October 30, 2007 by Dave.

I’m sick today. I even called in sick from work, which I almost never do—seriously, it’s got to be like pneumonia before I consider not going to work. But today I was laid out. Party it was my fault: I slept with the window open and it got to about 32 last night. Not good. But actually I think it already exacerbated my condition from events yesterday.

Yesterday morning I got into an accident driving Sophia to school. We were driving up Route 2 past Alewife station as we always do. Traffic wasn’t too bad since we were moving at least 20-25 mph. Sophia asked me a question. The car ahead of me looked well ahead of me and I glanced at Sophia for a moment. I looked back on the road and the SUV was right in front of me (literally). I think I hit the SUV and the brakes simultaneously, but the hood of my car was crumpled in by their tire rack. Sophia starts crying, so I put the car in park to look after her. She was fine, just snagged by the seatbelt—which is what it’s supposed to do. I got out of the car and the only thing wrong with her car was a small red reflector on the right back side. Meanwhile my front hood looks like a pup tent. I went to the other car to see the other driver and try to exchange information. She was already on the phone when I got there (she apparently called the police immediately after she was hit). I waited for her to get off the phone and tried to look for a pen.

Now not to get too far off topic, but here’s another reason to hate Mass-hole drivers (all you Massachusetts residents know what I’m talking about and some know who you are). Our cars are stopped in the middle of the right lane of the road not on the shoulder, meaning we’re blocking traffic. One of the first things I did was turn my blinkers on to get people to go around us. Rush hour traffic passes right around us and keeps moving by. On the other side of the median, some woman (forgive me if I use the term loosely) stops her van (a real delivery van of some sort), leans out of the window and starts yelling at me that I need to move the cars over to the shoulder because we’re blocking traffic. I mean, there’s a woman in the SUV on the car phone saying something in her neck popped, my daughter’s freaking out, I’m in shock and this bitch is holding up traffic to yell at me to stop blocking traffic. I mean WHAT THE FUCK!

The local police showed up to move things along, a fire truck comes over to help the woman into an ambulance, and a state police trooper gets all our information for a crash report. I’ve never been in an accident like this (where my car is actually crunched up or someone was hurt), so I have no idea what to do other than get information and wait to see what’s going on. I ask the fireman if she was seriously hurt, but he gestures to me like “don’t worry it’s nothing”; so that was comforting. The statie gives me the lowdown of having to go get and fill out a crash operator report and the time I have to deal with insurance.

I’ve been in shock pretty much since then, but even more throughout the course of the day. My front grill is smashed in, but the only thing I can think to do is get Sophia to school. I do that okay, though nothing seems to be leaking. I drive back home to call Susan to get her to pick up Sophia and let he know what happened. Susan was freaked out but even more so about having to go pick her up that day on the bus. I tried to explain how bad the situation was but that just got her more panicked. So I had to pick up Sophia and then take the car to the mechanic and then take the bus to work. Before any of that I had to pick up a crash operator report form the police station. Doing that I knew the engine was overheating, which meant there had to be a radiator problem. I got two bottles of coolant, poured half of one into the car and drove off to pick up Sophia. I got to the school and poured the rest of the coolant bottle in before going upstairs to actually get Sophia. Getting Sophia back home was fine, having to deal with Susan’s “Oh, lovely” about the car when I got there wasn’t. After that I drove to the water park in Belmont, filled the radiator with another half bottle of coolant and made my way to my mechanic. He said I had to take the thing to a body shop. Actually the first thing he asked was if I was doing this through insurance; I said yeah, thinking I was at the time. He recommended a place nearby and my car just made it there. The guy looked at the car and said told me that this would be nearly two grand in work. Also that if I was going to my insurance, get the adjuster to come to him because they can work out a deal so the title will stay clean.

I still had to get to work, so I had to catch a bus. I check my cell and I got a phone message from my insurance company. It was just 3:00 pm and the accident happened at about 9:15. The woman in the SUV wasted no time to call her insurance company. Since I’m not that great at talking on my cell phone in a moving vehicle simultaneously, I waited to get to the office to make any calls. I call the insurance woman back and she tells me something I didn’t realize: I didn’t have collision insurance. I had the mandatory insurance to cover damage and injury to the other vehicle, but nothing to cover me and my car. So now I’m suddenly paying for the car repairs out of my own pocket. I called the guy back and told him the news. He said he’d write up an estimate to see how much it would cost. He called me this morning and told me the total would come to $1,200. That pretty much capped off my cold.

I had enough cash to make a $300 down payment, which cushions the a $1,200 hit to my credit card. I’m paying much more for the repair than I did for he car. However I’d like to keep this car for a while. It’s in good shape and not a total beater. Plus the cost to the wallet could have been higher. So I’m biting the bullet on this one. And it could have been a lot worse conclusion too.

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October 30, 2007 by Dave.

The last few days I’ve been doing something I haven’t done in quite some time: reading some of the articles on TomPaine.com. At its best, TomPaine.com is a progressive critique of the news and media that isn’t being heard in major media channels. At it worst, is a liberal political web site aimed at trying to cut through the white noise of the conservative blogosphere. It’s a pretty good site and the articles are helpful to the debate on national issues. The thing is I haven’t been to the site in quite a while.

Part of any depression is a disinterest in things that you were once passionate about. It seems like for the longest time, I was so angry and so out of it that I shut down and didn’t want to get into any arguments about anything. As such, I wanted little to do with politics. I can’t say I don’t want anything to do with it; it’s way too engrained in my psyche for that. But there’s a point where if I heard too much about something I’d either go off or crawl into a corner. As such I stopped reading the liberal blogs and tried to soothe my soul with internet poker or porn.

I only noticed a couple of days ago that I was visiting the site again, reading up on editorials and op-ed blogs on a few topics like child health care and intimidation tactics of the far right wing. I hadn’t realized I was doing it, kind of like I didn’t notice how much time I was spending playing Omaha Hi/Lo online. Except this was a good way, not a way to avoid all that’s going on in my life. I’m not sure I feel completely myself these days, but I at least feel closer to it than I have in a while.

Final Note: Thanks to all those who dispensed medical advice to me as to what anxiety and/or sleeping pills to take. So far some of the over the counter sleep aids are helping. I’m not looking to get back on anti-anxiety stuff again right now.

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