Driving is Stupid...

Two Months After My Accident.

If anyone of Mami’s Maniacs would like to send trinkets, Starbucks gift cards or nail polish:

Mami Maisonet
5960 S Land Park #222
Sacramento, CA 95822

If you want to contribute to this artist in residence, mami’s f’ing expensive ass burgers or Dollar Tree visits:

Venmo: @illya-maiso

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We got Nuevo Frida the other weekend. They dropped her off one weekend evening. She’s white and we changed her name from Frida to Guera. I don’t even know if we can say that word anymore, actually. I don’t think we’re supposed to say “Morena” either. I won’t be driving Guera. It’s weird…I just don’t feel comfortable driving the new car after the accident. I had already walked into therapy - years ago - with the mentality (and Mami’s voice saying…) “Don’t get too happy, because when you do…”

Meaning, the universe has a way of balancing shit out. The Seinfeld “Even Steven.” Once you get too happy, the universe will quickly deal you a shit hand to humble your ass. Is it a fucked up way to live life? Probably. My therapist seems to think so. And it could possibly be damaging because it sometimes prevents you from enjoying life…a little too much. But, there are still…STILL…parts of me that blame myself for the rear ending. Residual Catholic guilt. “Could I have done something different to prevent it? Why the fuck didn’t I take the surface streets like usual? You were being so impatient that day that you just HAD to take the freeway to travel the 3 funky ass miles from Mami’s to your house.”

I don’t know.

I vowed not to drive on that part of the highway ever again. I haven’t. I also vowed not to drive on the weekends, which I have. Anyone else see a weird pattern of the driving just being totally and utterly insane?! There are HOARDS of people in every nook and cranny, it’s overwhelming. Maybe I’m hypersensitive to it now. I didn’t drive until 2012. Ok, let me clarify.

Mami did not teach me to drive. We didn’t really have any of those parent/child movie for TV moments the whites curate. My friend Laty Khamsaly, who I was living with at the time, taught me to drive when I was 17. She was 18. I got my permit shortly after and that’s when I bought my first car; a 1979 Camaro. I found it in Pennysaver and I paid $500 for it.

Woody was his name’oh. Woody was brown. Woody was long. Woody didn’t have a radio and so someone in the barrio hooked one up for me, but the wires were exposed and we would occasionally get a little shock from it. Sorry, Yoli. And Stefano. And the list of other “nameless rabble of victims.” I only had one cassette, which was gifted by a Tongan dude that was on my rugby team, and it was Bob Marley’s Legend. Every morning I would make my rounds on 29th Street, picking up whatever CRIP had $1 for gas, assuring the neighborhood that “every little thing…is gonna be alright.” Five CRIPS equaled a half-tank of gas because this is in the 90s when gas was $0.99 a gallon. Remember that?

Woody wasn’t perfect. My uncle looked it over after I bought it and said, “As long as you put in a fan, you’re golden. Good buy, mija.” But, arriving to Thurgood Marshall Continuation School in Woody was a lot classier than walking from the bus stop half a mile away.

Also, have you ever seen an extremely tall and buff Tongan in the back of a Camaro? If you know what the backseats of classic Camaros look like, you know why this image is hilarious.

Did I mention I was 17? Woody didn’t last longer than a year. I never put in the fan and the car overheated on the highway while I was following the school bus on a field trip. I had a car load of people too. Of course. Woody was towed by the CHP, I paid to get him out of junkyard jail and then sold him for a few hundred bucks. I let my permit lapse, never taking the driving test to get the actual license. And it was back to public transportation and walking for the next 14-years. I was in good physical shape though.

I didn’t get my license until I turned 30. Thanks to my frenemy, Chad, who let me use his car in order to do so. I can assure you my frenemy is everything you imagine a person named Chad is like.

If the public transportation wasn’t total poo-poo, I’d go right back to it. But, facing the woes that is the Sacramento Regional Transit and DURING a pandemic is too much for my puny brain to handle. No worries though, I do have another car. Hildy. She’s not super reliable - she’s literally left me on the side of the highway twice in the last five years - which is why we even got the new car. But, I will just continue to drive my beat up, busted and unreliable Hildy. Because I ain’t fucking with Guera or the Sac RT.