Carmic Futilities
Oy.
I’ve tried to be a good person. Really.
Even keeping most of my snarky comments to myself of late.
Exemplary at work and managing to deadlines both professional and personal. And I’ve not even flaked on phone call promises to people. I’m backlogged in emails but that’s no sin or crime, right?
*sigh*
So A few months back while heading to Lit at the Canvas hosted by Mr. Smokler, I ran a yellow that turned red on me while I was half way through.
I got pulled over. Eww, right?
Right.
So I get ticketed and wait for the official notice of how much it’s going to cost me to come in the mail or see what my options are for traffic school.
It never comes.
Friday comes around and I get a notice in the mail saying my drivers license will be suspended for not paying the fine or showing up in court to contest it within the 21 day window. WTF?!
Fine print on the ticket, my friends. *I* am liable because *I* never found out and paid what the fine was. The fine doubled. $590. That’s *MORE* than my rent was what I had to cough up over the phone on my credit card on Friday. That sucked rocks. I get a citation for the yellow light *AND* for failing to appear in court. Ergo. I’m at fault now, significantly poorer, and with a point on my license.
Add to that the debacle in car karma of this weekend.
My roommate was supposed to drive down to LA with me this weekend for a wedding. I’d booked the hotel room last week and we’d just missed each other in the madness of business to confirm details related to heading down on Friday. I left two voice msgs with him on Friday re: trying to leave early. No msg back from him until 6:30 PM. About 2.5 hours past our intended departure time. He, stating lack of coordinated communications, backed out on the trip and I was punked with driving down to LA by myself. Suckabutt.
Did you hear about the torrential rains that were in southern california this past weekend? Buckets. For hours. Scary ass shit to deal with when getting through the grapevine.
After nearly 8 hours, I safely made it to my hotel and crashed out.
Now a hotel room alone for a girl in LA is bound to lead to mischief.
I did things that no sane person would ever normally admit to. But since you already know I’m not real sane, I’ll share.
Walking around naked.
Peeing with the door open.
Smoking in bed.
Perusing porn titles but deciding it’s not worth the $21.99 VOD fee when I got loads of porn at my fingertips at home in SF.
Considering calling friends in other countries.
Having a beer at the bar by myself and scoping the utterly unshagable crew of convention attendees. (I was clothed by this point, I promise).
All in all, exhausted, somewhat weird, but ok.
So what happens today?
Oh, fun LA driving. The weather is sunny and beautiful with mild clouds. Very little of that typical brown haze that envelopes the urban landscape.
Going the speed limit at about 50MPH and then seeing it come to a dead halt. About 50 feet ahead. Pretty much summed up in the term, “Oh. Fuck.”
I break HARD. I see I’m going to hit the person ahead of me and freak out and not seeing anyone immediately next to me in the right lane I swerve over. What I didn’t see was the person in my blindspot who wound up hitting my car and swerving me back over into my original lane which had managed to inch forward. I regained control of my vehicle but with my heart up by my tonsils and beating at 500 beats/minute, I was freaked. Her car went and hit the side railing and we both pulled over. We’re both fine. No airbags went off. Both freaked out though. My car still looks fine except for some paint scrapes and a minor dent. She’s got two headlights out and some more dings. My insurance will go up and this too, will be notated in my insurance records for the next 3 years. *sigh* By then, my saturn return should be complete. I hope that I survive till then in the interim.
And then I missed the first 15 minutes of the wedding.
At least I made it in time for the blessings, exchange of vows, and kiss.
Congrats bigtime to A&A.
The good point of this evening? Hanging and meeting some fabu people.
And heads on the carcasses of tasty Chinese banquet treats.
* Whole roast chicken with head.
* Deep fried Lobster with head.
* Steamed whole fish with head.
The head on the fish included teeth. Coelocanth crazy fang-like shit.
I swear. Damn tasty though.
It’s been a weird weekend and I’m looking forward to coming home. Makes me consider moving back in to SF somewhere close to work so I don’t have to drive anymore. This is craziness. Either that or getting a priest to throw holy water at the windshield and steering wheel. Crazy ass shit.
You know, when folks asked me what I was doing for halloween, I joked that I was dressing up as a scary Asian female driver. I didn’t mean for that to be prophetic at all. And honestly, and “With an H, Biyatch” will confirm this, I’ve been making earnest efforts to be more safe, mindful, and considerate with my driving over the last few months. I was feeling fine and good, and great about shaking off the bad drivers mojo I’d inherited from my Mom. This and the early white hairs popping up on my head is making me reconsider the notion of being able to escape
one’s fate.
I’m not looking forward to the drive home tomorrow. It’ll be long and slow and I’ll be on the far right lane behind a drucker sipping redbull and chain smoking menthol’s to keep completely alert. I’m so fricking shaken up still that I can barely keep my chicken, fish, and lobster heads down.
If you see a little asian girl on the freeway going 10 below the speed limit, that’d be me. Be nice.