Procrastination leads to some weird thoughts. My most pensive mood comes under stress, and especially on Sunday nights when I have the most work to do for Monday. Right now I am taking a break from my half finished Shakespeare Project (making a Newspaper relating to Much Ado About Nothing), and my unthoughtof Physics lab report. That's about 5 hours of work, give or take two.
I went downstairs to get ready for the night with some espresso (apricot hinted...mmmmm) and I decided to lie on the floor of the foyer where the ceiling is at its highest. I looked up and my mind drifted to a gothic cathedral, specifically the Reims Cathedral in, you guessed it, Reims, France. Those ceilings are so damn high, I thought, and it would be so great to have my own. I could lie down, much like I am doing now, and feel the cold stone under my back as I gaze at the amazing feat that a gothic cathedral is. It would be as big as Notre Dame, but it will be mine. No, that's selfish. I'll let people in, but I want this place to be about awe, not religion. I'll let them in on Mondays through Saturdays, but Sundays are for stress relief. I will close it then so that I can do what I have wanted to do without any judgement by others; I will finally be able to lie down in the center aisle without any awkward looks or any guards asking me politely to stand up. Nobody will care because I would be the only one there to care.
Yep, that was my thought process. I would love to go to a cathedral and simply fall down to the ground and watch the man-made sky rest above me. It would be like reading in the bathroom (by that, I imply that the bathroom is the most simple room in my house an thus the easiest to not get distracted in). Yeah, dreams are nice.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Black Ice is Not So Nice
I went to Lgn's house this night at around 10pm without a sweatshirt because I thought, hey I'm going to be outside for maybe 30 seconds going from my house to my car and from my car to Lgn's house...why do I need something warm? I wore jeans and a thin, loose, grey shirt. It averaged about 35 degrees that night (40-30 deg. F)
We left his house and went to Richardson. In my case, it was for the turkish coffee; in theirs, and alternate reason. We left that locale at around 1230am and upon making our way back (I was driving) to Wlnt Hll, it was time to go. We would make it back to Lgn's house, and we would make it through the green lights. One particular light (Wlnt and Prstn) is particularly bastardly. One has be known to wait there for songs upon songs of time. So I accelerated at the perfect moment to make that green light. It was on black ice--ice that forms because air is trapped beneath it making it the seem the same color as whatever is beneath it. But this was no ordinary black ice, it was SUPERblack ice. The road was entirely black because the power was out on Wlnt Hll between prstn and edgmr. It was impossible to see, and thus it would have been impossible to know that there was ice there. Even with the lights on, it looks simply like a puddle.
So I accelerated on the perfect patch of ice--the only large one (about 40ft long covering only the center lane, the one I was in)--and the tail of my rear-wheel drive car flew to the right. I corrected the steering as quickly as possible by turning the wheel to the right. I was flying toward the median, and the next moment I was flying toward the curb where a great white house was the next hospital (EDIT: WOW, Freudian slip? This word is supposed to be "obstacle," not "hospital"). Imagine instead a great white Shark with its jaws wide open and close enough so that you can count each of its hundreds of teeth. That was the fear level raiding my veins. So, now with the car flinging itself toward the Shark, I turned the wheel sharp to the left, hoping to avoid, well, death. The wheels smashed against the curb, hard, and because I was pressing the break the entire experience--maybe not the best idea with ice involved--the car slowly glided toward a break in the median where I continued moving the car making it do a u-turn and ending with it in the right lane going the opposite way as original.
The four of us in the car felt as if "Joyce shat her polar bear self." We got out of the car (100am) wondering "What the f&*% just happened?!" The roads seemed absolutely clear after the snow that came in three days ago. The temperature had been around 45 for the past few days and the snow had mostly melted. How could there still be ice in the roads. Was it an oil spill? We went to check out the other side of the road and found a very large, very slippery portion of road that must have been the cause of the wild ride. The back right tire was flat and the rim was busted. Lgn thought the axle may have been twisted, also. The front right rim also had some problems, but thankfully, the body of the car seemed to be all good.
So there I was, out in the 35 degree weather with my thin grey shirt. Surely I wouldnt have needed any warm clothes for such a minimal amount of time that I would be outside. HA! It was freaking freezing--well, it was in 5 minutes. Lgn later said that he was ironically texting "good night" to a few of his friends right before the slide. HA! I accelerated at the perfect spot. I watched many cars go over it without accelerating and having no problems. Is it demented that I kind of wanted someone else to slip and go wild? HA! Oh yes, the day before, my car gave me a signal proclaiming, "Check VSC" with text and a red triangle with an exclamation point. I planned to get it checked on Monday (I guess that's today and I guess its technically going to happen) because dealerships are closed on Sundays (I checked the manual for advice but received none of use, just what it meant: Vehicle Stability Control). Maybe that would have helped, but maybe the car would not have had time to correct and thus it wouldn't have mattered. Also funny that I stated around central that the trek to lgns would be easy because there would be no turns. HA!Oh yes, and about 10 minutes after the incident, we saw the power truck getting ready to fix the blackout. Maybe the light would have helped in choosing when to accelerate (it came on in about an hour). The tow truck took a rather long time to get to us. Start at 115am. It took 15 minutes for them to find one. 130am. Then it took 30 minutes for them to tell us that the tow truck was about an hour away. 200am. Then about 45 minutes later we were told that the tow truck was in arlington and would be 30 minutes away. 245am. Then 20 minutes later we were contacted by the tow truck saying that he was close. 305am. Then 30 minutes later he showed up. 335am. Incident at 1am, picked up at 335am. 2h35minutes of sitting in a car. None of the later fun that was planned could take place because of all this humor. Fun stuff.
