Here’s my newest, bluest life partner and the albatross ’round my neck.

So far, I’m pleased with the Honda and how it sails me smoothly to work and home again.

But a new car is also a burdensome reminder of money spent before it’s earned and of how things haven’t quite shaped up the way you hoped they would.

For too long, I’ve been a single and self-sufficient bike-and-bus-taking do less harmer, occasionally driving a beater as a mea culpa for driving at all. Now I spend about two hours loping around in a car every day, clinging to my travel mug and pulling my hair.  All fender bending, no sparkling pioneer spirit. But it has to do for now.

The Honda is by far the nicest, classiest car I’ve ever had and so I’m cycling through all of those typical new relationship feelings. I love the way it smells and I want to mess around with all the buttons and take it out on the highway and roll down the windows.

Such is love in the springtime.

It’s nerve-wracking, though, starting out before that first scratch or door ding. Facing a car that’s never left you stranded on the highway or told you in anger that its last owner was a better driver… but knowing it probably will.

And Lord knows,  I’ve been hurt before. There was the Buick Century that gave me a black eye when I wrecked it dramatically at age 17. And the Taurus– he always disappointed me and still I clung on because I wasn’t convinced that I could do any better.

The Porsche, of course. Flashy and unpractical. The “roommate’s hot older brother in a band” car who forgets your name while he’s kissing you, but always wanders back into your mind after a couple of beers when it’s warm out and a particular song is playing.

I’m guilty of overlooking pragmatism and reliability in favor of a self-confidant swagger or ironic affectation. But as much as I don’t want to admit it, maybe I am the kind of girl who really could use a nice car for a change.

I can’t promise I’ll always be a good driver or that I’ll never leave an empty Diet Coke bottle in the back seat, but I think the Honda and I are going to get along just fine. Or that’s how it seems at first blush.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

-Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

So, my car got stolen on Thursday morning from a quiet by stretch of street near the Checkers on G and 14th NE. If you’re playing along at home, this is the fourth–count ‘em– fourth police report I’ve filed in 18 months.

Obviously, a reference to Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail after he was caught... carjacking for Civil Rights?

I was startled, sure, and greatly annoyed.  But not particularly surprised. I bought myself a cupcake and took the bus to my other job and waited for the cops to call and hoped it would all work out. They did… it didn’t.

The officer said they broke in with a couple of screw drivers and took a joy-ride to Maryland where they led the State Police in hot pursuit before slamming my car through a fence, blowing out the (new) tires and then trying to run.

I’m planning to FOIA the cruiser dash camera video just to have a good souvenir…

They weren’t looking for a way to get around or trying to sell it for money or parts. Not even for drugs, because at least drugs are a reason. They stole my car just to intentionally smash it up.

Because busting up an 11-year-old Ford Taurus the color of cough syrup is really the way to stick it to the man.

The cop told me it was “pretty beat up” but he didn’t mention three busted tires, both mirrors knocked off, chassis twisted and bent, ignition ripped out, door locks smashed and inspiring verses inscribed in the back seat.

I inherited “The Ferrari” from my mom in my sophomore year of to college. It was banged up, the heater and defroster were terrible and it was always running out transmission fluid. It wasn’t a great car and I don’t like driving anyway. But I have to get to two different public transit-inaccessible jobs every day and at some point you’ve got to be practical.

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Working two jobs is simultaneously more and less complicated than I anticipated. I say this, cresting my second full week of high-speed sprinting from bed to metro to car to Virginia and back to bed again. Throw in some fuming over snow detours and chugging of caffeinated beverages and you have a good picture.

I can’t seem to summon the physical energy that used to propel me through long days, so I’m trying to ramp up the mental game. With grocery lists and color-coded Google calendar pages and a whole lot of post-its.  I’m washing dishes in REM sleep. I’m sewing buttons on the metro. I’m eating cereal while jogging. Dr. Gawande, you ain’t got nothing on this.

I miss the boundless vigor of my Daily Athenaeum days–  spending more hours at the college newspaper office than in apartment, ducking out of lectures to conduct interviews on my cell phone, ditching class for deadline and being hungry for more.

Our passionate little faction treated reporting like the kegs of Yuengling we drove to Pennsylvania to buy for staffer parties. We gulped down stories, for fear they would spoil. Or worse, that they’d get scooped. We lived on beer and coffee and Red Bull, spilled burrito innards on our FOIA documents, showed up bedraggled after too few hours of sleep and generally spiraled out of control with anger and passion and the giggles.

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