I dream in color

Last night I awoke from a dream at 3:41, which is actually 3:34. This dream was so strange and vivid that I had to get it down on paper before it was gone . Normally I write my dreams in the dark, taking up whole pages with 4 lines for fear of overlapping in the dark. But for this dream I was willing to risk not being able to fall back asleep, so I turned on my light and pulled out a pen and paper.

Kit Porter from The L Word took me to a large empty warehouse and everything was grey and there were some strange little Spanish mafia people waiting for us. Apperently she had brought me there to pay off some debt as a sex slave or laborer, or something unpleasant.

There was something stopping me from being able to be handed over. My eyes wouldn't adjust to the dark warehouse only it was in reverse. I was blinded by the light coming out of everyone's faces.

Finally I somehow saved the day by accidentally knocking somethng over and setting offf a chain reaction like one of those mouse traps only it was the entire city. Things were bouncing and ricocheting and catapulting everywhere like a pinball machine

Marge and Homer Simpson were brown furry things way on the other side of town and there was a marble that kept bouncing between two poles and every time it bounced back, Homer and Marge would mutate and duplicate like humps on a caterpillar.

After I saved the day, I went back to the gym for a class but there was a sub, which always makes me upset. This time the sub was holding class in the locker room, more specifially in a claw-footed bathtub with curtains. She had everyone stand in brightly colored buckets made of some soft but solid gel-like material and do squats while making strange noises.

A childhood friend's little brother, Ian, showed up at the gym and sat by the crowded pool doing a cool frisbee trick. My brother watched in awe and jealousy as Ian sent the frisbee whizzing past people in one direction, then skimming the water and swirling in the other direction nearly missing more people and then swooping for another splash and turn maneuver.

Then I had to pee.

Speaking of things I want but can't have...

I fantasize about the following emoticons:

Tired/Sleepy

Growl aka ARGH

Eye-rolling

Update:

I would also like one with a giant ear, to capture, "I'm listening."

If I were a rich girl

Have you ever thought about how you would spend your money if you had more than you could ever dream of? I have, and of course I would give significantly to charitable groups, invest wisely, help loved ones, the usual. But after all that, there are a few things I would like to have that I bet you never would have thought of...

Like my very own in-home salad bar with an Asian lady who comes around to refill it every day. She has to be Asian or else it's not like Charlie Brown's.

And a hibachi grill with a chef. Shrimp-flipping not required but appreciated.

How about someone to peel my grapes because I hate grape skin. And another person to peel my oranges because I can't stand to do it myself.

And finally, I would have a group of little people working together to trim my split ends, one by one. The split ends and only the split ends.

The end.

Typical Friday night of Erdeness

"What I did on my vacation by Valerie E." (by Laina E.)

On Friday, my sister and I were so full from lunch that we didn't feel like eating when she got home from work. So after I watched her do her workout video in the living room, we went shopping on the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica.

It was a nice night on the promenade and there were street performers, but at about 10pm I started to get hungry. First we went to a really cool mini mart that had such a random assortment my favorite Japanese snacks along with an amazing variety of American foods. We spent 10 minutes deciding what to eat and then we saw those delicious steamed buns that they serve at Dim Sum restaurants. I got a chicken teryaki bun and my sister got her own bun, and then we split a red bean bun. Mmmm buns.

Then we stopped at the supermarket and I bought fruit salad and broccoli and cheddar Lean Pockets. While I was heating my lean pocket, my sister told me that she didn't know they had any vegetarian Lean Pockets. I told her, of course they do.

I have no interest in eating any meat in a pocket. That is frozen.

Later we were sitting around on two of my sister's three couches, which her roommate bought for $105, all of which she hates because they are old, ratty, and smelly. I asked her if the pillows came with the couches. She told me she bought them at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and shuddered as she described the original pillows.

I told her how disappointed I was that instead of giving it to me for my new apartment as promised, our dad had given away his living room couch to a Nigerian man who planned to send it back to Nigeria for his family. My sister burst out laughing over this revelation which made me laugh at the idea as well.

She told me that there was NO way that anyone would send a 15 year old couch to Africa. I told her that that's what the man said, but she insisted that there was just no way it would happen, wondering outloud how much it would even cost to send a couch to Africa.

