Crazy Driver and Nausea

You'd never guess by reading the title of this Saturday blog, but today has been one of the most perfect days ever. The sun was shining, the weather sweet. Himself and I went for a nice lunch and I had a MASSIVE salad. We found Homocide season 3 for super-cheap. I was able to fit my hair into a ponytail (sorta). I sat on a swing for 45 minutes. My arms ache from yesterday's yoga.

So where does the crazy driver come in? Right between the Massive salad and Homocide. No, the driver did not commit Homocide - I meant... er... finding it on... DVD...

Anyhow, so Himself and I were walking from the place we were illegally parked to the video store. We came up to the corner started to cross, and then heard a crash. I looked back, and a guy in a Mazda Protege had rear-ended a Harley with 2 passengers, the male driver and a female passenger. The Harley tipped and the man fell off, and sort of rolled to the side. The female though, was not so quick. Believe it or not, the driver of the Mazda gunned it! He pushed the Harley, and the woman caught under said Harley, along the ground a few feet, then jumped the curb and started driving on the sidewalk! Himself and I had to run to get out of the way! So they managed to catch the guy, and I called 911 and we stuck around to give our statements etc.

After dropping Himself off at work, I went for a walk through my new neighborhood with D, my new Ipod. I came across this wooded area, and decided to go into the forest. I went up a hill and then turned, and suddenly the sky went dark and the wind kicked up and a mighty chill went up the back of my neck (which may have just been because I had my hair up in a ponytail, which I haven't been able to do until today...). I kept walking, though frightened. It was the kind of place any writer worth a lick of their reader's time would imagine finding a dead body - perhaps legs sticking out from under a bush...

And then I found it. I turned a corner and there, hanging from a tree, blowing in the eerie fall wind, was yellow tape, with black writing that read, "Police line, do not cross." So, I turned and ran, realizing as I descended the hill that it was quite a bit steeper, and I was quite a bit more out of shape, than I first realized.

An hour later (okay, ten minutes, really) I was back on horizontal ground. I stopped at the park, where D and I swang for about 45 minutes. I watched leaves fall, couples walk by, hand-in-hand, and joggers - well, jog. Strangely, even in today's day in age where Tom Green earns a living off the bizarre things he does, people still gave me weird looks as they walked by - all except the foreign woman who stopped to ask me directions. I guess I seemed the most unthreatening element there - a blond girl with a ponytail swinging on a swingset... yeah, I can see it. She went on to argue with her husband about whether my directions were correct (it was she and I verses him, of course. She and I were right...) and I went on swinging.

At my highest, I felt I could jump from the swing to the lush, thick grass, like kids do before they realize bones can shatter. I was tempted, many times, to do it, but didn't. I was afraid of hurting D. As I swung, vowing on the next forward swing I would jump, I realized I have never jumped from a swing. Even when I was little, I always was afraid I might get hurt. Now that I'm older, I know I would get hurt. But I also know the pain would be worth the few seconds of unassisted flight.

I kept pumping my legs, enjoying the music and the autumn wind, laughing inside at the 'normal' couples walking by - the girls peering down their perfect, blemish-free noses at me, their male counterparts looking on longingly, like they wanted to come play also. I didn't care - I can't understand those people anymore. I am a writer.

And then I realized that being a writer is the excuse for all crazy things. "Look at that grown woman acting like a five-year-old." "That's Leigh. She's a writer." "Oh, in that case, never mind." It's the perfect excuse, as though someone stamped "Insane" on my forehead and now I can run around naked in broad daylight. I mean, if you're clinically crazy, why not do all those things? Those same people will enjoy reading the words squeezed from that experience, and not think twice. After all, I'm a writer. Just by chosing it as my career makes me, compared to the rest of society, a little weird.

I was fine while I was ON the swing - it was when I got off the trouble began. And so, nauseas from motion sickness and my bum hurting from the hard, blue rubber swing, I limped home.

And now, to the Wolf Blass...