I’m thinking about two inexorable forces right now–aging and gravity–and they’re on my brain for a reason. This weekend promises to have a hearty share of roller coasters, literal ones, which calls for mental preparation. Don’t get me wrong–I love ’em. It’s speeding without the fear of legal repercussion and, I imagine, only a slightly higher probability of corporeal harm. But it’s been a while since I’ve visited an amusement park.
I still remember my favorite ride. Hell, its still in operation, according to the Wikipedia, but to put this into perspective, the last time I strapped into it was before Wikipedia itself existed. Different state, different era. This time, it’s off to Carowinds, “Thrill Capital of the Southeast,” if their marketing is to be believed.
And I believe it. I’m getting the jitters just thinking about that first lift hill and its payoff. There’s also a sense of urgency, too, driven by a a recent episode of Modern Family, in which the father discovers, much to his chagrin, that aging has claimed his equilibrium. The episode struck me with the force of an afterschool special, and the moral of the story was clear: ride as many fuckin’ rollercoasters as I can, while I can.
There was a single peal of thunder just now, followed by silence, which I’m going to interpret as a sign to knock out tonight’s blog post and stop checking TheOnion.com. If the power really were to go out, taking Microsoft Word and all its letters with it, that would mean no blog post, a horrific turn of events because I wanted to raise the topic of copywriting tonight.
We’ve been there before. More than a year later, I can still confidently say I don’t enjoy it. But that doesn’t mean necessity hasn’t called for it, and accordingly I’ve sought to parlay responsibility into much more agreeable terms: skill acquisition, specifically the ability to write under real deadlines.
The most useful aid I’ve found? Ritual. Whenever a due date nears, I find myself cracking open Notepad, time and time again, and free typing. I never use WordPad, with its fancy toolbar and decadent font sizes. Notepad is my ride-or-die app. There’s a stark beauty to it. No spell check. No margins. Just a wide, white expanse as unnerving as the paper it seeks to simulate. It’s my modern-day typewriter.
In deepening my corpus of work on mobile food, I wanted to offer the following theory: roach coaches are so alluring because they conjure memories of ice cream trucks. You remember the wonderment, I bet, of peering up at the counter and watching your money disappear into a darkened space, only to reemerge as something delicious. The modern food truck is that experience, reborn without the unconscionable prices and off-key music.
There are some drawbacks, certainly. Lack of consistency is one thing. If you discover a favorite dish, it may not be on next week’s menu, which is contingent on what ingredients the proprietor can secure at any given time. There is sometimes the suspicion, too, that dishes are esoteric simply to be esoteric. Case in point: why in fresh fuck is there a thick slice of pineapple in my Angus cheeseburger? And then there’s the issue of cleanliness, such as when one of my buddies was felled for an evening by a renegade pulled pork sandwich.
But the tonnage of good ultimately outweighs the bad, and so I seek out these nomadic restaurants regularly. The flip side of inconsistency is variety, and being able to choose between comfort food, Italian heroes, cupcakes, pan-Asian tacos, and who knows what else keeps it interesting. The owners of these trucks are friendly, which only makes the warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting local businesses even warmer and fuzzier. There’s a different vibe than, say, being served at a typical sit-down place. It’s more like getting a homemade lunch from your ma, and it reverberates at just the right nostalgic frequencies. Thanks, moms.