So we looked it up online on the world wide web. We estimated that the couch was 70"x48"x33" and weighed approximately 60 lbs. UPS calculated that in 5 days, this couch could arrive in the capital of Nigeria for the low low cost of $1207.96.

We thought that this was a lot to pay to send a couch and decided to find out how much it would cost to buy a couch in Nigeria. Sadly for the Nigerians, the nearest country served by the mighty Craigslist is South Africa. But for the sake of estimation we decided this was fairly sufficient and searched for "couch" in Cape Town. There was only one available for sale, and it was ZAR950.

Now, I can convert a lot of things, actually I can't... but we did not happen to know the ZAR:USD conversion rate. Luckily my sister knew of a website on the internet that could convert these things automatically. We now know that ZAR950=93.63 USD.

In conclusion, my sister's smelly couches were the best deal, but see how we tried to help others by and sell couches:


From: Laina E.
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 12:54 AM
To: sale-1000767768@craigslist.org
Subject: couch

** CRAIGSLIST ADVISORY --- AVOID SCAMS BY DEALING LOCALLY
** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home
** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping
** More Info: http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

- Hide quoted text -

Hi,

This is very strange, but I was doing some research online and saw your post seeking a couch. I also saw a post with a nice looking blue-ish couch for sale. Here is the link: http://capetown.craigslist.co.za/fuo/989733875.html

By the way, I am in California. Also, it costs $1,207 to ship a couch from New Jersey to Nigeria. Like I said, strange.

Good luck with the couch.

Laina

From: Shelley M. Ottino
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 9:12 AM
To: Laina E.
Subject: Re: couch

Thanks very much for the info, I was really looking for a couch in Durban, South Africa for my parents, I am actually in Texas.

Thanks again - Shelley

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Not getting to the point very quickly

There is a birthday in the office today... and cupcakes. Yellow cake with vanilla frosting and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. This is not good for my diet. They're not even good cupcakes as far as cupcakes go. This isn't Sprinkle's, it's not Susie Cakes, they're not even real homemade. I mean, sure they were made in a home, but they're from a box. And the frosting is from a can. I've been into "from scratch" lately, and these were far from it.

I had one chocolate and half a vanilla after lunch, then over the next two hours I decapitated another vanilla and a half for their frosted tops only.

A little while later, because I'm clumsy, I smashed my finger in a cabinet and in the process of getting some ice in the kitchen I spotted the cupcakes again, which are obviously comforting. So I skedaddled out of there with a big bad vanilla to ease my pain. Let me tell you, it's not easy to ice your right middle finger and eat a cupcake simultaneously. It's just not easy. After I scarfed it down, I was feeling the kind of guilt that only happens when you forget how many cupcakes you have had. I've since calculated, but at the time I was blocking out the gluttony.

I moved on and through some sequence of events not relating to my job, I found myself reading and article in the advice column, Ask E. Jean about a husband who refused to buy lingerie for his wife who had wanted him to do this for many years and thinking about my cupcake-eating self in lingerie. I was not happy about this concept, and decided to go directly to the gym followed by bed without dinner.

In theory, I would like a man to buy lingerie for me. Theory, including the assumption that it is nice, tasteful, and "me". I feel silly buying it for myself and wearing it for someone else, but if it were given to me, that's another story.

But the real story here is that all of this led me to the horrible memory of a lingerie exchange between two senior citizens.

I was visiting my grandpa a few years ago, when he first started seeing his skanky new (but not young) girlfriend, Lila... that hussy. He took me to meet her and her leopard print house, where my grandma's old cleaning lady, Sue, was taking care of her while she recovered from hip surgery. Like I said, not young. So we're all sitting around on the hiddeous couches and my grandpa pulls out this gift box and hands it to the old (ho) bag. She opens it up and pulls out a LACY BLACK SEE THROUGH THING AND A MATCHING THONG. The cleaning lady's eyes are bulging and I'm gagging and trying to think of a reason to die immediately while the other two are holding it up and touching it and smooching and generally doing everything you NEVER want to see your widower grandfather do. I was traumatized past the point of being able to erase this from my permanent scars.

At least I can say that matter how many cupcakes I have (well, to an extent), I would rather see myself in lingerie than a wrinkled old lady laying on her leopard print bed, replacement hip and all.

