVERYTHING I did, phone numbers to EVERYWHERE I worked... gah. And I'll have to do it mostly from Google over computers that allow you to work 60 minutes at a time. I don't think Spherion's on-line app, which I also have to fill out, saves info for later entry. Grrr.

This... would be a lot easier if I owned a laptop. I saw one at a used computer store here in town. P-90, $50.00. It didn't boot, but that may have been Windows. Sadly, it had no CD-ROM, which would have allowed me to run Linux in its tiny little mind. I believe if you have a laptop, public library network access is unlimited.

Must... beat... head... harder... will strong... wall is weak....

Something else happened today, but for the life of me, I can't remember what.

Jobs and homes

I am considering how to resolve the "no job without permanent address" attitude with the "no address without a permanent job" attitude. Aside from a PO box, which I will certainly get, I have a few other options:

One job at an apartment building will include a room as compensation. The owner will be back at work Friday and will read my application then.

I talked to the guy, who's name is Logan, who runs the downtown cafe—which is far more like a bar with live music than a coffeehouse. Though he turned me down on my request to use his address ("Sorry, but no; I could get in trouble") he very kindly took my phone number to share with roommate-searchers. He also pointed me to Opryland Hotel, as they have a high turnover and also can provide bums like me with a room.

Sweet.

Called a couple employment agencies today. One said she didn't really do IT, but had occasional use for a person who knew HTML or could take a computer apart, and I agreed to mail her my resume. She was also kind enough to point me to an agency with one line in the yellow pages. It was very nice of her to point it out to me, as it was far down in the alphabet.

Several others have set times to come in and fill out an app or take tests; some take resumes over the net.

So. Onward and forward.

I am devoting equal time to jobs and a place to stay, as the two are related. I rather wish they weren't, but... oh, well.

I also found a bookstore called Books-a-Million, which is huge and has a cafe and one wall, approximately the length of a football field, with nothing but magazines. I have been making myself ubiquitous there in the evening hours when there is nothing else inexpensive to do but hang around the Parthenon. (Actually, I have been thinking about hanging out there and lecturing on it with a tin can for tips. Don't laugh, I can do chapter and verse on who built the original, why, how, when and who blew it up, and various details on the architecture: "Why are the columns striped? Why are they curved? Why does the plaque say the columns point in?" Obviously, my only fear is that that I would be elbowing out some other bum's job. Probably one with a city income.)

These library computers are very annoying. Inglewood has nicer, newer machines than Madison, but the crippled versions of Windows and Internet Explorer installed on these... hold on, I think I have a redundancy in this sentence somewhere....

By the way, if anyone leaves comments on this blog, I will not be displeased. :-D

South Nashville found

It turns out that it is south (and east) of downtown. Clever. It's the rough neighborhood. Read, "that's where I'll be living in a few days." It is also where the mythical I-40/I-65 bridge across the Cumberland (for that is the name of what turns out to be a river) supposedly exists, though I still couldn't testify to that.

Opened a bank account at Fifth Third. I could have done it at First Tennessee, but that's too much typing. The woman who opened the account was from Petosky, Michigan. We joked a bit about moving here, and she assured me the summers would indeed get hot, and that a small flurry of snow would shut down all the schools. "In Michigan, you start your vehicle to warm it up," someone told her. "Here, we start it to cool it down."

*cries*

Oh, well.

Coffee.

New phone number: (615) 423-1554.

I saw my first vehicle, a pick-up, with a gay stripe on it: the stripe is a half-inch high, two or three foot-wide sticker with the rainbow colors on it. The truck had no dents or bulletholes.

That's a good sign.

I am indeed in Central Time Zone. At 8:48 am CDT the sun was astonishingly high in the sky.

ETA:

I have begun to master the I-40/I-24/I-65 loop. Today I even managed to cross the mythical Fourth Bridge across the Cumberland, only getting lost about three or four times.

I have applications for Warren Terrace Apts., which needs a maintenance guy, and the Starbucks just down the road. Wish me luck.

