I leave y’all for TWO days and suddenly the traffic to Verbal Intent slashes and burns like Sherman’s march to the sea. I’m turning into a Southerner with all of the Steak n’ Shake I’m eatin’, and pretty soon I’m gonna come after you with a pistol and a rifle and a truck that is single-handedly creating the hole in the ozone layer. Come to the site! Read my posts! Comment! OR ELSE!

Ok, now that the Civil War is out of the way, let me tell you that Charlotte is changing my whole opinion of North Carolina and the evil people that live there. They’re alright! And the weather is sweet! And nobody here is breaking my heart like they were in college. So I might just give NC another chance.

But I miss my puppy and Matty tremendously. And last night he sent me a text message where he was holding up the “I love you” hand, and I swooned. But I also would have really liked a photo of Berlin, so let’s get on that, Matteo. Not that my phone is working at all because that replacement phone charger clearly does not work. Add that to the list of things Verizon has screwed me over on.

I’ll be back Friday night. I miss you, Internet. Do you miss me!?

Boy did I get spoiled last week. I got to sit back and watch while my favorite people wrote blogs and generated traffic for me. Hello, this is the life. It was almost as if God was looking down on me and saying, “You know what? She hasn’t gone grocery shopping in three weeks. Her bathroom looks like Nessie has been living in there for seven months, and her dog has recently decided it’s fun to run across the park far far away from her and not come back when she calls. Let’s give her some friends and some traffic and a swift kick in the pants!” I don’t pretend to understand the logic of the Almighty.

There were a few things that got me excited over the weekend. We purchased our domestic Argentinian flights and started to make some reservations for our vacation. Matt set me up with a Zipcar account and we ogled the Volvo parked down the street - available to drive on my every whim. I went grocery shopping and had so much fun that I came home and cooked for the first time in weeks. Scallops and brussel sprouts over pasta with a vodka cream sauce. We ate in front of the tv. Life was returning to normalcy and I was liking it very much.

Until I got the email. The email telling me that I’ve been rejected from Zipcar because of my highly suspect driving record. Apparently they’re not into my two speeding tickets on average per year thing. Bite me, Zipcar. I hate your Volvos sedans and Honda Elements. My dog and me are way too good for your services. Guess what we’ll do!? WE’LL WALK! AND WE’LL LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

I got coffee at the T station yesterday. There’s something about train station consumables - just a secret, unspoken thing that’s hard to define. They always taste a bit like fuel, always a bit too dry or too sweet, and always a bit stale. Not stale the way food usually tastes stale, but stale like elevator air.

Despite the disgusting taste of train station consumables, and the disgusting way you feel covered in grease from head to toe after eating them, they always seem to kick off some lovely endorphins in my body. I’m starting to figure out the many feelings that contribute to this happy buzz.

1. I’m usually listening to some really good tunes on my iPod. I’m traveling, so it’s music that rolls in continuous motion.  You know what I’m talking about. Think “Run” by Collective Soul. (Remind me to blog about Collective Soul sometime. Good story there.)
2. Traveling long distances by train has become a therapeutic need for me. I’m quite happy shoved in the corner of an Amtrak train - even happier if I wind up on a club car. There’s romance and relaxation in every tree you whiz by. So just entering a train station puts me in good head-space. Then add food, and I’ve wafted up to heaven.
3. The first thing we ever did as husband and wife was to hop the train from Boston to NYC for our week-long honeymoon in Manhattan. Between the Parker-Meridien, roasted peanuts, cool fall afternoons spent hunting down our favorite musical haunts, and seeing Les Paul live in concert, it was quite possibly the best week of my life. And for some reason I always equate getting on a train with good things to come.

Now if I can only fulfill my lifetime dream of taking the train from Chicago to Frisco Dean Moriarty-style. Although I’m sure I’d eat so much train food that I’d probably wind up killing a good thing.

Gosh. The Green Line, can you believe it? What a week to be in the PR department for the MBTA. Yikes.

Thanks for NONE of your concern. No, I don’t ever take the Green Line, but I could have used a few little comments or emails from people who wanted to make sure I was still alive. WHATEVER. NOT BITTER.

