The Replacements

I've had more significant changes in my life in the past three months than I've had in years. (At least, since the new house and first marriage. Hi honey!) In general, I approach change in my life the way you would approach chewing gum in your pubic hair -- with careful consideration, nervous trepidation, and a sense of wonder at to how you arrived at such a circumstance in the first place. And fitting into the old cliche like a hand in glove, my big changes have come packaged in a troika.

1) HIP

Around the age of 19 or so, after a particularly intense night of basketball, I remember a sunny day at my Mom's house where it suddenly hurt to walk. And while that moment of "holy shit this hurts" passed pretty quickly, I didn't know that the transitory burst of agony was a warning shot from my body that the good and healthy times were coming to an end. Over the course of a few decades, I slowly lost my ability to dunk a basketball, then I lost my ability to walk without pain, then I lost my ability to sleep without pain. And once your life offers the kind of pain you need to medicate on the daily, it's time for a change.

So on August 13th of this year, I had my left hip replaced. Today was the three month check-up, and all has progressed as expected. A bit ahead of schedule, actually: 24 hours after the surgery, I was gingerly climbing stairs, and less than two weeks after the surgery, I walked from my house to the mail box and back without assistance. As far as change goes, this one -- while dramatic -- was welcomed with open arms. My new normal, which should last for a few decades, is to walk and sit and stand and sleep and laugh without pain in my hip. If you're ever in such a situation, don't wait to pull the trigger on replacement. Just be sure you do it at Beaumont in Royal Oak.

2) LAPTOP

In the summer of 2009, just before I (re)met my future wife, I cobbled together enough traveling and exploration to have NCMC give me a summer sabbatical to enrich the content of my courses (and, I suppose, my character as well). Over the course of nearly a month. I traveled from Santa Fe to Cleveland to New York and back again, and I knew that I'd need a portable computer for my journey. So for the first time ever, I bought a Dell Studio XPS laptop, complete with the glacial processing system known as Windows Vista.

For over six years, this laptop defied all expectations and worked in different locations and different temperatures, dragged along in different bags and carry cases. But no laptop lasts forever, so last week, while the CPU booted up, the cooling fan didn't, which meant that the screen went DOA. And while I was able to pull my data off the hard drive, and while I was able to buy a newer, faster, and bigger laptop -- the ASUS F555LA-AB31, to be precise -- I'll never forget my first laptop, black and hot and noisy and sloooooow, with two Ghostly International stickers on the front, allowing me a type of freedom I'd never experienced before. 

3) CAR

For reasons that need to be explained in a separate post, I found myself the owner of two different cars a few years ago. I bought the first car off my now-wife/then-girlfriend in order to get her out of five figures of car debt, and that car -- a 2003 BMW 330i -- has taken thousands of dollars out of my wallet for repairs on top of the outstanding debt. I'll never get my money back from that car, but like an abused spouse, I keep going back to it. Because when it runs, it runs smooth and sleek like a dream. But as it's a rear-wheel-drive car that originated in Florida, it's not quite a winter car.

Enter a 2009 Toyota Matrix that I bought from my grandmother when she reached the "stop driving" point in her life. Once I put solid snow/ice tires on the Matrix, I found that it cut through snow as if it were a car twice the size and power. And while it was boxy and noisy and not as comfortable as the BMW, the Matrix did what it had to do for a few winters. So the pattern was simple -- use the Beemer in the warm weather, and use the Hatrix once the white stuff started to fly.

However, the logistics of owning two cars -- storing one car in the off-season, paying for two insurance policies, owning multiple cars like I'm richer than I actually am -- meant that such a situation was short-term at best. So last week, with the help of my father, I sold the Hatrix to an eager buyer who needed a new and more reliable car. And tomorrow, I'll trade in the Beemer and pick up a 2011 Subaru Legacy AWD -- a more sensible and sure-footed and reliable car -- in Petoskey. (Why am I not buying a new car? Because I'm fundamentally cheap.)

Thankfully, over the past weekend, I had a chance to squeak out one more road trip with the Beemer, getting up to speeds on I-75 that I'll no doubt never achieve again. And today, I used the Beemer for a quick down-and-back to Southfield to see my hip doctor, driving six hours for what amounted to an eight-minute office visit. I won't miss the constant fear of the "Service Engine Soon" light of the Beemer, or the seemingly shock-less Hatrix that passed every bump in the road into my spinal column, but I'll miss both cars in that weird uncanny way that you miss inanimate objects that you name and anthropomorphize and talk to and talk at and live in, even if it's only a few hours a week. 

And for me, I don't think that will ever change.