Well, there was the matter of drinking Patron straight from the bottle and watching Coen Brothers movies. For a week. Some hospital stuff, then back to work. Gotta run, go pick up about nine prescriptions. I love summer.
One normally doesn’t see MINI Coopers out there in the wild with dents and dings and scratches. They are an unblemished population. In fact, I am pretty sure the only dirty MINI I have ever seen is my own, a situation that rarely lasts longer than 48 hours.
Driving around in a banged-up MINI is weird and makes me a little (more) self-conscious. It’s like wearing really nice clothes with spaghetti sauce all over them. I want to put a sign on it or yell at regular intervals out the window: “It wasn’t my fault!”
Actually, I’m more relaxed about it now that the insurance process/estimate/parts ordering is all underway and the MINI will soon be restored to mostly full-blown MINI-ness. (I say mostly because the dings on the back that WERE my fault require a $500 deductible that is the seemingly most impossible sum of money to save in the history of xty.) (The back dings are a result of backing out of a parking space, distracted by being stoned and about to see a woman I was into, and into a truck. I am, of course, now reminded of this chick I am not dating every time I approach my car.)
The accident last week was, as all accidents, a great big ball of unfortunateness, of which I suffered the least. I hit two people on a scooter after they were catapulted into my path by the first car that hit them. Poor folks were hit by two cars. (They did not sustain major injuries, thanks to the relatively low speeds involved.)
Some time well after the event I realized that it was probably ten or fifteen minutes into it – after ambulance arrived and I had stopped shaking a little- that I noticed my car and thought “Oh, car’s hurt. I might need a tow.” Not being a paragon of self-love lately, I was relieved to know that when something real happened, my thoughts were not of myself first. Relieved and, sadly, surprised.
$3500 worth of damage to a MINI
I got a little aggravated during my run the other night. Nothing was flowing for me. I was running downtown, and my usual issues were getting to me more than usual: uneven pavement punctuated by driveways, pedestrians slowly wobbling and tottering unpredictably in the center of the sidewalk, great food smells during exercise. Drizzle.
No part of me could get in the run, the moment –even my “Power Song” on my Nike+iPod was grating. Then it started raining. Then I got to an intersection where I had to stop. God I was miserable when I saw the guy in the wheelchair on the other side from me.
After I apologized to God for being such an asshole, I thanked God that I was an asshole who could go running in the rain in beautiful downtown Asheville. I turned off the iPod and listened to my breathing for the rest of the run.
I was catching up on back episodes of The Tudors recently, and there was a scene with a man on the rack as they tried to get a confession from him. He did not do the thing they asked about, and so was wretchedly stretched and broken and all agonized howls. All he had to say was “Okay,” and they’d stop and just neatly, quickly slice off his head (an inevitability anyway).
I thought, man, put a pair of dirty contact lenses on me, chap my lips, and keep me from brushing my teeth for about 8 hours and I’ll tell you anything. That’s really all I thought. I don’t have any new insight or resolve or anything. Well, except I’m happy I have chapstick and I’m not on the rack.
It’s just time.
""even as we speak the Dirty Creature springs a nasty surprise...""
- split enz
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| Asheville |