The other waxing lady

Anyone who's read "The Waxident" will know that Kuniko, my favorite waxing lady ever, left me with no warning and that I was very upset about it. After that I had to try someone new, so I started seeing Choon. She was fine, but more expensive because, as you know, Kuniko gave me a secret discount.

So in October of 2007, I was getting ready to go on a cruise to the Western Caribbean and made a visit to Choon at Anthony Garubo. She asked me what I was going to do on the cruise so I told her that I was just going to go to the beaches... I wasn't interested in any excursions.

This is when Choon started telling me about all of her snorkeling experiences. She and her boyfriend were seriously into snorkeling and she tried to convince me to try it. Well, the funny thing about that is: I have tried it. So I told her my story...

March 2006:
I am prepared to snorkel. I am mentally prepared to face my fear of fish touching me. I am equipped with the mask and snorkel I brought thousands of miles by air and sea to Grand Cayman. I paid for the cruise excursion and I have Jill, my snorkel buddy there with her flippers and mask.

When they tell us that we're going to go to the end of the pier and climb into the water, I'm definitely put off because I was expecting to wade into the water and stay in the shallow end. But when they tell us that we might see a large fish that looks like a shark but isn't, I am no longer prepared for this. I've got my mask on and my flippers on and I've got my underwater camer hanging on it's little rubber band from my wrist. I'm lagging behind the group a bit because I'm nervous as hell and I want to see every last person get in the water before I try it.

So finally, Jill gets in and it's my turn. So I turn my back to the water and take hold of the ladder's railings, lowering my flippered feet one-by-one onto the steps. Over the course of the next five minutes I make it about half way down the ladder and the rest of the group is getting pretty far away from the dock. There's a group coming in, but there is no way I'm rushing into the water to let them out and I'm not ready to give up on the idea altogether, and since there is another ladder, I decide they only need one and I clearly need the other.

Little by little, I lower myself into the water and finally I let go of the ladder.

5

4

3

2

1

Splash, splash, splash, I am flipping and paddling myself back to my ladder and pulling myself out of that water exponentially faster than I got in. If this had been TiVo, it would have been frame by frame into the water and then 3x fast forward out.

I'm flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flopping back down the dock and then I hear another flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop behind me and I turn around and it's a terrified, half-drowned Jill running for her life from the shark (the one they told us was not a shark). I just want to say that she was brave. I surely would have all-the-way drowned if I saw that thing.

The instructor who stayed back comes over to us and we're huffing and puffing and practically falling over thanks to our flippers and asks what's wrong. Well Jill saw the shark-fish, and I'm just a baby. But I'm really disappointed that I won't get to see any fish, so the instructor walks us over to this shallow pool of ocean that is MAYBE a foot deep and tells me to practice there. So I examine the area and decide that it's safe.

Jill's finding it quite amusing to see me on my hands and knees, face in the water, butt in the air looking at sand, and since she's got the underwater camera now... she's documenting my snorkeling experience. And laughing at me.

...
So I finish telling this story to Choon, and she's on the verge of wetting her pants. She's already laughing so hard she's crying, and she's relentless. I don't think I've ever been laughed AT so hard in my life. I feel really safe and secure in her room now. NOT. And can you even believe this... she had me bring in the pictures of my with my face in the water and she put it up on her wall! And she made fun of me every time after that. What a joke.

Gripes About Cops (Lehigh University Brown and White 2004)

Gripes about cops
Laina Erde

Photo Editor

3/17/2004

At 9 a.m. on the Friday that began my Spring Break, I was woken up by the furious sound of my door being beaten down and my doorbell screaming. In a dreamy fog, wearing only a T-shirt, I stumbled to the door of my Trembley Park apartment. Through my peephole I saw none other than the Lehigh Police. I could not even fathom why the police would be brutalizing my door and stealing the early morning sleep I had been enjoying. I opened the door with one hand and tried to pull down my shirt with the other.

As it turned out, the police thought that they were coming to the aid of helpless prisoners trapped in their own apartment. The reason they thought this was because of the sign in our window, meant to be a joke, which read “Send Help.”

So the Lehigh Police sent help. They sent it in the form of a door-banging, bell-ringing, mean man who took my sign and refused to tell me why.