South Nashville Blues

The title is a song by Steve Earle, an alt.country musician, about his self-destructive days. Don't ask me where South Nashville is, I'm new here myself.

Driving in Nashville

Saturday I got my first taste of Nashville roads. Only Dad could tell me otherwise, but I think this is what driving in Boston must be like. Not the drivers, no, everyone's pretty polite, but the roads... oh man, the roads.

Nothing, let me repeat, nothing here is laid out in a grid.

I think it must date back to pioneer days, when you were glad there was a road at all, regardless of how twisty it might be; nor did you care that the folks in the next town (two miles away) named that road Nashville Avenue whereas you called it Nashville Pike. It was under you, it led somewhere, that was enough.

I wish they had paid a little more attention.

There is a river—well, perhaps it is a lake, I can't tell—that meanders through Metro Nashville. At one point, three bridges cross it to link the old downtown with Madison, Inglewood and Gallatin. There is a fourth, mythical bridge, but I have never been on it. This is not because I have not tried. This is because I do not yet know the secret onramp (or handshake) that would get me to it. It would link me, hanging out as I do in Madison, with the towns south of Nashville. I have been in those towns. I have just never gotten there the direct way. Perhaps, in the future, I will construct a raft at a narrows and float my car across.

Saturday, I drove a lot.

Things I've learned

I also learned, here at the Madison Library (where I got a visitor's card) that if you set a copier at 73% reduction to legal-size paper, you can photocopy two facing pages in a phone book and save yourself a lot of transcribing. I copied the pages for employment agencies, computer-related items, and coffee shops. I was also looking for a Tennessee equivalent of MichiganWorks! down here, but I don't think there is one.

By the way, repeatedly typing "Tennessee" is more fatiguing than you might think.

Water is cheaper if you buy it in gallons from Wal-Mart.

Cash is still king. I have a cashier's check from my CharterOne account (they have no branches in TN; I made sure to ask). However, cashing one can require paying 5% or more as a fee. I wish I had thought of that Saturday morning, when I could have opened an account and deposited it for free. As it is, I will have to wait for Monday morning.

Things I've done

Looked for a replacement for 4th Coast Cafe. (A reason for much of the driving.) I am specifically looking for Internet access, as well as that half-emo/Goth, half-undergrad, half-biker bar atmosphere of the Coast. I didn't find it, but I could have entered one cafe that looks like a particularly scuzzy bar and watched A Flock of Seagulls last night.

Oddly, I turned it down.

Laundry. Especially the jeans I wore when changing my oil.

I finally retraced my steps to Gallatin today. Not quite intentionally: I was looking for a place to rotate my tires. The back ones are original and have much tread on them; of course, on a front-wheel drive car, they are only there to keep the gas tank off the macadam. My front tires, the second front set, are severely worn. I was thrilled to find a small store in a corner of a massive parking lot that was being heavily remodeled (thus, I would neither scare off nor displace any customers). I asked the construction workers for, and got, permission to change my tires there. Aside from numerous caterpillars, it went great, and I now have lots of tread on the front, where all the accelerating, braking and steering is done.

Did I mention that I was thrilled? Well, I am.

I read the Remo Williams book Ian lent me (whoops, it came with accidentally) and have read more essays by Jorge Luis Borges. Going between the two is a bit odd.

I have been thinking out getting one of those styrofoam coolers and keeping food in it, but I think, with no place to keep it but the car, that it would be a bit quixotic. The air is cool up here (I think my tires showed overinflation because they were at proper pressure in Kalamazoo, and I do think my elevation here is much higher) but the sun is Kalamazoo summer intense. I sincerely hope that, when summer really arrives, that I will have not only an apartment, or a room, but an air conditioner.

Darn, the library is closing. Well, I am off to that scuzzy coffee bar. Perhaps I can sweet-talk the barista into letting me use the address on applications. Perhaps I will simply do that anyway, heh. Dinner will be light tonight but I have gas and fresh tread. So: good enough.

