Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

She hated when people would talk about Angels.� It invoked in her a lonely sort of bitterness.� The stories of Angel comfort and Angel visits seemed nice, warm and enveloping.� People on television spoke of feeling these positive things and of feeling as if someone was watching over their shoulder to protect them, always there and always loving.� It was this that made her the most jealous.� Her jealousy was caused by the dual assault of confusion and abandonment; she knew that inside, deep inside, she felt isolated and lonely and nothing was there to watch or love her.� It sounded so wonderful to think with earnest that someone was there watching, there to protect and love you.� But no matter what she did, no matter how hard she asked and prayed, she never got that feeling.� Though not to spite herself, she resolved that she really was all alone.� When people talk of Angels, she is reminded of this.

State: Missouri
City: Kingdom City

Since yesterday was cut short, we got an early start this morning. After a free continental breakfast of bagel with cream cheese and coffee, we set out just around 7:30am. We had intended to leave at 7am, but one of my mother’s cats found a creative hiding space and it took us a while to get him out from where he was cleverly wedged. The weather was back to normal, though a little cloudy and cold. It was an improvement on the wind and certainly an improvement on the bright heat that had plagued us through the start of Kentucky. We turned off for gas around Louisville but made the wrong left at a light and ended up in the seediest part of downtown Louisville. I was absolutely shocked (though not in a bad way) to see a man sitting on a corner with crutches.

That wasn’t the shocking part.

The shocking part was that his right leg was covered in a bandage that was slipping down. What I noticed was that on both sides of his leg, on his calf where the bandage had fallen, were what looked like flayed triangles of missing skin. It was so gross to see. It really did look like someone had just come up with some sort of skinner and sliced the skin right off like cheese or something. All I could think about was the risk of infection he’s running by letting open wounds such as those out without protection against dirt and bugs!

Anyway, that was about all that was left of Kentucky since Louisville is just near the border between it and Indiana.

When we stopped at a rest stop, we noticed that there were quite a few fallen trees around the picnic area. Inside, the lady behind the visitor’s information desk informed us that the power was out for a large area in Indiana, Illinois and other states. The storms that had knocked us out in Kentucky had done their fair share of damage through some of the other mid-American states. Trees were down, small streams and rivers were flooding, power was out and it was impossible for a few miles to find a gas station with power to fill us up. We didn’t realize the extent of the damage until we turned on the radio for some of the news reports. Some places were predicted to be out of power for three days and it was estimated that 30,000 people or more were without power.

Nasty stuff, hurricanes. I know this because I live in a state frequently hit or skimmed. Being that I am in the direct hurricane path, I never noticed the sort of damage they can have after they break apart and spread throughout the US.

Near the middle of Indiana, we began to see signs for something called Possum Junction. It was too much to resist. When we came to the exit, we pulled off. From the signs and structures out front and inside, Possum Junction serves many of your traveling needs. You can get gas, check your deer and wild turkey, buy antiques (not so much antique as old and useless crap), eat a slice of pizza or hot wings in a small café made up of second hand tables and ashtrays. It had been so long since the Pepsi machine had been used that spiderwebs had grown inside of the retrieval slot. The guy inside had a thick country accent (familiar but strange to find in Indiana) and told us all about the electricity problems.

There was no indication that we had entered Illinois when we did. Usually, there is a ‘Welcome to’ sign at the border, but along I-64W there was no such sign. I could have read the mile markers, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. We were in Illinois long before we realized that was where we were at. For about an hour or so, we assumed we were still in Indiana. It wasn’t until I looked at a map and matched some of the city/town exits we were passing to cities/towns in Illinois that I realized we had made it into our third state for the day. At our next rest stop, our state was confirmed by a sign outside of the entrance. There was no mistake about it… Illinois, the home of Lincoln, had snuck up on us when we were unawares.

