The General Situation

Lichen Like I Like It

Montecito Living

The Other Prisoners Will Not Be Kind

Conscience Point

Today was not a good day. While parking by the side of the road in Connecticut, about to go on a walk in the woods, I drove our car into a tree. Adam was in the passenger seat, which made it better and worse. On one hand, I didn't have to try to explain what happened (why and/or how being another matter entirely). On the other hand, I couldn't pretend that there was a logical explanation.

The car was mostly parked; the ground was very uneven and the tree was a couple of feet ahead of us. For some reason—the tape won't rewind that far—I thought my foot was on the brake, so when the car oddly kept inching forward, I pushed the pedal harder. "What are you doing?" yelled Adam. "Stop!" I just stared in shock as the car hit the tree trunk. It's amazing how much damage you can do in two feet. The sole bright spot is that the airbags didn't deploy.

"I feel like Lizzie Grubman," I said on the way home. (Adam drove.) She was the PR chick who, in 2001, mistook the gas for the brake and rammed her truck into partygoers outside a nightclub called Consicence Point.

"At least she was drunk," Adam replied.

Indeed. If you behave stupidly for a reason—even if it's the wrong reason—you can take some solace in the fact that you had thought about it. Your decision-making was flawed; you can analyze and/or rationalize why. If you were drunk, you can blame the booze. If you do something stupid for no reason at all, however, then your mind, in the subsequent hours and probably days, but I hope not weeks, turns it over again and again, trying to grab hold of something impossibly slippery. All you have to keep you warm is that nobody was hurt and it could've been worse. In fact, as I was just about to post this, Adam said, "It was a good thing you weren't in a parking lot or you could've damaged another car, too."

P.S. This is not an invitation to broach this topic with me.

It's Been a Little Humid Lately