I've become far too used to watching out for cops: driving with expired tags, as I was, sleeping in parking lots. It's not a huge deprivation, sleeping like that, nor is it that I have too much to do or too much time on my hands; it's the between times, times when you'd go downstairs and see who is on AIM or Yahoo chat, or write an email, or phone someone, or go visit that you really realize what you left behind.

(There are about twice the number of employment agencies in Nashville as Kalamazoo. Wish me luck. If you stop by Wal-Mart, look me up. Oh, and do consider frequenting their stores: they are, however unintentionally, sponsoring this move of mine, heh heh heh.)

Carpetbagging part 1.5

We return to our hero left dangling from the cliff...

I ended up going back to Bowling Green, state road 231. After chatting with some nice folks about the unexpected stop, we consulted a Kentucky map and discovered that 231 led to 31-E, which would take us south to Gallitin, TN and onward into Nashville itself. I had been tired, and thinking of sleeping at a highway rest stop, but the obstruction had got my blood up: I bought a 24-oz. coffee and determined to sleep in Nashville that night.

I was worried about the stupid transmission gagging with a thousand stop lights, but 231/31 had barely any. I wished I had a camera when I blew by the "Welcome to Tennessee" sign, but needs must; maybe if this works I'll go back and take a picture at night and just tell everyone it was from the first time.

I hit a gas station, where I discovered that the unusual conspiracy to hide and restrict all state maps of Tennessee was in full working order in... Tennessee. Had I been more thoughtful, or awake, I would have realized that metric buttloads of filthy tourists had in fact snagged them all. I ended up in Gallatin and pulled into a Shell station to for a restroom break, carefully stepping around the two inch long beetle with massive pincers. No need to unsettle the natives.

A man was there in a Waffle House uniform looking for a ride to Hendersonville. I excused myself, saying that I had no idea where I was. Again, no maps. I went to the bathroom and discovered no soap and an electric hand dryer. Maybe everyone is still worked up about TVA, but every bathroom has electric dryers. Also, that bathroom still has no soap (see later).

After the cashier assured me that 31 did indeed lead right into Nashville, "um, I think," I stepped back outside and talked a bit more with the guy, who assured me, far more effectively than the attendant, that 31E led straight to downtown Nashville. (We will come back to the terrible cruelty of the phrase "straight to" when applied to anything in Metro Nashville later.) Turns out he is, or claims to be, Johnny Cash's nephew. Hell if I know he is. But, I thought I could take him in a fight so I did offer him that ride.

He didn't know what kind of beetle that was, either.

Aside from a tense moment when he cracked open an unusual can of soda (I was worried it might be open alcohol, in which case I would have no choice but to eject him from the car without slowing) he was pretty polite. And his apartment building was in fact right on 31E, so I dropped him off and continued into town. I wondered if every other person I would meet here would in fact be a near relative of a famous country music star. (If they are, they're pretty quiet about it.)

31E, AKA Gallatin Pike and several other aliases, is like South Westnedge in Portage, only about 60 miles long; or so it seems. As I drove, I eyed the massive parking lots of the WalMarts and other megastores, grading them as to safety and quiet if I ended up sleeping in one that night, as, barring a chance meeting with an old friend, I figured I would. Eventually, tall buildings loomed across bridges. I was there.

It being perhaps 1 AM, I decided I would be better off driving around like a rubbernecking tourist before every tourist yahoo and his uncle were out there with me, let alone the natives, who would undoubtedly place me in the yahoo category. I followed 31E all around downtown, around the state capitol, until I came to Fessiers and Murfreesboro Pike. (You have to add the word "pike" to your list of synonyms for "road" here, by the way.) A family pulled into the gas station where I perused the book map of Metro Nashville I had bought in Gallatin and asked how to get on I-65 north (they were bound for Columbus).

And there I discovered that NO ONE in this town is from here, apparently. I always thought that was California, and I am still a bit bitter about the confusion. NO ONE knows where anything is. No one knows where to find a 24-hour cafe. No, you have to do a bit of searching to find an actual native. Perhaps they've all fled. People in Kalamazoo are better about directions but, as I soon found out, that is because K'zooers have about one millionth as much to commit to memory.

