No radio

Kristen and I drove up to Oakland on Monday and we talked the entire way.

The few minutes when we didn't talk we watched the lights of sprawling towns in the valley or the glaring neon of fast food and gas stations beckoning us to milkshakes and indigestion or the red specks of semis marching through another night at work.
But mostly we talked, her cat with my name spreading herself on my lap, on Kristens lap, crawling through the piles of luggage and wedding gifts and bags of food heaped in the back of the car. We talked about childhood (she remembers so much! why don't I remember?) and dreams for the future and how environmental destruction terrifies us and why we love our boyfriends (I mean husband and boyfriend, she and I respectively) and why we feel restless and anxious and excited and proud. And smack. We did talk some smack.
I haven't talked with Kristen so much since we were little, if ever. Maybe collectively over the last few years we've talked as much, but not for eight hours straight (nine with pee breaks; unlike childhood we actually stopped at gas stations instead of peeing in an old Folgers can in the back of the VW van, my dad smoking cigarettes, the smoke mixing with the burnt dusty air from the heater, Johnny Cash or Willy Nelson on the cassette player lulling us to sleep on early morning drives to the mountains, mountains we still love and grow giddy talking about)
What a wonderful and exhausting and needed time for us.

Who needs an FM transmitter capable ipod or Ricky Martin CD (her choice) or NPR (my choice) when you've got a sister. Who's a friend.