Defining Others

"After a couple of days on the road with her telling me about the crap inside her belly button, bragging about how much dandruff she could scratch into her lap, and still wearing the same jeans she'd peed in the second night we camped out because she forgot that when you squat, you also have to push your pants forward, towards your knees, it was all I could do to say, "Here, uh, you can have the tent to yourself...yeah, I'll just sleep on that rock over there. No, really...I don't even like shelter that much." (pg. 66 in the course packet)

When the story begins, Lopez says that she and Magdalena were "gonna be so fucking cool, mirrors and windows will break when we pass by. We'll have our own hardcore theme music that makes us throw our heads back and bite the sky, and women wearing pink foam curlers in passing RVs will desire us and we'll slowly turn to them at seventy-five miles and hour and mouth 'hello' back." (pg 42 in the course packet) Before their journey begins, Lopez shares the same youthful, optimistic energy that Keruoac had in On the Road; however, Lopez's opinion on Magdalena changes as they share their roadtrip. Lopez relates her changed feelings to romance at the beginning of chapter 17: "Ah, the romance of ignorance...sometimes you only see what you want to see in someone, and it works until you leave the bar or until you learn their last name." This leads me to believe that Lopez's definition of a roadtrip is that it's a conduit for "the inner self" to emerge, as Lopez realized after some time on the road that she found Magdalena downright annoying and disgusting. This definition of a road trip is probably different from Keruoac's defintion most likely because Lopez was with the same person throughout most of her trip, whereas Keruoac floated from person to person throughout his journey.