I have taken to biking around my small urban wonderland, and I have found that cars are often in competition with me, irritated that I pull to the front at red lights and try to peddle safely out of the way of the opening doors of parked cars. I would like to now concede this battle and let all the drivers know that they are victorious they are the clear winners in any battle, they can accelerate quicker than me and in a head to head battle I would be handily defeated. SO with that out of the way, and with my hanging my head in shame would they please just let me do my thing and stop putting my life in danger.
One hundred and twenty seconds. What can that buy you?
When I stepped outside I saw the cab speeding down the street towards the yellow light. He was blaring his horn to alert those of his audaciousness. The light was yellow when he was almost a block away, yet because he was going so fast it was still yellow when he entered the intersection and turned red before he exited it.
That’s how it happened. I knew it all at once, I will never be able to prove this to you, but I know that it’s true. The truck was speeding towards the yellow light, but was still far enough away that Kirk looking down the street and realizing it was about to go green assumed that anyone approaching now would stop, but they did not, and Kirk realized this too late as he ran into the back of the pick-up truck.
They say life is all about timing, and death is certainly more so.
Two minutes.
My guess is that is the most you will wait if you miss the end of a yellow light and have to wait the whole cycle of a four way stop.
What terrifies me, what shakes me to my bone, is how many times I have decided that two minutes were more important to me, and my incorrigible tardiness, than whatever caution they may afford. When I drive now it’s in a daze watching all of the bikers and pedestrians and all the chances they take, and then I remember her shaking, wide eyed, and desperately looking to us for some sort of comfort, a solace that doesn’t exist. His girlfriend keeps waiting to comprehend what has happened, what it means, and I held her wishing that I had one word of wisdom that would let her know it was going to be all right. Anyone who has lost the one they Loved knows that I didn’t.
“Who’s fault was it?” This was the first question everyone asked me about the accident. I still don’t really understand why it matters. I have broken traffic laws and I didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t want to kill anyone. Light runners are not murderers, nor do they deserve to die. He wasn’t wearing a helmet either. Does that mean he forfeited his life? He ran into a truck going God knows how fast, my senses tell me the helmet wouldn’t have mattered. That’s what I tried to convince his girlfriend, because she is analyzing every moment, every fact, and trying to figure out where she could have made a difference, where she could have pleaded, coerced, or begged, for him to wear a helmet, stay with her an extra minute, or maybe just distracted him with a phone call, the difference of minutes, seconds, that could have saved his life.
Two minutes.
She knows what it can buy, and now, so do I.
And I hope you do too.
I was rear ended yesterday. I was sitting at a red light on my cell phone (yes, on my cell phone), and I felt a jolt and heard the sound of cars connecting. I told my boyfriend I’d have to call him back. I put on my hazards, grabbed a notebook and got out of my car, no, not my car, my best friends parents car. My car is in the shop so I am borrowing theirs. I look at the bumper, and am thankful to see there are only some scratches. I hear the voice from the other driver, “What do you think?” “Well, it’s not too bad, but it’s not my car.” “This isn’t my car either,” he tells me. “Well, I still need to get your information, I need to let the owners decide what they want to do.” “OK,” the rockabilly punk tells me, “let’s make this turn and let traffic go.”
So I get in my car and turn left, and he goes straight. I make a U turn as quickly as possible, but there are three ways he could have went, and I choose the wrong one. And now, I am angry, very, very angry. How could I trust some f%cking punk who was probably drunk, and has justified his actions by thinking that any girl who knows someone who can afford a Lexus SUV, deserves to have a few scratches anyways. I know this mindset, because I have friends who think this way. But I am one of the poorest people I know, with a car I got from my grandmother with much body damage including a side mirror hanging by twine (I found it knocked off one morning) and another one that is cracked from another attempted hit and run (I successfully chased that guy down, and got him to give me a hundred). Most of the body damage was caused by people hitting my car in parking lots and leaving me to find a surprise. I’ve been rear ended in my car before and though it left a big mark, I didn’t involve insurance, because I don’t care much about these things, plus the guy was nice, and at least gave me the option. But, this wasn’t my car, and though I don’t think my friends parents would have pursued it, I’d like to be able to be a responsible borrower and show I did my part to get the information, instead I just got tricked.
At this point I was so mad that I wished I had at least gotten his license plate so I could report a hit and run. I angrily drive to my friends house to tell him the story, on my way there I try to mellow out since in the greater scheme of things nothing terrible has happened, and the worst is when you let someone destroy your day with their pathetic loser ways.
So I recount the story to my friend who was not pleased that someone hit his parents car, but tells me not to worry about it, since there isn’t much damage. So all is well, except of course, for my damaged pride, which is lying in a million pieces at the intersection of Deboce and Valencia.
This has brought up some interesting questions for my philosophies on life, particularly the one that says that acting on principle is rarely the right course. The principle being that this guy is a dick who tricked me and deserves some sort of karmic retribution. Like, if in that moment I had gotten his license plate number, I would have called the cops out of anger, and many would think me fully justified for doing that. But, it is not totally out of the realm of possibility that one of my friends could have got in a similar situation, if they had no insurance and they hit a fancy car and caused little damage, who knows? And did this kid deserve to get in lots of trouble for a stupid act that in the end caused no real harm? Looking at it from this perspective, I must say no. I doubt it would teach him a lesson, or change his mindset.