The Lehigh Police were actually doing their job for the first time in recorded history, only it was like wearing sunglasses at night: unnecessary and just plain stupid.

I was very angry. Not only was I woken up two hours early and yelled at, but I was forced to hand over my property without reason. This might make anyone angry, but the reason I was angry is that I have asked the Lehigh Police for help in the past, and did not receive it.

Soon after several off-campus robberies in the fall, my roommates and I left an off-campus party hoping to Take a Ride Around Campus Safely with T.R.A.C.S. We were concerned about the risk of being approached by a bandit, so we went to nearest call box, pressed “HELP” and asked the police to send T.R.A.C.S. to the rescue. The man on the phone said that the vans were no longer in service, but that he would send someone to make sure we were OK.

We waited. We called again.

Soon, a police car pulled up and the driver asked us if we were OK. We said that we were waiting for T.R.A.C.S. and that we did not feel comfortable walking all the way home alone. The officer said, “This isn’t an escort service, you can’t just call us like a taxi.” Then he sped off, probably to break up some party on the Hill.

We asked the police to send help; they told us they would not. We put a sign up in our window; they came barging in when they were not welcome.

Even more dramatic was the incident reported in The Brown and White police blotter as, “Criminal Mischief — On Dec. 18, a window in Trembley Park was damaged. The incident is under investigation.” The window in question was not damaged. In fact, it was totally destroyed by jars of apple butter and a case of beer that were all thrown at our double-paned window in the middle of the night. My roommate walked into our apartment and saw what looked like ice chips covering every inch of our apartment. She realized it was glass and called the police.

The police asked what time the incident happened, who was around before, if they had been drinking and if there were any suspects.

Then the officers left the scene. No fingerprints, no assistance, no comfort; just the cold winter wind blowing through our new gaping hole.

The glass was in the cups in our cabinets, covering our couch and embedded in the carpet. If anyone had been sitting on the couch, he or she would have been seriously injured by the wall of glass. The incident is not under investigation — it was abandoned by the police. To this day I am still finding tiny bits of glass all over my apartment.

I suppose I haven’t had the best interactions with the Lehigh Police, but I would like to know, who has? Have they ever helped anyone in trouble or have they only stopped us from having fun, kept us from making jokes, and ticketed us for parking in our own parking lots?

The cherry on this hot fudge sundae came today when I picked up my precious sign from the police station. It was damaged, again with no explanation from the police. I could not even feign surprise.

The dragon

For anyone who ever needed a visual after hearing me tell about the room I slept in at my dad's place...

getting out of Chicago alive

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

I lived with my aunt and uncle in Chicago for X months* in 2007... and about 2 weeks in 2008. I was not a fan of the weather, the pizza, or the L. I happily worked for my uncle's company until I left for Los Angeles. My aunt and uncle were very unhappy when I told them in early/mid November that I was leaving 1/12/08, but my flight was booked and it was on. They were going to be away in Europe and Africa from 12/15-12/30, but I was to run the office until I went home to NJ from 12/20-1/2. I will spare you all of the horrible details of being treated like a second class citizen, and skip right to the torture.

11/16/07

Dinner time:
The issue comes up of where I will stay when my cousins come home from college for winter break. My aunt and uncle tell me that I will need to stay with a friend and rent a car when I return in January because there will not be room or a car for me. I have no problem with this.

Rental car reserved for Jan 2-10, 2008
Pick-up and drop off ORD
$237.41

11/30/07

Dinner time:
I am told that in order to save me the responsibility of locking and alarming my family's home, I will have to stay with a friend (the wonderful Courtney, who is my dad's girlfriend's daughter) when they leave for vacation. I will need to commute from downtown in order to run the office, but I will still have use of the Volvo.

12/14/07

Friday
4:00pm
I am told that I will need to rent a car effective 12/15 in order to save me the responsibility of having a car stolen or damaged in Wicker Park, where I will be staying after I am locked out of the house. This is an unexpected expense...

5:30pm

I leave work and deposit $1857.02 into my checking account.
Balance before deposit: $492.91

6:00pm
I am told it is mandatory that I am in the office on 1/2. I had made it known way back when that I planned to do birthday brunch on 1/2 with my sister, Valerie, at Bubby's Pie Co. in Tribeca before flying out that day to be back in the office 1/3.


