MONSTER IN A BOXSTER

Monster in a Boxster

"There's a party in my mind...And it never stops There's a party up there all the time...
Other people can go home...Other people they can splitI'll be here all the time...I can never quit"

Memories Can't Wait - Talking Heads

My heart is pounding, my head hurts, I want to lay down. Is it the flu? A migraine? No, it's just the come-down after driving my car.

The late author, Spalding Gray, had such a rough time trying to write his great American Novel that he dubbed it the "Monster in a Box". Now I have my own "monster", and it's a car!

I am accustomed to driving a car, but this car...is driving me! I never thought of myself as a timid person, but basically I am. I haven't been on a roller coaster since 1986 and THIS is what I've been avoiding. THIS is psychological war--who will intimidate who? Me? or...THE CAR?

OK, first the facts. I bought THE car last weekend. She is an "arctic silver" porsche boxster with a black top, and we are in love. Born in 2002, able to leap from a stand-still to 68 mph in under 5 seconds, she has traveled 46,000 miles just to be...with me.

Here's a snippet of conversation with my race-car driver friend:

G: Are you kidding, your car is a mid-engine! You can turn a corner at any speed and you will not roll, maybe spin around a few times, but you will NOT roll, not like a 911, THEY roll

Me: Oh?

G: With my car I have to steer with the gas pedal, you know when you're going 130 and then you just take your feet off the pedal just a little bit and the car kinda wants to spin out a little, so you just drop to 120 and then hit the gas. Your car can do that!

Me: Really?

I've only driven my dream car for a week now, so this may just be the period of adjustment. I have never heard of a car being "too much" for someone, but this one sure pushes the envelope. I'm used to driving a car, but not having the car drive me.

TANGENT: Speaking of race car driving and personality types... I'm reminded of a paper I wrote in college on the "Sensation-Seeker" personality trait--"...the pursuit of novel, intense and complex sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take risks for the sake of such experience". I don't remember much about our little study, but I can tell you this: I scored very, very LOW on the Zuckerman Sensation-Seeking scale.

And speaking of personalities...I am still trying to accept and recover from the loss of Spalding Gray, another of my heroes gone but not forgotten. I don't know if we'll ever get the details, but he died of an apparent suicide after a life long battle with depression and chronic pain. notable for me that this one-two combination punch of depression and pain quite reliably produces genius--but that's no consolation for the loss of Spald.



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