It started around 4am last morning. I'd just finished talking to Geri and my new friend, Char, online. Although normally I'd go to sleep at dawn, I was trying to turn in early. I wanted to wake up at 11am and get in some practice for my driving test at 1pm.

Unfortunately my body had other plans. The insomnia just lurched on through the morning--minute after minute after minute--in a familiar way. I tried laying there, meditating, stretching, smacking my hands raw, threatening myself with abuse. Nothing. I was exhausted, but something kept pulling me back. Some subconscious part of me was anxious. My face flushed and I winced as I grit my teeth, rolling back and forth. I couldn't believe I didn't have the control over my body like I used to. Why was this happening every time something important came up? Why was my body sabotaging me like this? I tried stopping it and salvaging some decent sleep, but in the end I only napped for two hours somewhere in the middle.

Surprisingly, though, I actually felt wide awake but in that deceptive way, as if everything was far away and moving really, really slow. As usual Mom was with me and we were using Gran's car. Yup, Granny had done finally replaced them 6 month expired insurance and registrations cards with some current ones, she did.

Mom's mouth kept moving the entire time to the DMV. Her words lilted and sputtered out like pixie-dust popcorn. I kept thinking to myself, 'Shut the fuck up, please shut the fuck up, I love you, but shut the fuck up. God I'm so tired.' I know she meant well, though, and gradually my 44 oz. iced tea kicked in so I was in jolly surreal mode. It'd also rained recently so the hills were covered with a deep coat of lush green grass, dotted by large granite boulders. It was actually a deep blue, gorgeous day outside.

But I'll cut to the chase: I failed my driving test. I "had a good handle on the car," but "there just seems to be several things that either [I] don't know or [I was] just never taught." My favorite screw-up was Gran's little hint that you ideally stopped RIGHT ON the first line of a crosswalk. I'd actually believed her. Goes to show age doesn't mean much sometimes, does it?

Mom was shocked I didn't pass, so shocked that she felt compelled to complain and lecture at me all along the freeway/motorway back to the San Fernando Valley. She'd only had 3 errors her first time, she'd had driving classes and simulations at her school, she'd told me to get driving lessons but no, I'd been too stubborn and now look what it got me. As soon as I mentioned a few things about Gran (e.g. some of her little hints like above), Mom changed her tune right away and squarely put the blame on her. I love it how Mom will be giving me shit and occasionally yelling, then suddenly shift onto my side as if I could do no wrong. And I ask you: if you were already feeling bad, wouldn't you press someone's big candy red button if they liked it and it got them off your back?

Anyway, when we finally got back to Gran's house, I logged on as usual. After 4 minutes, all the phone lines in the house went dead. No dial-tone, just that staticky crackle like the firm grip of death. Mom and I were stumped.

She then checked out back. Somehow, Gran had forgotten to trim the foliage and missed this overgrown vine on the right side of the house. The thing had not only climbed up our neighbor's wall, then conquered the large wooden awning we have back there, but then defied gravity and wrapped itself tight around the telephone cable lines, so that they were only an inch apart from each other. We're talking badly insulated, megawatt juice pig conductor cables a hand apart from each other. No wonder our phone service had been wacked out for months. Mom ended up whacking the vine and somehow got her phone-line working. We felt it was somehow justified that we couldn't get Gran's phone to work at all.

With that crap done with, we made another driving test appointment and drove to get my mind-altering drugs from the post office (Vive Mexico!). Besides a new mother trying to get her baby to do tricks for doting strangers and her staring at me as if I was going to reach over and eat her child right in front of her, that went ok.

Finally it was time to go to Gran's work, drop off her car (that we were driving in), switch around to Mom's truck and go back to Scott's place in Palos Verdes. Somehow--and I'm guessing the ADHD--somehow I'd popped the trunk of Gran's car and assumed I'd moved my baggage to Mom's truck. I found out later I hadn't transferred anything. Hopefully all of my stuff is in Gran's trunk still, rather than me setting it down in the parking lot, meaning to move it to mom's truck, but spacing it out. Hey, I did that once with a 100 USD jacket that had 500 USD in cash in it, so I wouldn't put it past me.

The last leg of the day was actually pleasant. I'm not sure what friday night during 5-6pm rush hour is like for traffic around you, but it was fairly solid on the 405 along 5 lanes of traffic. Mom and I didn't care, though. We played musical chairs with radio stations to avoid DJ talk, joked around and made up stories for the poor bastards crawling along the opposite side of the highway. Sure it took 3 hours, but it was fun in a way.

Oh, and I finally got an email back from Dr. Zivago over at Mt. University, the guy who wanted to give me madd hook-ups while I worked for his lab. Even though I'd sent him a letter last week saying I was "on-call", he was wondering why it was that I hadn't started volunteering yet. Maybe he forgot about my "on-call" letter, or maybe he now has a better idea of what to do with me. I'm supposed to talk or meet with him this monday, so I get the details for whatever experiment(s) he wants me to start on. As for the job hook-ups he wanted to make for me, maybe he'll just send me to the job contacts directly. I prefer being introduced, but I guess I could give my sales pitch alone. Then again, maybe I'm counting too much on maybe's.

In retrospect, everything today seemed amusing. Sure it mostly sucked, but it sucked with a pearly-white smile.

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