Regina Noctis

Got up early. It was time for the regular service for the 300. We took it in yesterday, and I was picking it up this morning before heading to class.

Got my art supplies into the car, headed out of town, hit the highway to Bakersfield.

When I was getting toward my exit from the highway, I saw stuff scattered all over the road. The stuff appeared to be something like small girders or something. Goodish metallic bars, anyway. There were three in the fast lane, where I was. I avoided them, and then got out of the fast lane, since I saw no other debris in the other lanes.

I was in the middle lane, glanced at my blind spot to make sure I could get into the slow lane so I’d be ready to exit, and when I turned back, I was on a collision course with another of those good-sized metallic bars. There was a car in the fast lane, and a semi too close in the slow lane for me to move over. The bar was lying across most of my lane. I had no way to avoid it.

BANG! BANG! And I lost control of the car. It fishtailed over to the right edge of the middle lane, then back over to the left edge, several times. I fought with it, and managed to keep it in the middle lane so I wouldn’t hit or be hit by the vehicles in the other two lanes. I was sure I was going to hit something, and it was very nearly the semi in the slow lane. But I managed to avoid that, just barely. I at least had the presence of mind not to slam on the brakes, which would have sent the car even more out of control. I just took my foot off the gas and wrestled with the car to keep it in the middle lane until I had more control.

I finally got control back, and the next semi along in the slow lane backed off the speed to allow me to get into that lane, and then over to the shoulder. I parked there, and spent the next ten minutes or so having the panic reactions I’d staved off while I was still on the road. I’m real lucky that I can lock that reaction out until a crisis is over, and THEN it’ll hit me. I don’t want to even imagine what might have happened if I’d panicked while still out of control and just beginning to drop speed from 75.

When I was a little calmer, I called my mother to let her know what happened, and then called AAA. Both tires on the driver’s side were sliced to hell, and I figured the rims were probably screwed, too.

I wasn’t the only one who’d hit the things in the road. About seven of us didn’t make it through the minefield. We were strung out along the side of the highway, everyone with tires blown and rims probably destroyed. Luckily, not one person was hurt.

The semi that had been hauling the things in its flatbed was pulled over about a quarter mile up the highway from where I stopped. He checked if everyone was okay, offered to change a tire for me (I asked him what good that would do, since I only had one spare and two destroyed tires) and then we all sat and waited for the CHP and tow trucks.

All of us who’d hit the stuff were given two options by the CHP when it finally arrived. Neither of them involved the trucking company or the driver having any responsibility for paying any of the damage. Apparently, it was on us to avoid those things once they were in the road, even in a situation like mine where there was nowhere to go to avoid hitting them, because I’d have plowed into someone else if I had tried to avoid those bars of metal. I could either take it as the equivalent of a single-person crash, like plowing into a telephone pole, and get the points on my record. Or I could take the no-crash option. I took the no-crash option to avoid the points and the rise in insurance, since taking the crash would get me nothing toward the repair.

What I should have done then was walk up to the truck and get the name of the company. I didn’t think I’d be able to walk the quarter mile up and quarter mile back. I was shaken up, my arthritis was enraged, and felt weak. I figured I’d get partway there and just collapse. I can’t recall a time that I’ve ever felt so incapacitated by my post-crisis reaction, but this was also the closest I’ve ever come to getting myself killed in something like this.

Finally, the tow truck from AAA arrived. The driver put the spare on the blown rear tire, got the car hooked up, and away we went. I’ve had my share of surly towing operators, but this guy was pretty nice. He knew I’d been sitting in the car for some time while waiting, and that I’d had a pretty significant scare, so he drove off the highway and over to a gas station with a mini mart. He told me that he was taking me there before we got back on the highway back to where I’d come from, so I could get myself something to drink, use the bathroom if I needed to, unwind for a moment away from the road. Really thoughtful, and made the whole rotten experience less rotten.

The driver and I talked pretty much the whole way home after that, told stupid driver stories, and he even got me to laugh about the whole thing a couple of times with some cyncial observations about semi drivers and CHP officers.

We got to the shop my mother’d said she wanted the car taken, we paid for the part of the tow AAA didn’t cover, and Mom took me home.

The shop just called. As I’d thought, the tires are not only sliced wide open, the rims are wrecked. They haven’t even yet gotten the car up so they can check the underside to see if there was any damage, and the total is over $800, and counting. Still, as Mom said, it’s cheaper than buying a new car, no one was hurt, and accidents happen. I’m in the midst of the guilts right now, as if I should have avoided the crash, even though I know that I had no way to do so. I’ll get over that. I always have this reaction, no matter how unavoidable the situation was.

When I got up this morning, I got up early to get the car out of the dealership where it’d been getting its service. Three hours later, I was being towed right past that same dealership. I’d said before I got on the road that I kind of wished I didn’t have to go to school today, because I was feeling a little tired. Guess I should be careful what I wish for.

The music that was playing at the moment of the crash seems like strange synchronicity. Feuer Frei by Rammstein was on, and I blew those two tires just after a round of BANG! BANG! in the song.

There was a time that I would update this thing five or more times a day, several days a week. Obviously, that time is long past.

I have an excuse. I’m in the midst of a love affair. Everyone drops off the face of the earth during the start of a love affair, don’t they?

This is an old love that I have returned to, almost like new. It’s wonderful, ecstatic, blissful. And has nothing to do with any person other than me. You see, I can draw and paint again. After nearly twenty years, with a hand that had been too badly injured to truly do artwork any longer, this thing was completely unlooked-for. A basic drawing or figure drawing class is a requirement of the degree I’m after, and I was dreading the struggle, the physical pain, the way the injured joints locked at the worst possible times. I gave up even doing much doodling or sketching, and generally tried not to write much by hand, for years.

But then I took a history class on Middle Eastern civilization, and it involved an insane amount of note-taking, and every test not only had long multiple choice, but lenghty essay questions. Not only did I manage to take notes (with, admittedly, help from a tape recorder because I still can’t write all that fast, so the tape helped me fill in gaps), but I generally managed to rip off six page essays in about half an hour. This would have been impossible when I dropped out of college the first time thanks to the hand injury. So I thought, “Well, maybe I can…” and signed up for a basic drawing class this semester.

Not only can I draw again, but retraining the reflex loop from eye to brain to hand has been proceeding fast. I’m not quite where I was when I had to quit, but I’m not all that far away after half a semester. In some areas, I’m even showing improvement. I never used to be better than indifferent at charcoal work, but I’ve done several things that I’m very proud of in this class so far. I don’t tend to trot out just everything I ever do to show to everyone, but there are a few things I wish I could scan to show folks. Best I’d be able to do is a detail, though. We’re working large – something else I was never good at. Most of what we do is on 18″ by 24″ drawing paper. The best my scanner would be able to manage would be legal size.

When I have rare bouts of free time, I’m working in watercolor so I can start getting some of that skill back as well. When I’ve gotten more comfortable with painting, I’ll get back to acrylics, which was the bulk of my work when painting.

Belated thanks to for the birthday wishes. I meant to say so earlier, like on the day itself, but Saturday was spent celebrating and spending birthday money, Sunday was spent playing too much Sims 2 now that I got another expansion pack. And the rest of the time has been drawing and drawing and drawing, because I can. Finally, after all this time, I can. I thought it was gone for good. I’m so thrilled that I was wrong. May be one of the few times in my life that I want to sing and dance because I was wrong.