I really liked the first Illinois rest stop that we went to, near Mt. Vernon. Not only was it clean and indoors, but they had a snack machine with an entire row of stuffed toys. I can’t help but wonder if anyone buys the small stuffed animals from the machine as they purchase candy bars and mini sized chip bags. It was still a pretty cute idea. I suppose they make for great quick gifts or as comfort for a child who won’t stop crying in the car. There was also, interestingly enough, a unisex bathroom. But really, it was utilitarianism masked as enlightenment. It wasn’t so much that the state of Illinois wanted to provide unisex facilities as they wanted a quick solution to their lack of handicap bathrooms. Instead of building onto the existing bathrooms or building two more, they build one handicap enabled bathroom and call it unisex.

We knew that we were nearing St. Louis and our plan was to get as far outside of St. Louis as possible before calling it a night. I could tell when we hit the rim of the city when I saw the St. Louis arch peaking out over the horizon. There it was, this monumental something that I’ve only seen in pictures or on television. It was our misfortune to hit the city just as the rush hour after work traffic did and it was chaos! People were swerving in and out, accidents lined the roads and rude aggressive drivers refused to give anyone an inch or merge. I now believe that St. Louis drivers are insane! It was one of the most stressful events of the whole trip. My mother needed a cigarette once we left traffic mess. My cat was none too pleased when she opened up the window to sneak in a quick cigarette so that her car would not start to stink up. The moment she opened the window and the loud, cold breeze began to assault the backseat with the cat carriers, Clyde started to scream. I mean, they were loud growly meows that didn’t stop until the window was rolled back up. He was definitely fussing my mother out in cat language for what was happening. I couldn’t help but laugh the entire time. He just sounded like such a MAD kitty.

If there’s one thing I can say about St. Louis it’s that I love the old industrial sectors. I love how the buildings looked so old, so dilapidated in a historical way, not in a neglected way. I could see old factories, old buildings, old apartments made of brick and steel bridges that we rode over a good three or four times. It was great scenery even in passing and I wish that I could have spent more time in St. Louis, at least enough to have been able to get out of the car and take some close up shots of urban ruin. I can’t express enough how much I love the early 20th century look of St. Louis.

Naturally, I got to see just a thirty minute fringe section of St. Louis. As soon as we reached the city limits, we were leaving them and entering other cities. We all agreed that what we had to do was find a small city to hotel in rather than one of the big, busy ones since traffic was likely to be terrible before work hours when we once again had to hit the road. Understandably, my mother wasn’t fond of the idea of trying to fight early morning rush hour traffic. Everyone had a lot of energy, so we agreed to continue until we could no longer. We made it all the way to a place called Kingdom City, the very proud home of Ozarkland and Nostalgia Ville, and got rooms in the Super 8 motel, cheap enough to not break wallets.

Since nothing can be perfect, there were some issues with the rooms. One had no cable, so we got another. One had a huge hole in the shower (I stuffed a wash cloth in it because it was just so weird). One even had what looked like a bullet hole disguised as an old picture nail. I mean, come on. It was totally a bullet hole. No one hangs a picture at chest level. And no one can drive a thin nail in to make such a dent. A dent such as the one we saw was much bigger than the nail’s width and domed in a way that no nail could do. It truly looked like someone had tried to mask the bullet hole by shoving in an old, rusty nail.

Regardless, it was cheap and they allowed cats in the room. What more could a person ask for?

State: Kentucky
City: Morehead

Today was a hardcore driving day. Since we hadn’t even made it out of Virginia the day before, we had a lot of land to cover and make up for. We set a 7 hour/400+ mile goal for ourselves. Of course, all of this came after our free continental breakfast during which I gorged myself on bagels, orange juice, poppy seed muffins and coffee. Who can resist something that is free, delicious and filling?

Once breakfast was out of the way, around 9:30am, we set out on the road. It was decided the night before that we’d try a new arrangement with me in the back with the one jittery cat and the other two in the front seat with my mother. We got the cats in place in the car where they got a proper draft from the a/c, shaded from the sun and strapped in as best we could with the seatbelts. It was all pretty good at first. Our plan was to continue down I-81 S to 77 N and then continue on until we hit I-64W again.

