21 May 2007 - 1:21 pm

Well, the weekend began, and there were errands to run, and I just was feeling, a little purposeless.

Like, what the hell am I doing with this life of mine? There seems to be no point to it, because I have no goal I am trying to achieve. So I felt morose.

So I did what I have found comforts me, after watching more avant garde movies of the 1920s and 1930s (a two disc set through Netflix), and went for a drive.

Errand to run in Marina del Rey, drove there. Had my newspaper for the day, and a new Dwell magazine, I went to get my coffee. My favorite coffee place on the West side opens at noon, so I had to time it right.

Coffee in hand, I drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard, and wandered. I was on my way to Silver Lake. I was thinking of breakfast. But by the time I found a parking spot, I had passed by several blocks where I wanted to go, so I just kept on driving. And found myself next to the reservoir. I sat in my car and read and drank my coffee. And found a listing for 2 lots for sale on Glendale Boulevard, for a mere $179k. Hunh, I thought, I should go check that out. So off I drove again, and then

my car started acting up, steaming up on the inside. Steam, hot, heat, and on my foot. Ow. I stopped, looked under the hood, and found my coolant reservoir empty. Empty. Completely no nothing in it. I read my manual to confirm, and it said add some water when no coolant is available. Fine, will do. Did. Hot, heat, steam, on my foot, immediately. Inside of the windshield steaming up massively. Do it again. Same result. 2 liters of water, the engine temperature guage flashing at me, I could drive about 20 blocks at a time.

It was a hot day Saturday.

I was extremely frustrated.

Didn't I just get my car "fixed?" Didn't I tell the last mechanic to fix anything obvious that needed repair? And he didn't notice the battery was about to go? Don't they have machines to test the amount of cell life on batteries? Don't they have diagnostic machines to tell you what needs twiddling? Surely he could have told me there was something wrong with my coolant system. But he didn't. And here I was frustrated again.

The one thought that was running through my head was how much this sort of thing going on in my life right now, how much I can't do this by myself. If only I had someone to call, to come rescue me, to fix things, or whatever. Even barring that, just having someone to come home to, after a long frustrating day like today, would make it all so much more bearable. Or someone to come home to to have sex with, and work all the frustration out of my body. That would be good.

I couldn't think of a person to call for help. My roommate was at work, and what could she do, she has no car. My friend Carol was presumably with her boyfriend, and what could she do, she had no car. This is where extended network, living in a community where your family lives, would be a good thing. I thought of my parents, and if only we lived near one another. But we don't.

I had already texted Mr. Electricity earlier that morning, and hadn't even received a response from him concerning something positive, why would assume if I called now he would answer? The worse thing is, he was probably in the same vicinity as I, his girlfriend he's not fond of living in Atwater Village, them going to breakfast out in Silverlake, Eagle Rock, that neck of the woods.

I would wait for the day to cool down, see if I could drive home later.

Marie called. She hadn't left town yet, still had her errands to run in Hollywood and Beverly Center, she would come get me. I kept saying why bother, I would just wait until the sun set, I was fine, and she kept telling me not to be hysterical, she was trying to help. I thought about it later, I wasn't hysterical. I was pissed. I was livid. If I had been hysterical, there would have been crying involved, automatically. She kept telling me to stop yelling at her, she was trying to help. She couldn't fix my car, and I had just paid a lot of money to fix it, twice, in the preceeding 4 1/2 months, I was just incensed.

What have I done lately that I have been so deserving of all this bad karma of late? What?

Marie came and picked me up, and we went to Hollywood and got her a new belly ring. We went to Cedars-Sinai and picked up something a friend had for her there. She drove me back to my car. It had probably cooled down for a good hour or two. My temper had cooled down considerably, I was able to laugh again, and here I got to see Marie, who was on vacation in LA, just for fun, and I got to see her before she headed back to San Diego. She pointed it out it may well have been the gods conspiring to make us see one another, because otherwise, both of us had been feeling too unmotivated to bother actively meeting up. (I was passively driving in the vicinity in the hopes I might run into her, or she would consent to lunch or something, but that passive plan went out the window when the car started acting up.)

I knew where I was trying to get to, a mechanic my carpooler had mentioned he took his 1996 Jetta to himself, before he started having more difficulties with his car than he wanted to spend on it. Since ours are identical yeared cars, we have had many of the same problems, which has been good, I've been able to get estimates as to what are reasonable costs of repair when he fixed his car.

Yes, I have Triple A, but in the City of Angels, towing is only good for 7 miles. Silly me, I had driven farther than my allotted seven mile radius. Without leaving city limits.

I began angling for the freeway, but the more I thought about it, I decided surface streets would be better for continued random pulling off. Down Wilshire, heading West.

The steaming I had figured out how to control by turning various nozzles this way and that, as recommended by my owner's manual. Since my air conditioning sounded and smelled like it was trying to be on when the troubles had begun, the A/C that hadn't worked in the last four years probably because I use it so infrequently, I had all vents open as if the air conditioning were on.

But now, there was a smell, of burning something. It smelled like paraffin to my nose. And the check oil light was coming on.

That's when I called it quits. Time for a tow. No need to damage my car unnecessarily just to get within the seven mile radius. I was definitely closer than when this mess had started. So it had been worth the effort, not necessarily the time.

The sun was setting when we began our journey back to West LA. A day without purpose had filled infinitely to be a day literally without any purpose. I hadn't even eaten anything all day, perhaps furthering my distraughtness.

Yes, I handled the situation, the car is now at a shop that I feel it will get qualified and expert care, but still, in the back of my head, I still would like to have had someone to come home to who could have hugged and held me, and told me the obvious of it would get better.

Mr. Electricity had finally called back when I was tooling about with Marie, seven hours after my initial text. I never did get an answer to my question, as it was now moot with the car out of service.

It had been:

"I miss you. May I come visit tonight?"

He asked could he do anything and I laughed, the thought of asking for sex running through my head, the influence of my time with Marie. "You could come up here tonight after you get off work." I suggested. "No can do," was the reply, "I have to be at work at 4 tomorrow for a charity event. If I didn't have to be at work so early, I would love to hang out with you in LA."

But I knew that was a lie. It wouldn't have mattered if work started at 6:30, like it was that day, him calling me fifteen minutes before he went in, or if he didn't have to work at all, the thought of him expending effort to come see me was not in his thinking. Not now. Seeing a girlfriend in nearby Atwater Village perhaps was, but not West LA.

Whatever. You love who you love, and you get what you get. And all that desperately needs to change, along with me saying, "This year can't possibly get any worse, right?" 2000 and 7, the ultimately worst year of my life, so far. So here goes, happy face on: "This year is simply going to get better from here on out." Because it simply has to, that's why.