Crash (A Real Life Philadelphia Story)

On my way home from work last night I experienced my first automobile accident. I am fine. I am not injured, but my arms, neck, shoulders, and back are sore from the impact. I crashed into the back of car when the car behind me crashed into me after another car had crashed into it. Think of it like dominos – four cars, the last one hitting the third one, the third one hitting me, and so on.

Immediately following the collision, I was a little shaken, but otherwise, cool as a cucumber. The woman behind me was completely freaking out. She was holding her face, sobbing uncontrollably and screaming through her open window, “Call 9-11! Help! Help me!” I opened her door and asked her questions, “Where are you hurt? Do you want to get out? Can you breathe? Do you legs hurt? Let me see your face.” The latent lifeguard in me kicked into gear. I suppressed an urge to administer CPR.

Once we established that her worst injury was a bruised hand, I said, “It’s okay. Your car is fine; you’re fine.”

She snapped, “My car is not fine!”

“What I meant was, it’s not totaled.”

“Bah!” she said, waving dismissively.

It turns out people have a very different idea of what “damage” means. My hood is crumpled a bit, the driver-side headlight is cracked, and the front bumper is bent. After I got hit I was convinced my car had been squished like an accordion, so I was really pleased to find it as it was.

The girl who had been driving the car in front of me, on the other hand, was very upset to find her back bumper and license plate dented slightly (and I mean slightly). If it had been me, I wouldn’t even make an insurance claim. She was nearly in tears after speaking with her mother on the telephone. Apparently she had been scolded for getting in an accident, even though she was the least responsible for its cause, and even though she appeared to be at least 25 years old, for crying out loud.

The people from the fourth car, the first car to crash, seemed about as ruffled as I was. They were very young, 20 years old, and according to the girl, this was the third incident she’d experienced that day. That morning she found her door window had been smashed, so she called the police to file a report and to make an insurance claim. She taped plastic to the window and headed to work. While driving later that day, she ran out of gas. She left her car in the shoulder and had to walk to a gas station to fill a canister with gas and then bring it back to her stranded car. After that, she picked up her boyfriend, and on their way home, she got into our accident.

After she revealed this information, the other women started gossiping immediately. “I bet she isn’t covered,” “Oh, we’re screwed, we’re going to have to pay our deductible,” “They’re young and stupid, they aren’t going to deal with this.”

And I suddenly got a strange vibe – a Crash vibe (the movie). I wondered if some latent racism was driving their suspicions. The young girl was Hispanic and her boyfriend was black. He had a large tattoo of a spider web across his neck. I dunno – there was just something about the way they were eyeing the couple, something about the nature of their words, and the tones of their voices.

And then, the woman who had been hysterical began to loudly state to whomever would listen that the young girl CLEARLY caused the accident, that SHE didn’t cause the accident, and neither did I or the other girl. She must have said this about 18 times.

Now, to be fair, the young girl didn’t have her registration or insurance information in her vehicle. She said she had left it at the such-and-such precinct earlier when she filed her first claim. Sounds fishy, I know, but I believed her. Maybe I’m a sucker, but she seemed very sweet and honest.

Actually, I think she won me over once we exchanged ages.

“I’m 29,” I said.

“What? I don’t believe you,” she said. “You really shouldn’t lie. Lying doesn’t become you, you know.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, laughing and clearly flattered.

We chatted a little more and she said, “Thank god I didn’t have my baby with me. All of my stuff flew from the back into the front. God knows what might have happened.”

“Oh, how old is your baby?” I asked.

“6 months.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re a young mother.”

She laughed and said, “I am.”

"Oops. I meant to say, You’re a NEW mother."

I tried to apologize but she just shook her head, and showed me a picture of her baby. He was very little and very cute. He looked like he was being swallowed by his sweater.

Soon after that I headed home. I hadn’t realized how shaken I’d been until I got inside. I collapsed on the couch and fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up a few hours later feeling anxious, replaying the event over and over again in my mind.

I kept thinking, “Why am I so stressed out? What’s the big deal? Everything’s fine.” Eventually, my boy cat calmed me by resting on my chest, and I fell asleep again.

Oh well. Live and learn. All in all, it was an interesting experience. At the most, I’ll be out $500 if the young girl turns out uninsured. I’m just thankful none of us were hurt.

Fabulous!

