05.26.15

as of the middle of june, our little family will boast a total of zero steady jobs, unless you count whatever it is that steve does. joe realized a few weeks back that he needed to stop spending three hours a day getting to and from his office in the bronx, that we should reap the benefits of having been employed and childless before we are too old to really appreciate said benefits, and, oh yeah, that we should stick with the plan of picking up the old car we were going to buy from his parents (to streamline the process of getting to and from the bronx) and we should drive it across the country. i agreed to all of that, he put in his notice, and now we're planning a month-long road trip? customary catsitter, please reconfirm for me that you're able to feed and water the dudes in our absence (this is, predictably, one of the most stressful parts of what's happening, for me).

frequently and/or fictitiously asked questions

Q: what will joe do now?

A: we don't know. something in the same field, probably. an important part of the job-leaving experience is the lack of a job on the other side, he tells me, so i made sure we were up to date on the sort of things you need comparatively fancy health insurance to tackle, and that was that.

Q: where will you go?

the car is in phoenix, so we're starting there; after visiting with his parents for several days, we'll drive to los angeles and see some of my family, see showgirls, and start heading east.

Q: how are you addressing the fact that since matty hides from strangers, no one is going to see him for a whole month?

A: a wi-fi pet camera to catch him when he sneaks out for food, sort of the yuppie version of the planet earth tech used to film the elusive snow leopard? i'm still working on this.

Q: is benjamin black's the black-eyed blonde a worthy successor to raymond chandler's novels?

A: no, unfortunately. that times review i linked in the title made me laugh, as i too read "cancer stick" and promptly checked to see if the term would be anachronistic for a chandler character (it probably is). in my case i wasn't jumping on black because i thought he was too good; i think he chokes the reader with (often subpar) chandlerisms, and i really hated his zillion clumsy references to the long goodbye (for my money, chandler's best work). the black-eyed blonde is worth reading as a chandler-nerd talking point, but it belongs in the canon like a pearl onion on a banana split.

Q: what does the old car look like?

A: this, more or less.

Q: are you going to write about the trip?

A: we've made plans to stay in a '55 spartan imperial mansion in west texas and at the mississippi crossroads where robert johnson sold his soul to the devil so he could play the blues. what do you think?