My Weekend In Review

I don't think the universe has taken quite as big a dump on me in a long time as it did on Friday.
My silk screening class took "field trip" to the Fabric Workshop and Museum and since MICA is notorious for screwing us over with funding, they cut buses for such excursions, leaving us to beg those lucky enough to own their own vehicles to graciously provide the less fortunate with a means of reaching our various destinations.
I do own a car. It has four wheels, a steering wheel, fuzzy dice, the works. That much I know for certain. What I also know is that if you happen to measure taller than my height (a whopping 5 feet 6 inches) and you sit in my back seat, you will probably hit your head on my ceiling at every slight bump we hit on our merry way. That is the beauty of a VW Beetle. I also had a suitcase occupying one of my back seats at the time, so I was hesitant to offer more than one spot to any classmate brave enough to climb into a vehicle with me behind the wheel. Dain (6 feet 3 inches) was man enough to be my passenger and we took off up 95 North with my moleskin notebook full of directions to the Design Center in North Philly. Several hours later, after being extremely lost and forced to turn around several times (as is always the case when I am driving somewhere unfamiliar) we made it to the Design Center only to be embarrassed by the fact that we were so late we missed the tour completely and had to get right back in the car to drive to center city for the rest of our day. After trying in vain to find parking on 12th street on a Friday afternoon, in my frustration I squeezed myself into what I believed to be an acceptable parking spot on 9th and Walnut. Lacking quarters I paid for only about a quarter of the time I actually needed and told Dain not to fret, because I would be back to pay it soon and no one would even know that my meter had expired.
After some bad pad tai and an orgasmic Amish muffin at Reading Terminal Market, we made our way over to the Fabric Workshop for a tour. It was around 5 pm before I came back to my meter alone, as Dain returned with the others back to Baltimore. But what I returned to was not my isotope green Beetle but a street devoid of all parked cars completely, and the sinking realization that I had in fact been towed. After a short bout of denial and a cup of Starbucks coffee, I took a taxi to the Philadelphia Parking Authority and waited in line to retrieve my car. An hour and $226 later, I drove off into the night a free woman.
I think that the phrase "fuck my life" escaped my lips so often that it has lost all meaning to me. Somehow I ended up on South Street later to commemorate the terrible afternoon with an industrial piercing before I took off to Millersville U to visit my friend from high school at "real college." I must admit though that I have never seen so many unattractive people in one place before. But maybe I am shallow. That's all up in the air.
What I do know is that I am finally back in New Jersey, where the gas pumps itself and Wawas shine like beacons in the night from every street corner. In other words, I am home.