I got up early. Jesse got up early as well. He went to play golf, which I knew would eat the whole day, so I went to photograph a house, got harassed by the owner, came home, emailed the photos, and left again to hit up the Ikea summer sale.
Now, on the way? What a good time! I hate to drive, but I've got the Ricky Gervais podcast going and I'm lol'ing so hard there are tears in my eyes. Poor Karl Pilkington takes so much abuse on that show, that I cannot comprehend how he has not off'd himself. If he did off himself, just before doing so, it seems entirely likely that he would first make two outrageously bizarre and perplexed statements. The first would send Ricky Gervais into such gales of screeching laughter that he would not hear the second. After the laughter died down a bit, Steve Merchant would then incredulously repeat the second statement of Karl's, sending Ricky Gervais into another fit.
Even Monkey News (and I am known for my lack of fondness for monkeys (the animal, not the band; love the band, but I digress) has got me howling. In short, I'm having the best time driving that I've ever had. So, I get to Ikea and I've just begun the summer sale drive around (the one where you hope you don't have to park in the Mexican Restaurant lot and then walk all the way to Ikea, but it sure looks like you'll have to since apparently nothing else on Long Island, including fucking, eating, drinking or sleeping has ANY appeal over an Ikea summer sale, so, that's where everyone is. Now, Ikea has (wisely?) planted a long hedge along one portion of the parking lot so that you have to inch past it to see if it's safe to pass across that lane. So, I'm at the hedge, I inch a bit, I'm stopped and WHAM. Some asshole clips the front of my car going ridiculously quickly, particularly for being in a parking lot.
Now, it's quickly approaching 85 degrees and 1000% humidity, and my car is almost ten years old, so the AC isn't the best, and I've been wheezing most of the way there anyway (and the podcast isn't helping) but when I got hit, I was instantly in full blown bronchospasm. I mean, I cannot breathe at all. So, I'm parked in the middle of the lot, but not in a space, absolutely enraging everyone around me, and I'm not breathing. However, I decide that everyone else can blow me. I've just been hit by a car, and if ever there's a time when it's ok to block traffic and take a breather, this is the time. So I'm trying. I'm looking for my xoponex, but I'm a little short bus, and I don't HAVE my xoponex. All I have is albuterol which tends to send me into V-tach. However, that's a longer term problem than suffocating, so I'm puffing away. Between the car accident adrenaline, and the albuterol, I'm feeling like the guy in Crank (which, coincidentally, we'd just watched the night before and is not as terrible as you might think.) This is the point at which I step out of the car, and the guy who hit me comes over and starts screaming at me. "What the fuck is wrong with you! You're in the middle of the road! I'm not fucking paying for this!" I ask him to please calm down and more fuck shriek ensues. I tell him that I'm clearly not in the middle of the road, and that if I were in the middle of the road, he'd have broad sided me, instead of just clipping the front of my car. He yells that he didn't hit me. I mentally note a possible new law of physics that allows objects which are merely NEAR one another to cause damage due to friction, but do not inform the yeller of my findings. I'm actually getting a little bit scared of this guy, who's getting closer and louder. Now he's screaming at me for my information. I say, ok, hold on a second, and I'll get a pen and paper and he's ENRAGED at that wait. "I WANT YOUR INFORMATION, YOU'D BETTER GIVE IT TO ME!" I tell him I'm working on it (but, honestly, I'm afraid to turn my back to lean into the car.) Then some Ikea workers come by to ask if I'm ok, and they linger, so I tell them, thank you for asking, no, not really, I'm having a pretty bad athsma attack and this guy just hit me. I get my info and write it down for the guy who walked away when the Ikea people came by. When I get out of my car, for a moment, I can't find the guy (he'd moved his car) and I'm almost convinced that I've imagined this incident. After a moment, I do see him, so I get my cell phone (which magically, for the first time ever, has great reception) and I call 911 to report the accident. I'm a grownup. This guy is clearly not going to accept fault and just leave, I have good insurance, and I don't need his shit, so I figure I'll just do the accident report like a good citizen and move on with my day as quickly as possible. When he comes over, I hand him my information (which is on this awful pink paper from a pad that came with a stocking stuffer years back. It makes my innards cramp just thinking about it) and then tell him I'm on the phone with the police, they should be there soon. While I'm still on the phone with the 911 operator, he goes ape AGAIN. Why did I call the police! You don't have to call the police! What the fuck is wrong with you?! etc. etc. It continues on