and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

You really have no idea. I have three vehicles sitting in my driveway, right now, all titled to me, and for what? They all have sentimental value to me, and for what? I, the proverbial - and now real - college student, what do I need with one, two, or even three vehicles? In a walking city like Montreal, no less. What do I need with emotional attachment? Why must I carry this, weighing me down, why?

Why? Because we are human beings prone to attachments. Like every bad ex, I even have fond memories of that craptastic first car I had, the Colt Vista.

Of the ones I have right now, a 1987 Saab 900S 16 Valve - dark blue (120,000), a 1993 Honda Prelude VTEC - red (169,000), and a 1998 Ducati 900CR - yellow (16,500 but questionable), each one smells a little bit like gas or maybe oil when you start it up. Not the sort of smell you look forward to when starting your car in the morning but somehow, like something out of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, it just seems right to me. Here in my little corner of the globe I can't imagine it's hurting the environment too much. The bike just has that rich smell of a racing machine, whether it is or not. It hums and vibrates and it's finicky, too. It stutters early on until it's warmed up and then it purrrs like a gracious kitten pitter-patter-pitter-pattering along the backways or, sometimes, it growls like a tiger if you ask it to. Then it breaks. It's a finicky beast but I have, perhaps, more sentimental attachment to it than my first serious girlfriend. I have more attachment to it than my first computer, back when I was a little kid, or even my first bicycle. It's just, somehow, real. Accidentally bought on ebay by me, paid in full by me, insured, and driven, all by me - the real me, no bullshit.

A lot of life is a lot of bullshit and you sort of have to wade through it day to day like some big marsh. Sometimes underneath, where you can't quite see, there are metal bits and sharp objects and who-knows-what-else you might trip over or otherwise impale yourself on. But sometimes, sometimes life presents you with a beautiful dinghy floating up above this muck and you can reach up into it, grab the middle seat, and haul yourself in. First your torso, getting your center of gravity onto the gunwale, and then swinging your legs over sideways so as not to tip it too much - you wouldn't want to capsize your lucky break, now would you?

This bike is a lucky break here for me - not my style and not expected and wholly - whoops! It just happened. Sometimes things do that - they just happen. I know, for me, it's a hard decision sometimes to step outside those boundaries that we've learned in life so when things happen without my control sometimes, just sometimes, I like to embrace them with everything I've got - knowhatimean? So the bike, perhaps a status symbol for some, is just a loving machine to me. I suppose if I rode it down on the beach all the time or took it to the bars or more social events, maybe I could get more attention but motorcycles are never, in the end, much about that. It's just you and the machine, really. You can try to get all the ass you want but when you're broke down on the side of the road looking at sooty spark plugs and wondering where you went wrong, well, that ass is long gone.

The Saab - the slaab - it's a great little car. It has been my uncle's for as long as I remember - probably bought new in '87 - and now, 17 years later, it's got a mere 120,000 miles on it. In fact I got to watch it flip 120k as I drove it up I95, right around Lawrence, Mass. It's a little finicky too and what with all it's vacuum tubes I'm sure it'll be a bitch to track down the problems but when I start her up - and I know, she stutters too - I can still tell she wants to run. She's a happy little Saab and still has some gusto left. She wants to hit 200,000. She really does. Back in 1994 when I was going for my license I drove it around a lot as sort of practice. Up in the middle of nowhere Maine I could drive on the dirt roads by myself and not worry much about.. sort of like the solo part of getting your private pilot's license. I'd spend entire afternoons just driving back and forth and learning how this car reacts, how that car handles. So when my uncle was up at our camp I didn't hesitate to see how the 'ol Saab handled, either.

The Prelude, the 'Lude as some have called it in mock appreciation, the Honda.. This car will forever be that car in my life - the first, the one, the only car I will ever be able to truly call "my first car". Sure, the Colt Vista wagon (pink, but the registration said "rosewood") was the first car I drove on a regular basis back when I was a sophmore.. but the Prelude - it's one of the first times I said that I was going all out and just getting what I wanted, goddamnit. It's the first time I learned all the little flaws, cried, wept, paid, forgave. Keyword being forgave. It takes a lot to forgive a car it's failings. It takes a lot to let a few bills slide, to say "It's alright, you're still a good drive". It takes a lot to give like that, to an inanimate object. Something that - for however much you may assign it feelings, thoughts, opinions - will not love you back.

I suppose Speedy Marie the Prelude - for all the good feelings - doesn't quite stand up to the Isuzu. The Space Cab was a small extended-cab pickup with a 4-banger under the hood and a whole lotta good vibes going on. It was the vehicle that I was associated with all through high school - even college. It carried a solid stereo, some big wheels, and a 4-wheel drive stick on the floor. It never got me stuck or left me wanting, it never broke down, it never hesitated. Once, when the battery went out on it, I drove it for a full week just popping the clutch as the starter. One summer when I was busy I put over close to 14,000 miles on it without an oil change. That truck, now that really loved to run.