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Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003 / 7:10 p.m. ~Yep, I Ran Off the Road, Amongst Other Things, But All Is Well As Can Be~ Okay, so I must be one of those people who is never happy, because I just came home from shopping at two different stores, after work, to find my pick of parking spaces outside my apartment, and all I can think is, "Hey, where is everybody? Does anyone live here anymore? I miss knowing that people actually live here...", when I should be happy, I should be jumping for joy. Dammit. I missed another day of updating. It's hard sometimes, ya know? Yesterday it rained, hard and long. So it leaked inside the office, I mean the suite where I work. The rain sheets down the emergency exit door when it rains hard, like the gutters fill with it, and they overflow, and it comes in under the door, soaks the flat napped indoor/outdoor carpeting over cement floor. Every time. We hadn't seen that kind of rain in a long time, and we needed it, and it made me think that must've been what it was like on the "Atlantic Seaboard" last week, what with hurricane what's her name and all. Today (Happy Autumnal Equinox, by the way!!!!) was a whole new day, not a cloud, blue, blue sky, except for that interminable layer of hazy white, that ubiquitous output of all of us, the smog that always hangs over us here, worse and worse every year, even the EPA says so. But it was nice, nonetheless, sort of clear and clean, despite that layer. And the green seemed greener, the blue bluer, and I felt my sunglasses were extraneous. I felt my reading glasses were extraneous, but I didn't want anything touching my face. I have days like that. I wear them now, the reading glasses. I'm distracted. Yes, yesterday, it rained, and then it stopped, and I came home after work and spent two hours assembling a package to send to Hermione and her little one, the almost five year old. I bought a backpack at the Zoo, a little backpack for the little one, in MAY!, and it's been sitting in its Zoo bag, waiting for me to wrap it up and box it and send it, all this time. And when I talked to Hermione on the phone, as she is Out West, last week, or week before, I said I'd get it out, the package, finally told her just what it is, and we talked about it, and I said I'd send the Bush Lies stickers too, a few to stick around Out West, and so last night... I thought it would be fun if the little one opened the backpack, explored the pockets and found stuff therein. So I set about filling them with stickers and toys, and a couple little cars, on account of she always liked my Hot Wheels when she came over, she'd get on the floor with them and race them around (a girl after my own heart), and stuffed leopard, and photos from our last trip to the Zoo, together, she, her mom (Hermione), her mom's sister-in-law and mother-in-law, and her little cousin, a year older, half Arab, half Caucasian, a beautiful little girl with dark skin, black eyes, and a beautiful smile. So... I had to get out the photos, and make sure I had doubles, because I am way too selfish to give things away if I don't have duplicates, and find toys to stick in pockets, and write notes in cards to send, one to Hermione, one to the little one, and get the stickers, the Bush Lies stickers, and then I had to tape up the box, which I had leftover from a previous Amazon order, and then I had to put Hello Kitty stickers all over the box, and draw a border around the address, and color it in with different color Sharpies, and etc., etc. And then it was time to hunker down and watch all five "Guiding Light"s from last week, because somehow Saturday and Sunday slipped away from me and I never did watch (maybe it was the Emmy broadcast which lasted about 12 hours that I watched instead on Sunday), and Oh, but "GL" is tragic now!!!! A young, 18 year old, boy/man, a promising young baseball player, freshly signed to the Cubs, gets hit by his father, in a car, in their cars, and is injured so badly in the car accident he may not only not pitch, but never walk or move his arms, nor even TALK, ever again! All because the father was pushing him, pushing, pushing, to play ball, because he saw his son's potential, but the son wanted to be with his girlfriend before going off to baseball camp, or wherever, and they were going to a concert, but the father wanted the son to meet with the Cubs guy, who would maybe, just maybe, place him straight into the big league, instead of the farm league, but he was racing back from the concert to the meeting, but the father didn't trust he would, so he went after him, like he would really find him at the concert!, and their cars collided instead. SMASH! The son threw his body in front of his girlfriend's, the passenger's, and hence the severity of his injuries. Seatbelts even. Oh, only in a soap opera. The tragedy. The father/son dynamic, the unforgiving mother. Oh, oh, oh. It's very Greek. If he regains use of his body he should kill his father and make love to his mother, to complete the story. Anyway. Right. This is why no update yesterday. And I ate popcorn for dinner. I can't even feed myself. I hate working, I need to be home, I need to be watching Ellen De Generes' new daytime show, and perusing cookbooks, shopping for ingredients, cleaning my apt, cooking, inviting over friends for elaborate dinners. Not suffering. I have another lottery ticket. I must win. Not enough time to do anything. Jim Croce knew this. Remember him? If he could only have saved time in a bottle. Me too. Yesterday at work was hell, so much work, just bombardment of work. And today not so bad, but me with the menses issue, the cramps, the exhaustion, the weakness (um, maybe popcorn dinners don't provide the nutrition I need?), and the disorientation, the distraction. I had to go to the post office to pick up my latest mail order acquisition, a Dim Sum cookbook, all