July 10-15, 2001 — "But she doesn't even LIKE me!"

I should probably divide this journal into three separate files. But that screams of effort. Therefore:

Of allergies and haircuts

Monday night wouldn't end. I tried to go to sleep almost immediately after getting home from work. I was exhausted and I had a headache, so I just wanted to lie down and to hope that I'd be a bit more conscious for work on Tuesday.

I went to bed at around 6:30 pm. I had slept for around an hour when midnight rolled around. I didn't fall asleep again until around 1:00 am, and I only slept until 4:00 am (when the rain and thunder and lightning started).

I stumbled downstairs to go to the washroom and ran into a barricade of kitchen chairs that my mother had set up to keep the family dog from trying to dig a hole through the carpet under my parents' computer desk. Slightly delirious, I had mostly decided that going to work would not be a good idea. But I left my alarm on, thinking that maybe I'd wake up an hour later feeling fantastic and ready for a day of commenting Visual Basic applications.

But I didn't. So I stayed home.

I managed to get caught up on all my email and to mail out a stack of Bran Van 3000 CDs. And I got my haircut, picked up some records that Pat had borrowed from me, and dropped off a couple of CDs for Johnston. I was pretty proud of myself.

And here I am on Wednesday, sitting at work with shorter hair, still a bit damp from the heavy rain that accompanied my walk to the office from the bus stop.

My sister arrived home this morning from British Columbia. (Or was it Alberta? Somewhere off to the west, anyway.) She got me a "Kill Your Television" shirt, which was nice of her. Embarrassingly, I actually sat through a few minutes of the Stone Temple Pilots interview on MuchMusic yesterday, so it would seem that my television is alive and well. (During said interview, there was much talk of the intangible greatness of At The Drive-In, with distraction being provided by ugly-looking hats, gloves, and feather boas as worn by Scott and the boys. The highlight, though, was the close-up of my biology lab partner in the front row. I'll never forget those wonderful months of higher education...)

...

After writing that last part, I returned to work. Or tried to, anyway. The further I went into Wednesday, the sicker I became as my allergies did their best to completely and utterly destroy any remaining shred of my will to live. I ended up huddled under my desk with a Kleenex box, waiting for the workday to die.

Once I got home, I went straight to sleep. I slept for fifteen hours, and I stayed home on Thursday to recover. "Akira" was playing at the Mayfair that night, so I arranged to meet up with Johnston and to see it.

And then, after the movie, there was the drive home...

On why there should be a red-light camera at Catherine and Bank

On my way home from the theatre, I was making a left turn onto Catherine Street on my way to the 417. I had advanced out into the intersection, and when the light turned red, I began to make a left turn in order to clear the intersection. A fellow in a van ran the light and totalled my car.

He was driving southbound with his wife when it happened. I remember not even seeing the driver at the moment of impact -- just the expression on his wife's face as he hit me. I managed to get the ol' '89 Honda out of the intersection, but it was clearly not drive-able; the front wheel on the right side of the car was on a 45-degree angle while the left wheel was pointing straight ahead. I put on my caution lights and stumbled out of the car, limping and unable to stop shaking.

Several witnesses gave me their phone numbers, saying that they had seen the other driver run the light. No one offered to be a witness for the other driver, and he didn't say a word to me the entire night.

The police eventually arrived and spoke to us separately. All the witnesses were gone, and the police officer spent a lot more time getting the story from the driver of the van and from his wife. The police officer gave me a ticket for making an illegal left turn, while the other driver got a ticket for going through a yellow light (which he still argued about). She told me that because I was hit, it was inherently an unsafe left turn and that I hadn't been careful enough. She claims that she will call the witnesses to hear their side of the story, but she hasn't yet. I'll check again later this week.

The officer then drove the couple who hit me to their home while I was left with a $100 tow truck bill. All in all, I'm pretty confident that I don't have a chance of getting any insurance money out of this. And after the $100 tow, the $110 ticket, and the hundreds of dollars I'm going to have to give my parents to help in paying for a new car, I'll be out at least $1000. Probably more. The officer was telling me that I should be happy that the other driver got a $180 fine, but I don't feel much better given that the van was still drive-able, and given that $110 is probably a bit more money to a 19-year-old from Richmond than it is to a couple with a house in the Glebe.

In the end, I wouldn't do anything differently if faced with the same situation again while driving (not that I'll be doing much of that anymore, if I can help it). All I've learned is that I've every right to be plenty cynical with regards to the legal system. And I'm a bit more jaded for it.

Recovering and playing soccer

Friday was mostly wasted as I fumed over Thursday.

By Saturday, I had accepted my bad luck. Andrew dropped by. We drove downtown to print up some demo tape covers for Miles Between Us, and we talked a bit about the Doublenaut Web site. Now that I'm working with Matt and Andrew on the whole Doublenaut Design thing (asks Matias: "Are you going to change the name to Triplenaut, then?"), I'm trying to get a workable design together for the site so that we can have it online within a week or two.

And finally, on Sunday, hardcore sports made for an excellent reason to stop thinking about anything related to driving (or my inability to do so without hitting or being hit by something). Andrew, Johnston, and I showed up almost an hour late, but no one had started playing because they had forgotten to bring a soccer ball. We had brought one as an afterthought, so the black shirt versus non-black shirt battle began.

(As an aside, it gets funnier every week to see how many kids are wearing black t-shirts to play sports outside in the sun. Not that I'm wearing light colours and thinking to myself how silly those dark-shirt kids are, but it's amusing to see a bunch of kids in dark-coloured band t-shirts and skate shoes getting together to play soccer for a couple of hours in the afternoon sun.)

Fun was had by all. I was referred to as 'antigreg' several times by different people, which is always a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure if it's something that I want to get used to, though...

...

And then I started work again. Now it's Monday and I'm at home and it's two hours after my bedtime. I meant to post this hours ago, but I got caught up watching "The Magnificent Seven" starring Steve McQueen. I want to be a cowboy.