Posthip

I sold my car Tuesday evening. This is unremarkable except for the fact that I’m not planning on getting another, maybe ever. My little Honda might be the last car I ever own.

The people who bought my car decided to pay in cash, so Wednesday morning I hopped on the bus to go across town to my bank to deposit the money. There is a perverse thrill riding public transportation with $7000 in hundred dollar bills concealed in your bag. After the money was safely inside my account, I proceeded to empty the account by actually paying off the car as opposed to fleeing the country, which was my first impulse. So now when I log onto the website where I make my car payment, it says I owe $0. That feels really good.

It does feel weird to not have a car for the first time, but I kinda dig the idea of using public transportation. I’m completely in love with New York’s subway. DART isn’t the MTA, but so far I’ve found it passable. I live across the street from Fair Park, though, so I can catch about a dozen different buses. And none of this would even be thinkable if my office had not moved downtown. I walked home from work yesterday in about half an hour.

Even so, my world has drastically shrunk. I’m probably not going to be venturing more than five miles from my apartment unless someone is taking me with them somewhere, or unless it is right off of the rail line. Luckily, most everywhere I go on a regular basis falls within those criteria.

All of this is in preparation for the real transportation, when I move from Dallas to New York at the end of the year. The money I’ll save not having a car (as well as by being less mobile) is all in anticipation of that move, seven months from– tomorrow? The week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve is when I’m planning on leaving. Selling the car was my first step out the door…

UPDATE: Here is a cool little tool that uses Google maps to calculate distances of walking/biking routes. This is the route I walk home from my office.

(Originally posted May 25, 2006)