because the regular mail carrier is on vacation, and the management took down the signs at the defunct leasing office, the signs asking the mail carrier to please deliver all packages to the OTHER leasing office, down the street (you see why this still bothers me?!), and so he took my package back to the post office. Which happens to be five miles away down a two lane road which looks like it's out in the country, a road I have only traveled once before, quite lovely on a day like this, with a mixture of old ranch style houses and brand new too much money ostentatious crap mansions lining it.............. So, I'm driving along, on my lunch break, not coming home to eat and get online, right?, and there's this huge house, with a fucking pond, and swan to match, hopefully two, as they like company, and a creek next to that, and I'm looking, and I'm all weak and exhausted and menstruate-y, right?, and it's a beautiful day and I'm saying, "Wow, look at THAT, what the hell?, who lives there, do people, like, LIVE there?, and hey, a pond?, what what?, and a creek, what creek is that?", and all to myself, as I'm driving by myself on this excursion to pick up the stupid book, which is very nice by the way, and I do this thing that I've done before, wherein I turn the wheel as I turn my head, like, "Hey, what's THAT?", turn, turn. And there's this big bump, and I look back to the road and I'm on the fucking side of the road, on the bridge over the creek, where there is this higher curb, you know, so people won't run off the road and off the bridge and into the creek, right? And I'm shocked, but in slow motion, and feeling really stupid, and I turn back and I hop down off this curb, and I'm expecting a blowout, or something, or my axle to fall off, or something really really bad, and I was doing 45 mph, I know, because I was remarking to myself how the car in front of me, and the school bus in front of him, were both driving at a good clip and I was making good time, and I'd get to the post office and get my book and make it back to work in time, and have time to pick up 'fast food' too. My hand flew to cover my mouth. Why do we do that? Someone, anyone, what is the instinctive origin, the origin of that instinct, when something bad or surprising happens, to cover our mouths??? What? Why? And I was most concerned with what the car ahead of me would think, the driver, if he/she saw what happened in his/her rearview mirror. Holy shit, he/she would say, aloud. I ran off the road, hopped up a high curb, scraped up my fairly new tire, and really beat up the wheel, not that I care, that car is so old it's not funny, and I never wash it or care for it at all anymore. Poor old sad neglected car that I once loved. Aw, how sad. Really. I'm all sad now. Right, so, yeah, my hand sort of stayed there, over my mouth, and then it would go to the steering wheel, to help the other hand steer, and then it would cover my mouth again, and I'd think how I could've died, how I could've crashed my car, how I could've really screwed up my day, but the car kept going, the tire didn't blow, and I made it to the post office, mailed my package to Hermione and the little one, and picked up my cookbook, and the lady was pissy when I told her I wanted to send the package first class, because I don't send packages, so I don't know, how am I supposed to know it's for small stuff only?, and I say, "YOU work here, YOU tell ME!", and she tells me to look at the readout on the display thing and choose a price and a delivery date, etc. Hell if I know, lady. Damn. Priority Mail, it'll get there fast, they'll have fun opening it. And the lady said she liked the stickers, and I said it's for a little girl. And felt so fucking stupid. And a guy almost backed right out of his parking space into me as I drove away. He never even looked, I had to slam on my brakes. It's been a weird day. All out of sorts. I hate change. I need my routine. But I want to stay home from now on. I don't want to go to work anymore. I remember what it was like, I used to do it, I did it, four years one time, then another two another time. Yeah, I didn't work. It suited me, this does not. But, despite the cramps, which will get worse as the bleeding does, and the depression, and the starting to cry this morning when my stupid annoying neighbor, the one who woke me up that time to see if my power was out, the one for whom the cop came, when he was looking for her, and he knocked on my door, that one, was blocking the parking lot with her car and the tow truck she called because her car wouldn't start, blocking the way, and I had to execute like a five or six point maneuver just to go to work, "I have to go to work!", I said. I was so mad, I hated her, as she said, "Have a good day", and her tow truck buddy stood behind me, making motions like I had another inch or so to back up. Fuck. Yeah, I started to cry, I got to work, after wiping my eyes, and wrote angrily in my notebook, how I hated everyone, how frustrated I was, how angry, how frustrated, how angry, hate, angry, frustrate, like that, until I calmed down and read the Entertainment Weekly from three weeks ago, the one I can't seem to finish, the big Fall TV Issue!, it's TOO BIG. Alas, now it's time to sit, to watch said Fall TV, as the season premiere of "Gilmore Girls" is on in a few. EW gave it an A, or an A-, but something good. I love "Gilmore Girls". And I bought cat food, Senior Flavor now, and some fruit and Stouffer's stuff for me. And I shall relax. Unwind, as it were. Were it. Man, oh maniscweticz - okay, I have no idea how to spell that word. Manischevitz? Manischwitez? I'm Audi. (but you know what?, it was a really fancy schmancy post office, that one, all new and self serve-y, and electronic gadget-y, my official post office, for my home, for my address, I should go back, sometime, like never) Cost of the War in Iraq
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