Now i get to carpool with someone to school, and then carpool with a different person to tennis. Then I have to get a ride from tennis. Having a car makes getting places so much easier. I hope I get her back soon. That would be nice.
It's nice to have the experience from slipping on ice, but I'm not completely sure if what I wrote down is correct in chronological order. I let my nerves take control during the fun. I didn't really think, I just reacted. I was told that I did a nice job given what I had to deal with. That makes me feel nice. It seems racing games rule the day because that is all the experience I have in correcting my car's direction. I was a master at Crusin' USA in those car-like arcade machines; I've won countless (approx 1 of every 5 plays) free races.
Hope your valentines was nice!
We left his house and went to Richardson. In my case, it was for the turkish coffee; in theirs, and alternate reason. We left that locale at around 1230am and upon making our way back (I was driving) to Wlnt Hll, it was time to go. We would make it back to Lgn's house, and we would make it through the green lights. One particular light (Wlnt and Prstn) is particularly bastardly. One has be known to wait there for songs upon songs of time. So I accelerated at the perfect moment to make that green light. It was on black ice--ice that forms because air is trapped beneath it making it the seem the same color as whatever is beneath it. But this was no ordinary black ice, it was SUPERblack ice. The road was entirely black because the power was out on Wlnt Hll between prstn and edgmr. It was impossible to see, and thus it would have been impossible to know that there was ice there. Even with the lights on, it looks simply like a puddle.
So I accelerated on the perfect patch of ice--the only large one (about 40ft long covering only the center lane, the one I was in)--and the tail of my rear-wheel drive car flew to the right. I corrected the steering as quickly as possible by turning the wheel to the right. I was flying toward the median, and the next moment I was flying toward the curb where a great white house was the next hospital (EDIT: WOW, Freudian slip? This word is supposed to be "obstacle," not "hospital"). Imagine instead a great white Shark with its jaws wide open and close enough so that you can count each of its hundreds of teeth. That was the fear level raiding my veins. So, now with the car flinging itself toward the Shark, I turned the wheel sharp to the left, hoping to avoid, well, death. The wheels smashed against the curb, hard, and because I was pressing the break the entire experience--maybe not the best idea with ice involved--the car slowly glided toward a break in the median where I continued moving the car making it do a u-turn and ending with it in the right lane going the opposite way as original.
The four of us in the car felt as if "Joyce shat her polar bear self." We got out of the car (100am) wondering "What the f&*% just happened?!" The roads seemed absolutely clear after the snow that came in three days ago. The temperature had been around 45 for the past few days and the snow had mostly melted. How could there still be ice in the roads. Was it an oil spill? We went to check out the other side of the road and found a very large, very slippery portion of road that must have been the cause of the wild ride. The back right tire was flat and the rim was busted. Lgn thought the axle may have been twisted, also. The front right rim also had some problems, but thankfully, the body of the car seemed to be all good.
So there I was, out in the 35 degree weather with my thin grey shirt. Surely I wouldnt have needed any warm clothes for such a minimal amount of time that I would be outside. HA! It was freaking freezing--well, it was in 5 minutes. Lgn later said that he was ironically texting "good night" to a few of his friends right before the slide. HA! I accelerated at the perfect spot. I watched many cars go over it without accelerating and having no problems. Is it demented that I kind of wanted someone else to slip and go wild? HA! Oh yes, the day before, my car gave me a signal proclaiming, "Check VSC" with text and a red triangle with an exclamation point. I planned to get it checked on Monday (I guess that's today and I guess its technically going to happen) because dealerships are closed on Sundays (I checked the manual for advice but received none of use, just what it meant: Vehicle Stability Control). Maybe that would have helped, but maybe the car would not have had time to correct and thus it wouldn't have mattered. Also funny that I stated around central that the trek to lgns would be easy because there would be no turns. HA!Oh yes, and about 10 minutes after the incident, we saw the power truck getting ready to fix the blackout. Maybe the light would have helped in choosing when to accelerate (it came on in about an hour). The tow truck took a rather long time to get to us. Start at 115am. It took 15 minutes for them to find one. 130am. Then it took 30 minutes for them to tell us that the tow truck was about an hour away. 200am. Then about 45 minutes later we were told that the tow truck was in arlington and would be 30 minutes away. 245am. Then 20 minutes later we were contacted by the tow truck saying that he was close. 305am. Then 30 minutes later he showed up. 335am. Incident at 1am, picked up at 335am. 2h35minutes of sitting in a car. None of the later fun that was planned could take place because of all this humor. Fun stuff.
Now i get to carpool with someone to school, and then carpool with a different person to tennis. Then I have to get a ride from tennis. Having a car makes getting places so much easier. I hope I get her back soon. That would be nice.
It's nice to have the experience from slipping on ice, but I'm not completely sure if what I wrote down is correct in chronological order. I let my nerves take control during the fun. I didn't really think, I just reacted. I was told that I did a nice job given what I had to deal with. That makes me feel nice. It seems racing games rule the day because that is all the experience I have in correcting my car's direction. I was a master at Crusin' USA in those car-like arcade machines; I've won countless (approx 1 of every 5 plays) free races.
Hope your valentines was nice!
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