Here are some clips that are playing in the background of my story. Myabe you could multi-task clicking, listening, reading...i think it might be awesome.

songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mibA11dWhOE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipUdoUcNmKI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdy5o5cu1Eg

poem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mye8Pce9IR0

Curves in the Road

When somebody – pretty much anybody - asks me along on a spontaneous roadtrip, its not like I’m ever going to say no. For number one, roadtrips are so sweet. Especially when I’m running around all crazy at school and all I need is to hit the road with some music and some conversation, but oh man is that hard when you don’t have a car. So, for number two, when Erica calls me up after the most hungover Sunday ever, a Sunday when my roommate spent the entire day crying about the night before while I babysat (actual babies, but it felt like I was watching out for her the whole time while she lurked around, helping out with dinner and games), I have to agree.
Kids in bed, parents safely home finds still-teary roommate and I trudging from one Durham house to another for bed, and Erica calls me,
“Hey- So I’m hitting the road! Still wanna come?”
Um, yes.
So its at least ten thirty already and my driveway is absolutely pitch black, but I hear her tiny, extra-sticky stick shift miniature monster of a car crunching over the gravel. And she jumps out to get me, but I’m already standing outside, arms braced against my side in the pre-winter nighttime freezingness of New Hampshire. The passenger door is unexplainably stuck and I have to crawl on over the driver’s seat and the gearshift just to get in. God, could someone use a new car!
Ani Difanco was wailing away on her guitar on the radio, infiltrating the whole car even at a low volume. But then, we were listening to her the whole fall so its no real surprise. Erica loves Ani so much, that this bitch of a car is named Ani. So it can get confusing, as in “oh, we took Ani (the car) to go see Ani (the singer) in Lowell and we listened to Cds the whole way there of…Ani”
Anyway. We’re rolling along through the night-black countryside and I’m wearing these absolutely stupid blue seventies pants – I mean, real ugly - should have died with the seventies, high-waisted, polyester.
“Cool pants” Erica is grinning at me like some kind of mischievous elf. We haven’t really been friends for so long and I don’t feel like I know her beyond feeling like she’s such an awesome new someone-I-want-to-know-better. So I say, “Thanks. They were my dad’s.”
That grin widens into a full on smile, “I mean, they’re so dorky! I love that you’re wearing them. Dork pants are sweet, you know?!” I had to say, I didn’t know.
“Well, at least my brother – if he’s home – at least he won’t try and hit on you. Joel is such a womanizer. He tries to get with all my friends because we’re younger and all that…creepy, right?” I nodded. Unsure of how to respond because I don’t have any brothers and I’m not usually womanized and I don’t really know this girl that well, I just look at her. Like a huge nodding, staring dork. This not-knowing fact hangs over me for a while with her. We’re becoming friends pretty late into college, so instead of bonding over puking and hair-holding and late night pizza, we’re ‘grown-up’ friends.
So I’m still fumbling around for what to say about my own family when Erica spots a 7-11 and yanks her screeching, crying car into the parking lot.
“Jill! Roadtrip snacks!” She blurts out excitedly. Now its me who’s grinning. This girl’s really getting it – snacks are so essential, even on a short drive to a no-name hometown for a night. I’m totally into this convenience store, by the way, as I wander, on the brink of delirious over-tiredness through the florescent aisles. The juice aisle makes me giggle and the lights are so bright and Erica’s buying something called Milk Chug and so by the time I’m up at the register I’m howling with tired laughter over this gusher-like gummy candy called – ‘Splosions!’ That’s right- like an EX-splosion! Obviously, I buy a packet of these. Then I discover they are the best tasting candy ever created, but that should have been evident with a name like Splosions!
And so we’re back n the road, heads bopping and lolling to ever-more Ani music and Erica spots something, “Jill! Fireworks! I just saw a whole bunch!”
“Where?” My head is buried in the Splosion bag, searching for a red-flavored one.
“There! I just saw, like, five! We’re pulling over…”
And we pull over. Erica navigates us into a small field as Ani, the car protests, and Ani, the singer, recites a poem to a live show in Toronto. So I’m cramming candies in my mouth and they’re gushing sugary liquid all over the place and Erica is turning up the stereo and staring-wide-eyed at the colorful explosions across the sky. We’re sitting in a soft, delicate silence in the car, with the only noises being huge cracks from overhead. The night sky is so radiant in all these colors and I’m riding a great roadtrip high of a new friend and a whole mess of sugary candy.
And then I feel something pull at my feelings and my heart, all at once. My heartbeat speeds up, but time seems to slow down so much that I feel each hard thump against my ribs.
I turn, inch, by heartbeat, by inch, to my left to see Erica looking at me. Its not surprising; I felt her stare just seconds ago. But its strange that she’s got that grin again. I trace the two upturned corners of her mouth with my eyes, and by then she’s leaning toward me. Across her seat and that beat-up gearshift, and my seat – god, it felt like she leaned miles, it took so long. Her left hand flutters up to my cheek and this is where it got all blurry for me because I closed my eyes. Like, I guess I knew something was going to happen and I sort of wanted it to, but I was still clutching those damn gummies in my hand and I remember thinking how they were probably getting all melty and disgusting because my palm was getting so sweaty. So then I was leaning those miles and our lips were meeting in the middle and all of a sudden we’re kissing. And its not like she just kissed me. She’s puling my chin toward her and pushing against me with her body in these soft, pulsing movements and then I’m pressing into her and reaching up to feel her shiny, black hair. Which, I keep thinking, is so soft. She’s so soft. Her lips are curling around mine and parting and her mouth is so warm and delicious. I could have stayed in that field, with Ani singing sweetly, in a car bearing its tribute to undefined sexuality, kissing this woman all night.
But, you know, that’s sort of funny because eventually you gotta drive away and decide where to turn next or when to stop and maybe, to keep going.