11:10pm

Rental car reserved for Dec 15-20, 2007
Pick up and drop off ORD
$125.77

1:00am
Flight grudgingly changed after two bleary-eyed phone calls with Continental (the first lady hung up on me and almost made me cry). Now I have to fly back on New Year's Day.

$100 change fee
$120 difference in fare

12/15

Saturday: Day 1 of the 4 worst days of my life
7:25am
I get an email from my aunt when I wake up with suggestions on car rentals (the same offers I selected from the night before).

I work out, shower, pack and clean, and get every last thread of my belongings out of sight so that the home-coming college heroes will feel as though they never left.

4:00pm
My uncle insists that that there is not enough room in the taxi for my bags, which there is, so I will have to ride to the airport, pick up my rental car, drive back to the suburbs to get my bags (from the trunk of the car I am not allowed to drive in the driveway of the house in which I am not allowed to stay), and then back to the city in time to be let into my friend's apartment before she has to go out to a work dinner. I quickly (in under 30 seconds) re-pack my overnight items into one bag in case I do not have time to go back until the next day. I am so lucky to be a natural packer.

The cabby's odor makes me sick to my stomach.

The snow starts to fall.

5:00pm
We arrive at the international terminal and everyone exits the cab. Rather than being dropped at the car rental location or even the shuttle bus stop, I have to get out with them and trudge through the terminal and outside in the snow to wait for the shuttle bus.

The driver is a wealthy property owner from Hawaii and only comes to Chicago on occasion to enjoy the culture... and drive the airport shuttle? The details are blurry, but at the time, I KNOW I believed him.

I am told that my debit card has insufficient funds to pay for both the rental car and the hold required to rent a car. Coincidentally, his hold amount is almost exactly the same as the amount I debited when changing my airline ticket at 1am...

I am standing in Budget with my phone plugged into the wall because OF COURSE it is about to die. My aunt (who believed I did it my way because I didn't trust her rental car suggestions) grudgingly offers to charge the rental to their credit card. This is not allowed because the cardholder must be physically present with the physical card in order to physically rent a physical vehicle.

6:30pm
I take the shuttle back to the terminal and trudge back through the airport to find the L. I pay for my ticket in change to get rid of some of the 4lbs of coins in my bag.

We're riding along and in between losing reception, I'm trying to reach Courtney but she's not picking up... and my phone is beeping low battery. The train comes to a stop. Why? Because there is construction and we will all have to walk 3 blocks in what is now a legitimate blizzard to a bus that will take everyone to another train. I can't reach Court and my battery is just about dead, so when I eventually arrive at destination unknown, I will have nowhere to deposit my belongings or rest my weary head.

8:00pm
Finally, I hear from Court in the nick of time and meet her who knows where to get the keys. I flag down a cab and haul my soaking wet, frozen self into the backseat. On it's last dying breath, my phone alerts me to a text message from my uncle. I am allowed to use the Volvo.

9:00pm
I whine on the phone to my mom.. or cry... or whatever and then pass out for 12 hours after eating out of this world german chocolate cake from Earwax on N. Milwaukee.

12/16/08

Sunday: Day 2 of the 4 worst days of my life
11:00am
Courtney never came home, but we're supposed to go get the car and go to an Indian Temple so taht she can complete a class assignment. So I now have to find my way alone in the well below freezing morning to meet up with her and her friend so that we can then take 3 trains and then wait in 23 degree, 20 mph wind for a taxi to get to the Volvo which is covered in a foot and a half of snow. After 10 minutes, I finally have the car clear enough to grab a change of clothing and some blankets from the trunk so that we can stop the hypothermia.

4:00pm
We get to the Indian Temple somewhere south of the city and after a very interesting shoe-free tour, we eat a big pile of super cheap vegetarian Indian food.

9:00pm
We finally get back to the city and find a place to park right across the street from Court's place. We check and double check the signs to make sure that it's really legal, and then head inside with about 1,000 lbs of my stuff. I am feeling happy that I found such a close spot that I can see from the window.

I passsss out cold.

12/17/07

Monday: Day 3 of the 4 worst days of my life
7:00am
I look outside to check on the Volvo and there are NO CARS! This can't be happening, is this really happening???