We went through Lexington first and saw a really neat looking drive in theater. It sort of makes me jealous that they still have an active playing drive in here and now back east. I love drive-ins because you can relax in your own car, no babies crying or people kicking the back of your chair. No. Just you and a movie, all alone and comfortably isolated. But still with popcorn. Drive-ins make me feel somewhat nostalgic, too, because one of my clearest memories is going to a drive-in as a mere child to see Hellraiser.

By the time we reached the Appalachian Mountains, my mother and I decided to go through West Virginia to Kentucky and not Tennessee to Kentucky. We could have gone either way, but the thought of looping through Knoxville to find I-75 was daunting. Plus, by going sort of further south and catching I-64 W by 77 N meant that we skirted the largest peaks of the mountains. I was glad for this because the mountains, as you know from my last post, were starting to get to me. I was in an almost constant state of alarm because I felt so frightened being high, staring down at drops that no one could possibly ever survive from. After a while, it started to work on my nerves in a bad way.

To be honest, at first I was fine in the car with the way we arranged things. I didn’t mind being in the backseat. However, as time went on, I began to feel increasingly cramped and claustrophobic. The combined and total effect of traveling through the mountains, being in the backseat, feeling stuffed in and confined complete with my only line of vision being to one side was enough to set me into a minor panic attack. I didn’t make an issue of it, I just got out of the car at the first rest stop we stopped at and asked if I could come back up front. There was no way I could make it another 6 hours in the back.

You know, I’ve always heard all of this ‘stuff’ about West Virginia being this really backwards and strange place, but I didn’t see any of that there. Perhaps it was, somewhere buried deep within the mountains and trees, but West Virginia didn’t look any different from the rest of the US. Yet, as I write this, I am reminded of what someone reminded me of earlier: the New Frontier. If you don’t know what that is, I suggest that you look up some of the programs of John F. Kennedy. It will all make sense afterwards.

It was some time out of the mountains when we got to Charleston, which had the most beautiful capitol building, which you could see easily from the interstate. Of course, the big city didn’t last long and soon enough we were going through more miles of land and water.

Small towns would be dotted here and there and we even stopped in at one called Scott Depot so that my mother could get something to drink and have a smoke. It looked really rundown, let me tell you. The station my mother pulled in at was across the street from a playground and school. I asked my mother if we could take a look at it and we did. The school was nothing but a bunch of trailers in close proximity and the playground wasn’t much better. I took a picture of a very scary clown swing set that had all manner of garbage shoved into his gaping mouth.

West Virginia wasn’t that long of a ride. But man does I-77 have a lot of tolls! Just on the stretch we were on, getting in and off of I-64W, we hit three of them (at $1.25 apiece). The entire trip had four tolls in total and three of those four were in West Virginia. We were out of it and into Kentucky before we knew it. It was at least satisfying to know that we’d made it into Kentucky.

We weren’t far into Kentucky when the residual storms from Hurricane Ike blew up through. The winds were enough to start pulling the car from side to side, which any driver knows is both stressful and exhausting. We had all hoped to make better time that day, to get further into Kentucky, at least to Lexington and beyond. The storm winds were against us and it just wasn’t safe to be on the road, especially in terrain that is mountainous. While I don’t think my mother is a poor enough driver that she will send us down the side of a mountain, my tolerance for stress just isn’t equipped to handle scary situations like that so far from sea level.

Our need to get off of the road gave us little option but to pull into the first Days Inn we found. It wasn’t in the best part of town, that’s for sure. Either that or the entire city of Morehead is dilapidated. They did have a Shoney’s with all you can eat steak, so we choked down buffet steak before heading off to the hotel room to watch True Blood on our free HBO.

The best part about Morehead is that across the street was a gas station and liquor store in one. I got a good laugh because of that place.

State: Virginia
City: Raphine

So, here we are at the Days Inn Shenandoah, still in the lovely state of Virginia.

