My commute and a July 7, 1987 greeting card

I got up at 6:00 am and crawled out of bed. This was more than a little precarious because, though I was 22 years old, I still slept in a room with bunk beds with my sister and I was on the top. My sister's bed was starting to fall apart and my dad had nailed both beds to the wall in order to grant us some stability. The risk of my coming crashing down and killing her was still there, but relatively minimal.

Besides our beds having a pretty creaky infrastructure, there was a hole in the thin plaster wall next to my sister's bed. It had started as a crack and had crumbled more and more over time. The hole led to the stairway to our wet, dark, and mouse-infested basement. In the winter, cold air bled through the hole and we had to be sure to cover it with a plastic trash bag.

After dragging myself out of the top bunk, I'd sit in front of a make-up mirror with two wings with rows of lights. It was a small thing meant to resemble the sort of glamorous mirrors actresses planted themselves in front of as they prepared for stage performances. It was dingy and my mother had picked it up at a yard sale some time ago. It helped me get my contact lenses into my bleary eyes.

In the dim early morning, I used this to carefully put on my face for work. I'd line my eyes, put on some shadow, and mascara. I never used foundation because it made my skin itch, but I didn't need it because I had beautiful, pale, blemish-free skin. I also eschewed any sort of lip make-up because I'd long ago given up on attempting to enhance my small, thin-lipped mouth.

After applying make-up, I'd get dressed and hustle out to my Chevette and drive an hour to work. I usually drove too fast and whipped around curves at somewhat unsafe speeds. I would have done the same for the hills except my puny, little car could barely manage them. This speed seesaw didn't keep me interested in the drive enough to stop my brain from occasionally kicking into beta mode. Sometimes, I'd make this long commute and arrive at work with no memory whatsoever at having done so.

This speedy trip was even faster on the way home from work since I was more anxious to leave work than to arrive. Knowing that I'd received correspondence from Tito only made me drive faster on the way home. I never got a speeding ticket, but this was no doubt courtesy of my underpowered vehicle rather than any prudence on my part.