So I called the parking patrol and based on where the car was parked, they can tell me that it was on a snow route and was taken to impound lot 7 or whatever. I ask them how I can get the car back, and the answer is pretty much the exact opposite of anything you would ever want to hear at that moment. The converstation went something like this:
How can I get the car back?
Are you the owner of the vehicle?
No, I'm their niece.
Is your last name the same as the owner's last name?
No.
Well we need the owner to release the car to you.
Oh my god, thats impossible, the owner is in Europe on vacation for two weeks.

So I go on to find out that the only way I can have the car released to me is:

A-Get a letter from the owner stating:
my name
their name
the make model, year
plate #, VIN #
and that they release the car to me.

B-this letter must be signed and notarized

C-pay the charge for towing and storage in cash
$150 + $10 for the first 3 days and then about $50 a day after that.
The $30 parking ticket comes later.

Well what am I going to do? I have to get to the office, so again, I take 3 trains and then a taxi to my family's house... clear off and steal their other car, call my mom and completely break down crying, and finally make it to the office.

10:00am
Like any normal human being, the next thing I think to do is look for booze. I found vodka and champagne, and was only barely able to control my burning desire to be drunk. I had important things to do first. I found a copy of my uncle's driver's license, vehicle registration information, and even ownership documents. I put this together with my pay stubs showing that I work for the same company, and some mail with my name and my family's address. And I write up a letter.

10:30am
I get the call. My uncle. He wants to know where I've been, because I am two hours late to work. I tell him that I've had a kind of disastrous morning, but that I'm here now and I'm working. He wants to know why my morning was so bad. I ask him if I can tell him later. No, he wants to know if something happened to the car. Again, the crying. He hands the phone off to my aunt who is asking me what has to happen, and I can hear my uncle shrieking in the background.

So my aunt tells me to write a letter, sign her name, and ask the notary in the office down the hall to notarize it for me. So that's what I did. Then I work all day, and in between getting yelled at and crying and being given the same spreadsheet to reformat 10 times in a row and crying some more, all I can think about is getting drunk.

At some point maybe I eat a bagel from the office freezer but food is definitely not at the top of my list right now.

5:30pm
Finally, it's time to leave and I am SO ready to be drunk. I take my champagne in its shiny gift bag and the vodka in another, I'm wearing two pairs of socks, pants, boots, a down jacket and a northface shell, two hoods, and gloves and I drop the other car back off at their house.

I am really feeling like a homeless person at this point because I'm walking the streets with all the clothing I have, bags of booze, I haven't really eaten at all, I certainly haven't showered since Saturday, and once I get to the station and get on the train, I still don't know where I am going.

So, I'm freezing my ass off waiting for that train... it's about 15 degrees now because the sun is down. I'm like, what can I do to keep warm? I know, I can act like a complete and utter lunatic and run laps around the Kenilworth train station. So I do that for about 4o minutes until the train comes.

I decide that it's only costing me $10 to leave the car in the pound, so better to leave it there and get hammered. It's night time and I'm a mess. Some nice guy shows me how to get from the station to the blue line, and I am on my way. I get up to Courtney's and I make the announcement that we are drinking tonight.

And we drink and it is fantastic. It is everything anyone ever wanted drinking to be
It's pure joy, just lovely, this must be what heaven is like.
Smoke the hookah... eat 3 bites of some delivery and pass out.

12/18/07

Tuesday: Day 4 of the 4 worst days of my life
7:00am
I'm feeling a little wobbly as I make my way to the bathroom and I'm wondering if I'm maybe still a little drunk. I know that the answer to that question is without a doubt, yes, when I find myself washing the front of my hair with shampoo over the sink. Somehow I got directions to the impound lot, which is in an area of town I have never been to, and I set out to find it.

It took me 2 trains, 1 bus, and 1 mile of walking in a bad area where no one shovels their sidewalks. When I finally get to the pound, the woman on the other side of the counter tells me that they can't release the car to me because the letter is not from the owner of the car, it's from his wife.

At that point I don't know what to do. That's not like, I don't know what to do to solve this situation, that's like, I don't know how to blink, I don't know how to move, I don't know how to speak. If breathing weren't involuntary functions, I probably wouldn't know how to do that either. I have no idea where I am, I have no idea how to get to the office from here.