We’re about 20 miles from Lexington with another 50+ miles to go until we reach Roanoke. I believe that this city is called Raphine, just past the Blue Ridge Mountains. From what I can tell by the surrounding businesses, this city is pretty much a truck stop area. We are right next door to a place called Whites Truck Stop that includes its own seedy motel and Burger King. Across the way is a place for truckers to go to that advertises “Soda Cigarettes and Showers.” That’s only two of the surrounding truck stops. The establishment that my mother and I stopped at to get dinner has its own area for truckers to park and wash their vehicles. I’ve honestly never seen a place like this before.

Today was a short day because we had to get a late start due to the fact that the house was not completely packed up. We didn’t pull out of Hampton until nearly 2:30pm. With everything awkwardly piled into the car, we headed out and hit the road down I-64 W towards Charlottesville. Once we got to the Charlottesville area, we went to I-81 S/1-64 W to Roanoke. Right now, we are just off of I-81 S/I-64 W. Though we only drove 4 hours, it was an exhausting ride. The cats are sure freaking out (though not so much now because they’re out and sleeping on our hotel beds with us).

Let me tell you something, though! I realized during this trip that I am really used to sea level. As soon as we started getting up near the mountains, I began to feel nervous. I’m saying, rolling stomach and panic nervous. It was all of that looking down at mountains and ridges that got to me. I’m not used to driving up hills. Driving up a hill makes me feel like we’re going to reach the top and find no more road, only a solid drop off of the earth. Not only that, but it makes me really nervous when I look out of the car window and see tree tops below me or far, steep drops. I feel vertigo and sickness, but most of all fear. I love rollercoasters, but I always fear long drops and height.

Before tucking into the hotel, my mother and I went to the nearest Walmart to pick up a few essentials like a rolling cart that we’ll use to stack heavy bags on for easy moving to and from hotel rooms. Again, I am used to beach and travel area. When you go into our department stores, there are rows and rows of things like luggage. It really struck me as different that the Walmart we went to up here only had half an aisle of luggage. But they sure did have A LOT of hunting and camping merchandise. I suppose in a place like this, full of wooded mountains and rolling land, a person can get good hunting in.

I don’t know anything about hunting, though. I just saw a very heavily bearded man dressed in full body hunting camouflage, shopping the hunting aisle. It was pretty awesome. No one hunts where I live. I mean, they might hunt, but they have to go somewhere else and do it because there’s no wooded hunting are in Hampton Roads.

Tomorrow, the goal is 7 hours and at most 400 miles. We have to try to do between 350 and 400 miles if we want to make it to our destination by the 19th.

Title: Never Let Me Go
Author(s): Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: Fiction
Tags: cloning, donor, dystopia, ethics, future, organ donation, science fiction, speculative fiction
Summary: As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
Finished: September 11, 2008
Rating: 4 Stars
Review:

I loved this book. I should say that it’s not a book for everyone since it sometimes drags along with a lot of ‘every day life’ detail. I can see some people getting bored, but I decided to take the book for what it was worth; I realized early on the value of the story pacing because I knew in the end it would personalize me more the characters in such a way that I could understand their mindset. I lived their life with them. There has been some criticism of this book that no character rebelled against their fate as eventual organ donors, that everyone just seemed to accept that one day they would become donors and then die. I feel that this criticism is misguided. How are people to know what the world is like when they’ve been conditioned to live and think one way? From the day these clones were ‘born,’ they were raised to believe and live one way. That they accepted their fate is no different from the way that we accept our own. One can’t expect characters to manifest deep philosophical thought about something they have no knowledge of whatsoever. In so many dystopia novels, people do rebel against the order in place and this is what readers come to expect. Why should it always be the case? Why should every one of these books be about the destruction of a misguided society? Can’t it just be a snapshot in the process? The lives of a few people involved but not earth shattering? The characters never went into long speeches about how unfair their lives were, they just lived life, enjoyed what they could, but always knew they would die for the sake of others. To tell the truth, I couldn’t stand to read the last page. It actually hurt to read them. I didn’t want the book to end because I knew what would happen, I knew what would become of the characters. It wasn’t even their sadness that I absorbed more than it was my own sadness that this was all that their lives were about.

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.