the car in the garage

my 1973 MGB-GT
In 1990, I backed my restored MGB-GT into my parents' garage. Two days ago, it left for good on a flatbed tow truck.

I am secretly a car nut. When I was eight or nine, my neighbor took me for a ride in his 1960s E-Type Jaguar. I was entranced with the power and the beauty and the delicious growling purr of the engine. By the time I was ten, my father had gotten me a subscription to Road & Track. I would turn the glossy pages slowly, soaking up top speeds and 0-60 times and wheelbase measurements and power-to-weight ratios. I was in love.

My parents had friends who came over regularly in a little MG convertible. "I want one," I finally confessed to them. They laughed. Don't ever buy a British car, they told me. It'll break your heart and your bank account. But I wanted one anyway.

I learned to drive an automatic at sixteen and a standard shift at eighteen. Not long after, I bought a battered MGB-GT, found an enthusiastic and knowledgeable mechanic named Tom (with an enormous dog named Lucas who'd eaten most of an alternator as a puppy), and started restoring it. The car needed lots of work. Tom replaced the entire front wiring harness, cleaning out yards of spaghetti from behind the dash. He pulled the engine, replaced the clutch, cut new rocker panels out of sheet steel, sanded the car down to the bare metal, and painted it MGB black. He replaced both carburetors, both air filters, the radiator, brakes, rotors, and a million smaller pieces.

The car killed three stereos before I gave up and put a portable tape deck on the back shelf. It had no heat, no air conditioning, and manual steering. There were four fuses and each time one blew, random lights would die (one headlight, one blinker, the dome light, etc.) and give the car the appearance of having had a stroke. Before I drove it, I would check all the fluids and the tire and oil pressure, then start it carefully, coaxing it to life with a careful hand on the choke. Once running, it handled beautifully. It was quick and agile and fun to drive. Strangers approached me in parking lots and shouted compliments at red lights. It ate my time and my money and my sanity and I loved it desperately.

Then I made plans to move to Vermont for school. I knew I couldn't bring the MGB with me. I bought a sturdy used car and backed the MGB into my parents' garage. I told myself that I would come back for it.

But as the years went by, my life didn't accommodate a fussy little sports car. Some time after I moved to Boston, my life stopped accommodating a car of any kind and I became happily carless. And the MGB sat in the garage with its tires going flat.

My parents have a handyman who comes around regularly. After a talk, he put the car on Craigslist. A man drove out in a restored MGB to look at it. The next day, he came back with a tow truck and took it away.

I don't know whether the car will be restored, though we like to think so. It may end up as a parts car to sustain other old MGBs. But now it belongs to someone who loves little sports cars even more than I do, and I'm happy. And my parents get their garage back, finally.

Godspeed, little MGB. Thanks for the fun.

mixed nuts

1. I'm 39 today. How did that happen?

2. Six weeks ago, I told my hairstylist that I was happy with the below-shoulder length of my hair. Three weeks ago, I ran out of patience and made an appointment to cut it back to a shoulder-brushing bob. I don't know how I managed for so many years with hair halfway down my back.

3. I bought a purple linen sleeveless shirt for Passover. I haven't worn purple since the purple jeans I had in seventh grade.

4. The first part of Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" sounds like U2 to me. I hear the (opening of the) song at every Bruins game and until recently, I thought it was U2.

5. Sleeping on a featherbed is wonderful. Lounging around on a featherbed is not. As my weight slowly compresses the down, anything loose starts sliding toward me as it pulled by gravity.

6. I need to write an entry about the State of the Hips. Walking much further than my kitchen has become difficult and tiring. Many women (hip dysplasia patients are disproportionately female) schedule a surgery date during the first consult with the doctor. My first consult was over three months ago (seven if you count the first surgeon I met) and we have no date in sight. My surgeon is wary of complications from my EDS and is gathering intel before planning battle. I don't mind his caution; I'm glad that he's so careful. "You're not like everybody else," he said at a recent meeting. I know. It sucks.

7. Seatmate came up with the idea of making milkshakes out of lactose-free milk and lactose-free ice cream. I'm so psyched. I really want a shake.

8. Seatmate gave me two books for my birthday: Schuyler's Monster by Rob Rummel-Hudson, whose online journal I have been reading since 1999 or so, and The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton, the story of raising an orphaned coyote pup in Wyoming. Both have blogs worth reading: Rob's Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords and Shreve's The Daily Coyote.

9. My parents sent an enormous and awesome basket of fruit arranged to look like flowers. I hated to dismantle it, but it wouldn't fit into the fridge.

10. YouTubery: woman climbs up crowded down escalator after a Bruins game. Awesome.