Last night my friend Greg had a party. One of his friends was gracious enough to let me take pictures while he wore a fabulous sequined jacket with a matching hat. The red sweatshirt underneath really made the outfit, in my opinion.

Many of the guests were actors. I don't really hang out with actors too much, but I always have a good time when I do. I love how theatrical they tend to be, how somehow they are always performing, even if we're just having a conversation. I love how actors express themselves through exaggerated mannerisms and body movements. It rubs off on me, too. I feel myself making strange faces, and I start waving my hands around a lot. At one point somehow suggested trying to see how many times each of us could spin in the air without falling. I could spin about one and a half times. My knees hurt today.

It's so weird getting old. I go to parties and act all wild and run around and give people flying side kicks to the head and for some reason I wake up achy.

I need to start working out again.

Or I need to download my brain onto a computer and exist in a virtual world.

I Love Global Warming

God, the weather has been great. Right now we have a bunch of windows open. The cats are sprawled out in front of them, basking in the warmth and the smell of the outdoors. I love waking up to the sound of birds and to the early risers doing their thing -- when they aren't too loud, of course.

Tonight Paul and I will walk across town (about 2 miles) to get Indian food and to see Syriana. Of the 5 Best Pictures nominated, we've only seen Brokeback Mountain and Crash. I wanted to see Capote, but Paul said he'd rather see something political.

I don't have much to say right now. I just woke up from a nap and my brain is numb. Usually I blog while I'm at work. To my horror, I arrived last Monday morning to discover that our firewalls had been upgraded! No more blogging at work! At least no more 'blogspot' blogging at work. I'm so sad about this.

On the other hand, I was really productive last week. For the past year or so, I've kind of been in a lazy funk of denial, waking up everyday and telling myself how much I hated my job, how it was so ordinary and unchallenging, how I only want to do the minimum of what's expected of me, how I'd much rather write and kill time until we (probably) move to NYC.

And something strange happened: I started liking my job again. I can't say why exactly. I think I just got fed up with a lot of the disorganization within the department, and I wanted to help clean house a bit. Maybe it's because spring is here -- the time for cleaning up shop, the time for renewal.

I dunno. I might as well roll with it. It feels good to be useful.

Party!

Here are some pictures from my friend Hannah's 30th birthday party. These are really blurry. I used to think the 'in motion' style of blurry pictures looked cool. Now I just think I need a better camera.

And here's a video (13 MB) of my friend Neda dancing with John, a nice guy we met at the party. Note how comfortable Neda is shaking her booty with a complete stranger. Note how awkward I sound merely speaking to a stranger. God knows why I was giggling like a developmentally-challenged 4th grader. That guy must have thought I was a complete weirdo. I would have thought I was.

But what a fun party!

I spoke with 71-year-old woman for a little while. She was really interesting. She wore thick, black-rimmed intellectual hipster glasses and talked my ear off about all sorts of things. She had been a Sociology professor at Penn. One of the nicest things she said was when she grabbed Emily (Hannah's roommate) to tell her that she and her boyfriend Vinny (Paul's good friend) were "a magnificent couple".

Emily and her Turkish friend Zeynep launched the belly-dancing portion of the evening. I tried and failed miserably. I swear, people were looking at me like, "Girl, take off the belly dancing belt and go sit down."

There had been promises for a wide variety of entertainment, but only the belly dancing materialized. Emily plays the accordion, and she had planned on playing a few tunes, but for some reason she never got around to it.

She'd also organized a This is Your Life retrospective puppet show for Hannah. I was going to be one of the puppets. It was loosely scripted and the puppeteers were supposed to improvise. But after several drinks and a few puffs of weed I was extraordinarily grateful she seemed to forget about the whole idea.

The next morning I felt like I had been run over by a truck. I must be getting really old. I just can't bounce back like I used to. I woke up at noon, ate some breakfast, read a little, fell asleep until 6:00pm, woke up in a bitch of a mood, grabbed a greasy dinner with Paul at a local bar, objected to just about every word that came out of his mouth, came home, cried a little, wrote in bed while Paul watched the horrid Oscar's ceremony downstairs, and then fell asleep, only to wake up around 3:00am, wide awake and completely rejuvenated.

Somehow I just don't think I'm meant to live this way. But I think it's worth it. I must be having fun. Just look at me!



Why, oh why, must I continually embarass myself?