Monday, June 08, 2009

Okay, I've been on the phone all-day with like four diff people at State Farm. Everything started out cool—woohoo new car and all that—and is now unraveling, naturally.

Apparently, the guy who hit me is injured. So the truck hits me on the passenger side, and the impact of that caused me to spin 360 degrees and lose my shit. He ran over to me immediately and asked if I needed an ambulance. Or paramedics or whatever. When the medics came, they didn't examine him as far as I can tell. I was obviously in shock, so I don't know how they expect you to remember exactly what the fuck happened in those pivotal two seconds where I thought I—but more importantly, Wally—was finally going to bite the big one. Yes, I was thinking only of Wally's safety when I thought I was dying. I'm so selfless.

Anyway, what this boils down to is that now I'm freaking out and I lost it over the phone with this latest State Farm woman. She's throwing around numbers like $300,000 and terms like "liability exposure coverage," and, uh, I don't know what the fuck she is talking about. All I know is that I injured someone, which I feel horrible about. As if I needed any more Jewish guilt. I'm drowning in a sea of my own guilt. (Which I know how to analyze, thank you very much but that doesn't mean I know exactly how to tell my brain to cut myself a break for once. Except for running to the Klonopin bottle.) I mean, I had guilt already about the fact that Sergio at the BMW dealership isn't going to make a sale to me, when I'm sure our dog and pony show yesterday made him think otherwise. Now I'm going to be freaking out until I see this police report and can determine how badly I injured this guy. What if I really fucked him up? Maybe I am not actually so "lucky" regarding this latest foible.

So I've made an executive decision. I'm not getting a car. I'm getting a driver. It's cheaper than a car—really, I would need a ride off the beach maybe once a week or so. And I can take the onus off myself in this one department of my life.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me yesterday that I ended chemo around this time last year. My last treatment was June 16, 2008. For some reason the fact that it's been a year depresses me. Why did Dr. Laura have to go to the South of France in June? Probably because she has a thousand patients as fucked-up as me and needs a break. Understandable.

The Flood via Meridian

You know what makes a writer's life much easier? Video. Especially when it's narrated by two hilarious friends.

My friends' "i report" footage is incredible; shot from their home in South Beach on Meridian Ave. They're looking out at what was their pool. Here's a before photo of the lovely pool area.


You'll see the after in the footage.

The good news is that everything is fine, but a few more inches of water and their house, along with many others, would've been flooded. Bienvenido a hurricane season.

Here's the footage.