I went to get my oil changed today, and a hundred dollars later I drove away feeling like I must be a mechanic's worst nightmare. It's hard for me not to treat any mechanic like a swindler. Today I called the guy at EZ Lube a "hustler." The word just came out of my mouth. This guy ("Jay") is just going along his business and then I come along and the next thing he knows he's being called names by me because I don't know anything about brake fluid.

Just for today, I can look at my car issues.

I was in a road rage on my way to yoga today, and on my way home after yoga. However, for that 1 1/2 hours I was as peaceful as a song bird (which, I'm assuming, are peaceful creatures and that's why they sing...if not, then I was as peaceful as...an elephant?). My apologies to the limo driver who kept stopping at cross streets that had no stop sign. Sure, you were holding up traffic and confusing me, but that was no reason to honk my horn and act out all my frustrations on to your ears. I was suffering from the rude aggressive mania that comes on me when the stars are aligned with my hormones in a special way. While yoga is fabulous, it's no preventative cure for Los Angelisis. And when I have a case of it, I'm in a mad rush to get somewhere (usually nowhere really exciting...places like the post office, or Trader Joe's) FAST!.

Just for today, I'm grateful for yoga...even if it's not a cure-all.

I'm frequently criticized for a disorder known as Compulsive Neatness (I have an aversion to sand, layers of dust, and eyebrows that aren't finely pointed arches.) So, when my car got side swiped by a giant Partridge-style school bus on it's way to Burning Man yesterday, my world was traumatized in more ways than one.

The Story: I'm driving down a narrow street and a giant painted school bus is coming at me. I can't back up without hitting traffic, so I stop and hit the horn. The bus keeps coming at me like a bad dream until IT HITS MY CAR! A guy who looks about 25 with no shirt on comes out and shows me something that looks like a car insurance expiration notice. OK, so he's kind of cute in a Burning Man kind of way (but that's no excuse...). I'm in a trauma state, so I can't be entirely responsible for what passes through the mind. That is until my Burning Man Side Swiper Friend pulled out his "documentation." Not so cute. What did I do to deserve this? Where's my mom?!

The Deal: First of all, there's the old resentment towards wannabe hippies that I've had since my early years in Berkeley, California. There's nothing funny about peace, love, and understanding, so long as you have car insurance. Secondly, until my insurance gets it's act together, I have to look at my poor, injured, helpless car in it's sad state and that's VERY HARD for someone who has Compulsive Neatness (yes, I do ask people who come into my apartment to take off their shoes and that's annoying even to me).

Now, it is true that my bumper was due for some body work. I do a lot of parallel parking and some days my spatial senses function better than others (hey, that's why they call them "bumpers"!). But still...looking at the damage is a kind of torture.

Just for today, I have car sadness (although I'm grateful I didn't get hurt).

Last night I saw a car with three bumper stickers, "I Love My Pit Bull," "Trust the Godess," and "Stop the War!" (or something to that effect...). What?! Who is this person? A peace/killer-dog loving feminist? It's one of my goals in life to cover my car in bumper stickers so totally contrary to each that everyone driving behind me becomes so confused and busy filtering through their mental file cabinets of prejudices that they forget to honk in exasperation when I stall at the green light because I'm still plucking my eyebrows (shame on my lazy English-major ass for this run-on sentence!...and shame on my distracted-ass for plucking my eyebrows while driving!). Maybe my bumper sticker collage will include something like "Animals Taste Good!" (I actually saw this one), and "Eat Raw!" (though, that would be painfully obvious). Or "Well behaved women seldom make history" (my father has this on his car for reasons that still remain strange and mysterious to me) and "I Heart Explosives!" (you get the picture). The truth is, I'm secretly jealous of people who possess enough confidence in their convictions to actually glue something on their vehicle about it (do you know how hard it is to get those things off?!). Not to mention the uncool factor, bumper stickers are a total rebellion against that frosty LA materialism. Even if it is a Honda Civic that I'm looking frosty and cool inside of. Ever since Burning Man Hippy Guy side-swiped my bumper with his Partridge Family-Style School Bus and I got a new bumper out of it, I have been trying to keep my bumper pristine and have become a parallel parking Olympian...but give me a few more years and I might succumb to my bumper sticker urge.

Just for today, I can read bumper stickers.

My emergency brake (sp?) needs to be tightened. Last week, my car rolled across the street and onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street without any discernible damage. But not after I chased it through oncoming traffic along like the crazy lady that I'm becoming, along with two nice Latino men who just kept shouting "Let it go!" It was traumatizing, to say the least.