I'm just staring at this lady with my mouth hanging open. Finally I manage to tell her that I don't know what to do. She says that I need to go get another letter... if only it were that easy. I tell her that I needed to see the supervisor. It took about two hours of finagling and this poor lady even had to talk to my mom on the phone, but finally she decided that she was going to do whatever it took to get me that car.

Now, just so you know, there are signs in that little trailer that let you know that you are being recorded on video and audio tape. This supervisor lady pulls me close and says to me, come in the back so that they can't hear us. So she takes me into a room and tells me the plan.

This is what we're going to do.
You're going to white out "my husband," so that it just reads:
Vehicle belonging to "Uncle's Name"
Then you're going to sign his name
Fax it to the notary, and have her fax it back.
Then I'm going to give you the car.
You better not be a reporter.

So that's what we did. And I got the car back. I would have written her a love letter but I didn't want there to be any evidence that she was breakin the law, breakin the law.
And then I went 10 minutes in the wrong direction and sat in traffic for a while.
And I ignored a few "unavailable" phone calls (presumably international).

12:30pm
I stopped at the store to get some coffee and flowers for the notary who totally broke the law twice for me.

4:30pm
I forwarded the phones to my cell and left early. There was nothing left to do because I finished it ahead of schedule, and Courtney and I wanted to go to a museum and dinner. We went to Quartino, which I highly recommend for first dates and pre-gaming with friends.

10:00pm
I find a legal parking spot around the corner from Courtney's apt, and I call the police to make sure it's legal. Then I go into the bar on teh corner to make sure it's legal. Then I call city information to make sure it's legal. So far so good.

I pack up all my stuff for my trip home and set it by the door.

1:00am
Totally and completely drained, I go to bed around... but I only sleep for about 2 hours. I wake up and I'm freaking out thinking I might die because I'm seeing this white light like a lighthouse beam in both eyes and it wont go away whether my eyes are open or closed.

3:00am
I call my mom, she is not too pleased that I am calling her repeatedly at 5 in the morning, but she's my mom, so she tries to calm me down.

4:30am
I write this email to my aunt:

Right now I can't sleep because I'm scared that I might die tomorrow because of all the bad things that have happened. Also, both of my eyes are very itchy, and ive never had pink eye so I don't know if I have it. I might need a number to a doctor in case I have to go there during lunch. I do remember where Evan's dr is, but they probably don't see new 25 year old patients afflicted with temporary hypocondria.
Maybe you could call me if you get this soon? I'm hoping to fall asleep, but I'm not sure that's happening. If you can't, we will be in touch later.
Thanks

12/19/07

Wednesday
6:30am
I get up, dressed and take all my things outside. I'm walking down the street and I can see the corner... and I can see partway down the block. And there are no cars. And I can see more... no cars, and just as im about to lay down in the middle of the road (not that there are any cars at this hour), I see the beautiful Volvo all alone, just where I left it. The relief is overwhelming.

So I lug my stuff over and load it into the car.

7:30am
I am in the office with starbucks and headed down to the gym for a mini-workout to get my blood flowing and then, hurray, my first shower since SATURDAY! Unbelievable... the warm water felt so good on my dirty, tired, perpetually cold and worn out body.

12:00pm
Get car washed to remove impound lot markings
Call doctors office for emergency xanax prescription in order to get myself on an airplane.
Drop car back in aunt and uncle's driveway, taxi back to office

5:30pm
I finally lock up the office and bring my bags down to the taxi that is taking me to the airport. We stop at CVS so that I can get my Rx, then we stop at whole foods so that I can get some food, finally.

6:30pm
I get to the airport and find out that my flight is delayed, so I pop a pill and wash it down with a beer at one of the airport bars. When I finally get on the plane, there is a strange noise and the captain gets on the mic and announces that in case we hear or see anything funny, it's just that they are going to have to start the left engine with some machine and then start the right engine from the left. But don't be alarmed.

UM, are you serious? I'm alarmed. I'm up and out of my seat and asking this flight attendant how common that is and all kinds of other questions. She's finding this pretty annoying until I tell her that I've just had the worst week of my life and I'm afraid I'm going to die. Then she gave me a pep talk like none other about being a stronger person and learning and growing and having faith. So I sat back down and I let them take me home to New Jersey in their machine-started plane with a broken-sounding engine.

New ticket $179.40