I�d say the vacation started to take a turn for the ugly around P�s day-before-New-Year�s party. P had invited about 40 people over to his place in honor of a niece that was coming down to visit. The preparations were last minute and a lot of stress was bandied around, but guests started to arrive at around 8 o�clock. I�d talked with Sylph and that smoothed out most of the tension, so I was vaguely prepared to do the whole socializing with strangers thing. You have to understand: I�m from Los Angeles. Socializing with people you don't know is just not done unless you�re at a bar, club, or at a party. Well I�d went to damn few parties as a teenager, so I was feeling rusty on the grinning bullshit factor. Even so, people were amused at the right points for the right reasons when it came down to being witty/clever.

Right as the party started, though, I had to leave and pick up T and Caribbean J. P or Nick had invited them, but neither had gotten word back. I�d called up T, asked, and found out he and J were interested but lacked transportation. I figured it was only 15 minutes away and I�d seen their neighborhood�so, what the fuck, I�d pick �em up. Nick wrote out directions. P offered to do a yahoo search. I declined.

I. Really. Should. Not. Have. Declined.

I�ll make a long story short: one of the directions was written incorrectly. I drove clear out to near Nick�s Mom�s apartment before giving up on finding a freeway direction that doesn�t exist. 30 minutes late. I phoned T for help. I talked to T�s mom for directions help. I got more lost. Over an hour late. I got re-directed to a surface street. I stayed on phone and became more and more strained and on-edge, the inside of my windows completely caked with freeway grime and a heavy mist rolling in to make things worse. I could barely see the cars in front of me with my brights on. Of course I saw the cop car without its lights on. I always catch them, but I was too preoccupied trying to make sense of directions. I didn�t slow down when I should have, and sure enough this one time the fucker decided to make an example out of me. I say make an example since I was going as fast as everyone else, and I had no idea we�d suddenly gone from 45 mph to 35 mph. I�d gotten fucked well and good by a speed trap. The cop gave me a 40 in a 35 speeding ticket. I�d apparently been going 53. In retrospect he let me off easy. Still, I�m convinced if I hadn�t been on my cellphone that he�d have taken no notice in me.

Saying I was angry and panicked would be an understatement. I thought my insurance was going to go up by hundreds of dollars a year because of this one silly fuck up. I had to pull into a dark parking lot to keep myself from going nuts on the road. I tried being calm about it, but I felt devastated�devastated and in a rage. I kinda curbed the anger part before getting in contact with Nick again (since his phone hadn�t been getting my calls). He related how to get to P�s place and wished me well. On top of feeling absolutely horrible, the grime on my windshield was getting worse. I had a cracked windshield wiper fluid container, so I had no way of cleaning it off or safely getting to a gas station. All I could do was drive and silently hope I could keep on eye on the lines in front of me. I got way too close to a car at one point and saved my ass just in time. My nerves were completely frayed by the time I got to P�s. Nick gave me a hug. I needed it.

I spent the next several hours doing research on speeding tickets and taking photographs of the windshields of my car. I weirded the fuck outta of some young white svelt things while doing the latter. Finally I wrote out the entire incident as fully as I could remember and drafted up an explanation for the court. In my passes up and downstairs, Nicholas told me I shouldn�t let the ticket ruin my night. Already nuked, dead, and done, I responded. He tried again with not letting it ruin the rest of my night and how we only get so many opportunities to chill. Considering I�d gone out and gotten both lost and a ticket when (I later learned) there was no point to it at all, I wasn�t about to let go of it just yet. Eventually, though, I decided enough was enough and that getting some beer in me would be good. The party had died down to a handful of people by then. Good thing: I was too frazzled to socialize.

So with all new black boxers for the occasion, I ventured into the Jacuzzi located in the solarium of P�s house. Yeah, it�s that kinda house. Two organisms known to P were basking there. A pair they were somehow, but I�m not sure how. The guy of the pair and I ended up yaking about New Age philosophy. I�d been raised with the stuff, so I knew the lingo. This seemed to make the pair perk up mightily and get me all sorts of accolades about knowing where they were coming from. For myself, it was refreshing to talk about some of the things they were expressing. P joined us now and again in the tub after playing host. P is a philosophy prof. He�s also a hardcore Catholic. You can imagine the ensuing argument. New Age Dude tried to convince P that he was being closed-minded; P tried to convince New Age Dude that he needed to use consistent and defined terminology. I tried playing mediator since I�m familiar with both traditions of thought, but it didn�t help much. That died down after awhile, though, and New Age Dude expressed his heart-felt thanks to me for relating to him and his female friend/accomplice/person. He held my hand for 10 minutes in a shaking position while telling me these things, and I smiled in the usual �been here, done that, glad I can make life a little less lonely� way. He wanted to keep in touch. He gave me his card. I will keep the card in my wallet because it is red and pretty. As for them, I make it a personal policy not to stay in touch with people I make sudden and violently close connections with. In my experience what needed to be exchanged was already exchanged.

After more conflict, I went to bed on my aero mattress. It was squishy and reminded me of a plastic meadow.

Stay in touch for the next installment�

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