Today, I parked my car and went to make an appointment at a massage place (clearly, I need some form of relaxation). A few moments later, I had a PTSD moment where I wondered if I was going to walk back to find my car a) in a dumpster b) crashed into another car or c) right where I left it.

While I know that getting my emergency brake fixed would solve a lot of this anxiety, I must be getting something out of it...

Just for today, I can analyze my car drama.

"Your car needs more than a wash."

Hey, I didn't come here to get insulted, Mr. Car Wash Ticket Guy! Yes, I know my car is looking pretty ghetto. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I like it that way? Maybe I'm acting in solidarity with my immigrant, working-class peeps? We can't all afford to fix every little dent and scrape each time someone sends their grocery cart with the force of the space shuttle into our spot!

Ok, so I'm a little defensive. It's all looking ghetto, if you ask me. Except me, I'm not looking ghetto...just yet.

Just for today, it's time for an upgrade.

Everywhere I go in LA there are these large, shiny, metallic mechanical objects flying past me, in front of me, cutting me off....it's a relentless and horrible hindrance to quiet and a sense of peace, and, yet, I am loathe to admit that I own one of these things and use it in ways I despise.

However, my car broke down last Saturday. Just after the gas leak drama, a flu shot (that $%# gives you the flu!), day 1 sugar withdrawal, and a general The World Is Coming To An End emotional spiral. The alternator was just the symbolic representation of my alternator, and the added dent getting a new one would make in my Freelance! bank account. (I say "Freelance!" because that's how it sounds more optimistic than unemployed). So my car broke down in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant whose theme is slightly wax museum-ish rendition of Casa Blanca. It's dark and some of the pictures look like they need to be dusted, but they have fantastic flour tortillas (if you eat flour...which I don't). All I could think to do was go inside and order some shrimp ceviche. It was the least I could do for breaking down in their parking lot.

Eventually, the AAA guy towed my car to my mechanic's garage and I was left a car orphan for the rest of the weekend. Ok, I'll just say it. The idea of renting a car seemed like a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to mooch rides. Adult and responsible, but wasteful just the same.

As it turns out, I was right. Who thought being carless would be so much fun? A friend drove me to a party, another to a salsa club, another home, and my neighbor gave me a ride on her brand new Harley-Davidson to get my car (it's not just middle aged men who ride them). By the time I got my car, I was kind of bummed. What's so fun about driving around by yourself?

I have to say, Single Car Owner Syndrome is a very "white" thing. I love how Latino immigrants are natural car poolers. How many times do you see small compact cars with six white heads sticking out?

My carless weekend was yet another chink in my anti-car movement.

Just for today, I yearn to go carless.

Because I'm a grain of sand in the crapped-on, dead fish smelling beach of our once-great, now questionable nation, I can't expect to function well for for any length of time before I start to go a little Charlie Sheen in my own way. Sure, I'm not going to smoke crack and trash my employer (though, it works pretty well for him) but I do have my own special gift for screwing up my life for no apparent reason. My specialty is leaving my car lights on in broad daylight. Apparently, AAA doesn't work out of altruism (NOTE: If you help a stranded woman get her car started, you're automatically mildly hot), and so after the first ten times of calling my trusted friends (for $65 a ride), I sprung for a jump start cable. Then came the fun part: begging strangers to help me jump my car.

"Why don't you buy a new battery?" said Helpful Man.

It's not my battery, dear Sir. It's my head. Who the hell is gong to jump start my head?

I'm fine. I'm gainfully employed and well-caffinated. How does everyone else hold it together who is barely making it?

Just for today, I'm human.

When I came back from Lake Tahoe after 6 measly days away, I went into immediate Car Shock by the sheer number of cars in Los Angeles. It's eat or be eaten out here. Cut off someone else, or be cut off. I decided that I'll allow people to cut me off, but only if I do it in a way that makes them feel bad about themselves. Classic manipulation. I don't Road Assholes to know what I think of their driving, rather I want them to have an epiphany and see their behavior for what it is by the mirror of my passive aggressive driving. I think there's a martial art that does this same thing.

Process By Which Drivers Realize They Are Assholes

1) Car #1 (me) speeds up to cross lane.
2) Car #2 in left lane speeds up.
3) Car #1 slows down and goes back to first lane, but keep tires barely in the other lane. Not enough to cause an accident, but enough for the driver to say, "Whoa, I almost hit that car. I must be an asshole."
4) Car #1 driver rolls down the window and says, "May you have an existential crisis at the next light that transforms you forever."

Just for today, I can celebrate passive aggressive road rage.