3/2/04 2:25 AM: So I had a car accident tonight ...

I was running late. It's been a bad day all around, but I thought I had a handle on it. It started when I woke up at almost 3PM, which is about a half hour later than I needed to be awake to handle my business (or so I thought). I hopped up and took a shower, checked my email and waited about forty minutes for my pores to close. I wandered down to the office where my newspaper is, which I do on every Monday, to get my check. It seems that my boss' wife (who writes the checks) had an "emergency" and left before she could handle my money. If this were an unusual thing, I'd have shrugged with the normal amount of indifference I have for virtually the entire world. However, this is maybe the fourth time she's done this, and with the additional Monday holidays that the start of a year brings, it always means I'm gonna have a crappy, hectic Tuesday. I hate that.

So I didn't have to drive to USC and make my weekly deposit, which was kind of okay, but now it'll take an extra day for my check to clear, which is a pain in the behind. So I drive over to West Los Angeles College, where I'm taking an elementary voice class (and that's a whole other pain in my butt, but I'll discuss that later/elsewhere). I need to buy a book, which seems insane for a voice class. I mean, if she wants us to sing, why not just freaking scan the songs and let us download 'em? "Copyright?" My ass. A license fee included in the unit cost can handle that. Anyhoo, I'm once again wandering off topic ...

Back to the story, I drive on up to the campus and find a spot. This surprises me, as finding an open parking spot within twenty minutes of arriving on campus, at least on Tuesday nights, is about as likely as having Halle Berry knock on your door and offer oral sex. So I wander up the hill to the bookstore, buy the twelve dollar book The First Book of Broadway Solos for Baritone/Bass (I'm a bass), and shlep down the hill. It was raining all the way, and I brought my iPod just in case. The iPod was playing downbeat songs -- "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, an acoustic version of "Inside Out" by Eve 6 -- so I sang as I walked, in a mournful tone. I wasn't really in a bad mood -- I wasn't really in any mood at all, to be honest -- but the energy of the day seemed to want dourness, so who was I to fight it?

I shlepped home and wasn't in the mood to do my CBR column. I puttered around, listening to a pair of CDs made by my good friend and co-KJ Dana, called "Uncontrollable Sobbing, Volumes One and Two." They likewise had some amazing moments -- "Vanishing" by Mariah Carey, "King of Sorrow" by Sade, several choice Sarah McLachlin cuts. I wallowed in the mood and finally got to work.

This led to taking notes for two answer CDs for Dana and another mix for a friend who wants some make out music. Time rolled by, and I was supposed to leave to meet Dana, McGowan and Jon at a bar called Melody on the south side. I started running late, getting into the new work I've been doing on a two-weeks-late chapter of The Crown, and finally walked out the door at 9:10.

The parking situation here at my apartment has always been zany. People end up having multiple cars, and that leads to wackiness. The girl who shares the tandem spots with me is Belizean, and her family often comes to visit in a big van. When I walked out front, that van was blocking my car in, parked half way in the street. It wasn't blocking her car in, because that would have made sense. People rarely bother to do that. So, with the same sad disgust I have for most of humanity, I went and knocked and got them to move. I pulled out into traffic, singing "The Great Divide" by Vertical Horizon and contemplating my solitude.

I had to drive to, basically, Manchester and Sepulveda. For some reason, my brain thought it would be safer to head down La Brea to Florence, which curves into Manchester at Aviation. So I pull down the hill and come to an easy stop at the light at Slauson.

WHAM!

Next thing I know, I'm fighting to keep from plowing face first into a Camry in front of me as a Cutlass pushes me from behind. I swerve a bit, clipping the Camry's rear end, coming dangerously close to a PT Cruiser (at first I thought it got clipped too). The air bag/horn part of my steering wheel leaps from its place into my lap, with nary an air-bag appearing anywhere. My neck and back suddenly hurt. I curse. Flashes of Kanye West go through my mind.

Everybody climbs out, and nobody is bleeding. We all agree to pull in to the gas station across the street and swap info in the pouring rain. The guy, a commercial truck driver, says, "I was out of control all the way down, I kept trying to brake but I couldn't stop." Everybody looks at each other, realizing that this won't even be a fight, which is cool. Info is traded all the way around, the PT Cruiser emerged unscathed, and people start disappearing.

I slide into my car, my beloved and much beleaguered Monte Carlo, and sigh. Several years ago, the same accident happened to me. Sitting still at a light. Hit from behind, pushed into another car. To be honest, pretty much every car accident I've ever had happened that way. The first one, when I was in high school, happened when I was parked in a lot. The car wasn't even on. I'm really, really tired of getting rear ended. The only way anybody can hit me is if I'm standing still, which disinclines me to do so.

I decided to drive home and take some Aleve. While here, I called my best friend Daniel and asked for body shop advice. I then called the other two drivers. The woman who I was pushed into agrees that we'll both have the same story, the driver who hit us agreed that it was his fault. Now it's just time and aggravation and paperwork, three things I really hate to delve into.

Despite a lot of what I end up writing (as I end up writing a lot when I'm mad, and I'm extremely private about a whole cornucopia of great things that happen, as I respect the privacy of the people who make them happen), I'm an insanely happy person most of the time (this year). As I was driving home, and ultimately driving back out to the karaoke place (I took another route, turning on Stocker, hitting La Cienega and then La Tijera to Manchester), I laughed aloud at the sheer absurdity of it. As I type now, with tightness on the right side of my neck and in my lower back, I hope to wake up feeling nothing, which is my most comfortable state.

I ended up a Melody, sang "Epiphany" by Staind (rather loudly), sang "Girls & Boys" by Good Charlotte (for Dana, who likes it), sang "Don't Stop Dancing" for a woman named Dakota (who, as it turns out, runs Prince of Whales, the bar Dana does karaoke hosting for), sang Bryan Adams' "Heaven" (needs some work), and "Praying for Time" by George Michael. Plus played a lot of NBA Showtime on NBC (an NBA Jam-styled arcade basketball game) because it's from the season Vinsanity and T-Mac were both Raptors. Dana laid her head on my shoulder and comforted me as we ate at IHOP afterwards. I looked at my poor car (I'd have taken pictures, but my camera is acting weird), bumper hanging off the back, right light shattered, and apologized to it for all the rough times it endures with me. The iPod kicked out an old song I did with a rapper called 211, called "That Is The Girl," which amused me as I sung along. The instrumental of "You Got Me" by the Roots had me freestyling, and appreciating how much I've grown in the last decade, how much better and more glorious I am than I could have ever dreamed, despite several real challenges that laid in my path.

In the end, I will not let this ruin me.