No the proper response was not the cops, but a nice punch in the nose. That would have cleared up my feelings of anger, and expressed that he was a dick without ruining his life on any level. I doubt I could even break his nose, since I have little experience with punching. But I am a firm believer that sometimes violence is the right answer, and this was one of those times. Unfortunately it’s not to be, unless someday he reads this, in that case, “Hey dick face, you tricked me and I get to punch you in the nose.” Then we’ll be even.
So for lent I gave up Myspace and Consumating, which has had some sad side-effects, like losing touch with some of my friends. It will make it all the more exciting to go see how their lives have changed come Easter.
I am not Catholic, though I am Christian, and share some very Catholic traits, like guilt and fear as inspirations for living. And I’m becoming more and more superstitious in my old age, making bargains with God, and trying not to jinx myself by liking anything TOO much. My mother tells me this isn’t how God works and I know this to be true, but I also Know this to be untrue. God Loves me, but he is jealous, and nothing should come before him. So when I lie in bed and feel it’s the most wonderful place on earth, I become frightened that he’ll burn it down.
And my mother tells me this isn’t true, and I know she’s right (my bed has never burned before), but maybe it’s only my fear that keeps it true.
When I was young, lying in bed with lovers post love, my stomach ached and filled with fear. I associated it with the guilt I felt over sexuality; many Sunday school lectures for teens are based around how true Love for God is showed through abstinence, and every Sunday I was filled with a desire to comply. Now I know that it was likely more than just my conscience working against me. One of the hormones secreted during orgasm, oxytocin, is also associated with nausea for some people. That natural response combined with guilt made for instant penance and made basking in the afterglow quite impossible.
I no longer serve post coital penances, though I do occasionally get nauseous from orgasm or intense nipple stimulation (which also stimulates oxytocin production), but there is no guilt. This came about after I finally succumbed to the Sunday school calling and became a born again virgin. Again my inner Catholic came out: no intercourse, to my boyfriends chagrin, but oral sex is okay, to my boyfriends amusement. He couldn’t understand how God could have such an issue with the specific act of putting a penis inside a vagina; something we were clearly designed to do. But I was a girl of specifics, and like Bill Clinton said, it wasn’t sex if there wasn’t a penis in a vagina. After much Bible study I finally came to the conclusion that what God was really concerned about was adultery, and since I wasn’t married, sex was okay. Specifics wins again! But my mother explained to me that what God was really concerned about was pain, and hurting each other, he knew that sex breeds attachment and that we tend to get hurt when we give it away indiscriminately. It was many more years before I realised that my mother was right. Most of the Bible is advice for simple happy living: find a partner, be faithful to them, support each other, take care of others, get a job that doesn’t make you miserable, work hard at it, eat food, enjoy it, and Love God.
And yet. I still ask God not to burn down my library to show me what’s really important in life. But like a good Christian I know that if he did, it’s because he Loves me.
The cherry blossoms opened today.
This will be the first year I don’t think they are blooming early.
For years in the past it just didn’t seem right that they should blossom in late Fall;
they should be a Spring flower.
But this year when I saw them, on the first sunny day after the rains, I knew it was time. It’s funny that you can have an idea that makes you think the rest of the world is wrong, and how long it can take before you think, perhaps my idea is wrong.
My idea was this: for the past few years the trees have blossomed on the first sunny day after a long rain, but then the sun didn’t last and the next storm washed the blossoms away. So I thought that they had been tricked, that the inopportune sunshine had fooled them into thinking it was spring, but after a few years of this thought, it occurred to me that perhaps mother nature is more clever than that.
So now I see them for what they are, an early blossom with a very short life. They produce my favorite scent in the world, and a bitter little fruit with little use other then throwing them at other kids on the playground.
They also tell me Spring is soon.
The words are backing up in my head. My toes are swollen with them, unformed, useless, just letters milling about.
This is a time we will not remember. It is obvious in its wastefulness, like our Love on a Winters day. I don’t mean to be so quick to anger, it really isn’t like me at all, but here it is, all mixed up with all the words, a gray anxiety, all tinted red.
And you, sit at my feet, so silent, like you don’t even know you’re there. I reach out, but my legs grow longer, and my feet slip further away.
There is sex in my head, it erupts, interrupts, bends me over a chair and grabs me by the hair. Over and over to no conclusion, and you are there laughing, “Your head is a useless place.”
Every song becomes meaningful; I fill pages with lyrics; functional poetry for a functional life. “I hate you,” becomes my anthem, like it has some deeper meaning, like you’ll hear my heart, “I hate you,” has no meaning, but I like the way it sounds. Three words, like I Love you, and similar in so many other ways. “I hate you, ” words I used to be afraid of, never tumbled from my lips, but now I climb to high places and scream, and anyone who hears is a valid recipient, because you’ve all hurt me equally I think. A vague sort of solipsism, you reflect me, you have no choice, I can’t prove you exist, so how can you have feelings other than me? Me, me, me, me, me, better than I because there are twice as many letters, therefore it’s twice as important. And You, you have three. Three times as important as Me, but You, you don’t exist, so it didn’t get you very far did it? Such useless words, but I like the way they sound, and that’s all that ever mattered to me.
God told me there are three things I can do to live a good life: eat, drink, and enjoy my work, and like all things God says this is functional and obvious, so I agree. If someone tells you something that is counterintuitive and complicated, know that they are wrong, this is critical thinking, and this will make your life much better.
That was the moral.
The End.