I know you come here, not out of concern for my daily well-being, but to read gruesome and revealing posts about me and my marriage. Oh, honey, I check the Google Analytics, and I know that’s what you want. So let me at least pander to the audience momentarily.

This morning Matty drove me to the T station to be a real peach and save me the mile walk. I was in my typical not-a-morning-person mood, and he struck up a conversation about the weird dream that he had last night.

Matt: I dreamed that I almost met Ed Cherubino. I was checking in to a hotel and they told me that to get to my room I should take the elevator to the 17th floor. When I arrived, Ed Cherubino would be there to greet me.

Me: Who’s Ed Cherubino?

Matt: A radio commentator.

Me: I don’t really understand why you’re so excited. Who IS he?

Matt: A radio commentator. Think of just any radio commentator and what it would be like to meet them. Who’s a radio commentator you would recognize?

Me: Howard Stern.

Matt: Ok, so maybe not. How about a TV newscaster? What TV newscaster would you recognize?

Me: Barbara Walters.

Matt: Why are you bursting my bubble?

Me: I just have no frame of reference as to who Ed Cherubino is. I’m sorry.

By then we had arrived, so I quickly kissed him and hopped out of the car. Good thing the Red Line didn’t break down on my commute. Oh the irony of Matt hearing about THAT from Ed Cherubino.

This totally does not even do it justice. I walked from Boston Common into Cambridge, took two different buses, and got home two hours after I set out. Needless to say, there was no trip to the groomer but a very very good excuse to pick up Chipotle on the way home.

For some time now we’ve talked about selling one of the cars. There are a lot of great reasons why we could easily do it. I take public transportation to work every day, if I ever needed a car I could get a ZipCar. We’d save money on insurance and repairs, not even to mention the fact that on most evenings and weekends we’re either running errands together or flopping at home together.

But for as long as we’ve been talking about it, I’ve been coming up with excuses why we shouldn’t go down to one car. I generally say that I wonder if it’s even financially prudent to sell a car now if we might need to buy another in 3-4 years or so. Wouldn’t it just be smarter to hang on to our rapidly depreciating vehicle and let it sit in the driveway instead of having to shell out MORE money to buy another car at a later date?

And then there’s the argument that we’d have to put more money into Matt’s car before selling it to get a good price, why not just hang onto it in it’s current state?

But I’m coming to terms with what’s at the root of my problem with car-sharing. The very smallest issue is the stupidest of all… as we would sell Matt’s hatchback that means he’d be driving MY WAGON. MINE. He basically does this anyway, but there’s still that differentiation that he’s driving MY car while HIS car sits in the driveway. And if he’s the one driving it at least 3 hours a day wouldn’t it then become HIS car by default? That would mean HIS sunglasses would be in the side door pocket and HIS cds would be in the glove compartment. And the spare napkins would inevitably run out and not be replaced. And what would be the fate of my emergency stash of feminine products and nylons!?

Then there’s the issue of feeling trapped. Because I might not be able to make that girls-night-out in the suburbs as Matt’s running late from a Friday afternoon meeting at the office. This is not a legitimate fear because #1 – I have no female friends and #2 – I probably don’t have female friends because of my natural disdain for people who live in the suburbs. Plus Matt’s the kind of guy who would do everything within his power to get me to the girls-night-out despite his late meeting, the darling.

But the deepest fear is that this would lead me down the slippery slope of stay-at-home mom-ness, trapped inside the house, speaking Toddler all day long and relishing the bi-annual opportunity to head to Chipotle and eat a burrito by myself. I often feel like I’ve sold off so many parts of my independence just to be married. Does the car really need to be that big last piece?

It’s a control thing. I want the freedom to be able to drive to New York for the interview I’ll have with Chris Matthews after winning a Grammy for audio engineering. Not sure why he’d be interviewing for that, but these are the stories I tell myself.

Matt made a great deal with me… if we sell the car I can be assured that at any time if I need a ride somewhere or if I need to call dibs on the vehicle, I’m more than welcome to, and he’ll be super-accommodating. I guess I’d just feel better about it if he threw in some promise about on-demand chocolate cake any time I want.