Nashville, indeed, does have a living, full-size replica of the Parthenon of Athens in it. I wandered around it a bit before the fatigue forced me to find shelter. It is pretty cool: it even has the classical paint job the Athenians would have given it. I will have to go to it in the day sometime to see the 60' statue of Athena Parthenos inside. (Well, it should be inside. If it is accurate.)

I located a nearby WalMart market. "That looks like a good place to sleep." I cracked the windows, locked the doors and was out like a light.

(One thing about Indiana: every time the macadam or concrete under your wheels changes, your tires sound different; also, the car may bounce or pull slightly to one side. Having that happen with a car with two worn tires and a wonky tranney, I found, just eats up the miles you might have spent in boredom.)

Well, I want to hit the 'net job sites and craigslist.com. Also, I wish to hit tracfone.com and update my number. (I wish I had not left the paper with all my account information locked in my car, but there you go.)

Carpetbagging

I am in the Madison Public Library, part of the Metro Libraries, just outside of Nashville. It is 10 am CDT (uh, I think that is the time zone). The night was cool and humid, and the day is already sunny as heck and getting warm.

The car is fine, transmission and all.

The drive down was eventful. Well, I mean, after I left Indiana. All I can say about Indiana is that it was the longest trip I have ever made without having to pop my ears. Everytime I thought I saw a hill, it was an overpass. I imagine they trucked in the dirt to avoid disturbing that perfect plane: or, God forbid, creating a lake.

I took I-94, I-69, I-65. Well, almost. I had to travel around Indianapolis via I-465. It only took me about three or four tries to actually get on it in the right direction.

Go me.

I listened to odd stuff on my way through there: Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville and Whip-smart, Ride's nowhere (which has one great song and a lot more cat torturing than I remember; maybe I'm getting old), the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers.

Louisville, KY was pretty. The Ohio River is GINORMOUS there; it looks like the Mississippi. I was seriously considering turning and staying there, it was so pretty, but Kentucky has been a bit soft in the job market, and I saw a number of unoccupied, older buildings, so I decided to continue. Also, I remember Randy B. complaining about never having anything to do down there on his job trips, so I drove straight through.

Kentucky is seriously pretty. I went through Louisville at about 6 or 6:30 pm, so I ended up going through it in the mostly dark. I decided to stop in Bowling Green for food and water. Trolling through their So. Westnedge, I hit upon the promised land: White Castle! Sliders! The hamburger that is not a sandwich, but a meaty, steamy, oniony confection!

I ordered ten.

Then things got interesting.

Apparently, something EXPLODED on I-65 South. Apparently, this interfered with traffic. Apparently, this interfered with traffic so much that:

1. A woman gave birth under a bridge ahead of us (information courtesy of the guy riding his bike up and down the stopped cars),
2. I listened to Bob Dylan's Live 1976: Rolling Thunder two CD live album... with repeats for favorite songs... with time to spare,
3. After the birth, they opened up a way to the emergency turn-around and sent us all NORTH. Even the tractor-double trailers: it was fun watching them swing through the turn-around, trailers swaying violently side-to-side as the wheels left and returned to the pavement... hey, I think I know what caused the explosion now. :-)

That last was the real... expletive deleted, expletive deleted. My special favorite was the SUV with Michigan plates (apparently a would be Nashvegas tourist) who stopped to ask the emergency workers waving cars around for directions...

...and brought the entire freakin' line to a complete halt!

We reserve the comfy chair in Hell for that guy. And he wasn't the only one without the testicular fortitude to actually take responsibility for himself to FIND ANOTHER WAY TO NASHVILLE.

My second favorite was the guy driving the $50,000 Lexus (KY plates) who was incapable of nudging his car through actual, you know, dirt, and who prevented me from driving around the SUV. GAH!

Anyway... to be continued.