like this. Finally, I say to him, "Thank you so much for asking if I'm alright, and for making this stressful moment in both of our lives so very pleasant." This doesn't calm him down at all. When the officer (who is really very nice, go Nassau County PD!) shows up, I move my car, he writes the report. While he does so, I ask the guy for his information, which he doesn't want to give me! I'm asking for his name and phone number, and at first he tells me the officer will give me that information, he has all of his paperwork, so I say, "you're telling me that you don't know your name and phone number? Do you really want to live in that world?" He says "why, do you want to go out or something?" Now I'm actually happy Jesse isn't there, because he'd be in jail. The asshole finally gives me his information, while yelling, but I feel safe at this point because I figure that if he gets seriously out of control, I'll at the very least get to see a tasering. At some point, I told the asshole that for the good of mankind, he might want to look into sterlization. When the officer gave me the police report (and not the two tickets that he could have for 1) having a WAY overdue inspection, and 2) only having my last set of insurance papers and not the current ones) he mumbled "PLEASE have that car inspected, ok?" And I yessir'd him on that one (and I really will this time, because jeez, it's $40, I should really do that) and upon seeing the report, saw what all the fuss was about. Apparently, the asshole was driving MOMMY'S car. Driving it too fast, and recklessly, in a parking lot, and got himself a nice scrape in the paint and two dings on a rim. So fear of mommy explained all of the yelling. Explained, but not excused, because GROW A PAIR. You f'd up, man, that doesn't mean you get to yell at me. And no, not in the whole time, did he ever ask if I was ok, which, somehow, bothered me the most.
Shaking like a leaf, I hit up that summer sale and bought two chairs for the deck, timers for my fish tank, blinds for the front hall, a new pot for my lithops, a replacement for my super amazingly swank measuring cup that I'd broken a few months back, among other things. I called my mom while waiting at furniture pick up and she told me to stop by my aunt's on the way home. Usually I'd skip that, but it was coming up on 3pm, and I'd eaten and drunk nothing at all, not even a birth control pill, so free food and feet in the pool seemed like a good plan, and that is what I did.

I got home at about 8. Jesse was passed out on the couch and I had to pee so I did a silent dash to the bathroom and I'm in there just long enough to become indisposed when the doorbell rings. It's Jesus friend! Wtf? So that nap I was dreaming about flies off and then we're hanging out with Jesus for a while. It's incredibly uncomfortable. The amount of self censor that goes into talking with a person like this is exhausting. He's preaching in the Bronx now, helping disadvantaged kids, and sleeping out there 4 nights a week until he goes and does the two years in the seminary. Talking to someone who is devoting their entire life to something that to you, is the equivalent of a purple unicorn causes enough cognitive dissonance to create a massive headache. It really does, and that is exactly what happened. After he left, we watched Tideland, which wanted to be the most bizarre and fucked up thing I'd ever seen, but really wasn't, and we went to bed with the AC on. I can't recall most of Sunday. There was food shopping and loafing. There was a Paul Rudd movie and bread for dinner. There were no naps.
Today, they are finishing the wall, and the paths. They are doing the cobblestone and I may go out and landscape for a while. I need to do hair. I need to do a lot of things. I need DHL to come, and I need to breathe.

I got home at about 8. Jesse was passed out on the couch and I had to pee so I did a silent dash to the bathroom and I'm in there just long enough to become indisposed when the doorbell rings. It's Jesus friend! Wtf? So that nap I was dreaming about flies off and then we're hanging out with Jesus for a while. It's incredibly uncomfortable. The amount of self censor that goes into talking with a person like this is exhausting. He's preaching in the Bronx now, helping disadvantaged kids, and sleeping out there 4 nights a week until he goes and does the two years in the seminary. Talking to someone who is devoting their entire life to something that to you, is the equivalent of a purple unicorn causes enough cognitive dissonance to create a massive headache. It really does, and that is exactly what happened. After he left, we watched Tideland, which wanted to be the most bizarre and fucked up thing I'd ever seen, but really wasn't, and we went to bed with the AC on. I can't recall most of Sunday. There was food shopping and loafing. There was a Paul Rudd movie and bread for dinner. There were no naps.
Today, they are finishing the wall, and the paths. They are doing the cobblestone and I may go out and landscape for a while. I need to do hair. I need to do a lot of things. I need DHL to come, and I need to breathe.