I... am... SO... tired... of... my... car...

Today was 82 degrees and my car tried to overheat coming back from the doctor, so I had to stop and let it rest a couple of times. You see, at some point a genius of a mechanic (note: not my mom's boyfriend, who has fixed virtually everything that has gone wrong on my car) but a supposed professional, jerry-rigged my fan because it wouldn't run when it was supposed to. You'd think this would help, but it overheats easily. Sometimes I can make it better by turning on the (otherwise non-functional) air conditioning, because then two fans go. But today, there was a lot of start-and-stop traffic, and a higher than normal heat index. As D put it, my car apparently operates within a narrow temperature window (it doesn't like the cold, either.) Granted, I'm sort of the same way, but unlike people, machines have specifications to live up to.

Now, it's reasonably cooler, so I tried to go get A from work. It won't start. I did manage to slide back down the incline a bit in the process of trying to start it, and so, after calling a security guard at the university where A works so that he wouldn't be sitting on the curb waiting for a ride that never came, I had to push the car back up into the parking place, which is decidedly harder to do on a Nissan than on my old Renault, even thought they're about the same size. Sigh. And again, sigh.

Okay, I'll stop whining. I should be glad I didn't break down somewhere on the road, or get in an accident. Yesterday I decided to go get dinner before going on to DBT. I had a mini-van dart across the road from behind a line of traffic and barely was able to stop in time--I started to skid on a dry road. Fortunately, I was only going 25 or 30 miles an hour at the time. But there was a moment where the lady's and my eyes locked and we weren't sure if we were about to die or not. Considering I don't have airbags and drive a compact car, I was reasonably sure that I'd be the worse for wear if we collided. But I came out the lucky one. Apparently there was an accident on the same road that made it onto the radio when I was driving from Long John Silvers over to the psych centre. One of the women in the group was behind the accident when it happened and called 911 on her cell phone. Her husband got out and checked to make sure no one was hurt (there was a fender in the road, and at first it looked like a person,) then they went on to the meeting. About 20 minutes into the session, the one person missing came in and apologised for not coming earlier, but that she had been in a bad car accident. It turns out it was the same one. Then the shock started to wear off and the counselor led her away to make sure she was okay. In the shock of moment, all she could think of was getting there because she'd promised one of the other women she'd come and bring something for her. If things had come together a little differently, any of the three of us would have had that experience. I don't believe in coincidence, but I can't fathom a deeper meaning to what was certainly an odd kind of thing. Suffice to say we were creeped out, and she was quite thoroughly (and justifiably) scared. She thought she'd hurt her shoulder but she was too frantic to have it looked at that night, I think. I hope she feels better by next week. She really is one of the most likeable of the characters in my DBT group, but like the rest of us, has anxiety issues. That couldn't have helped.

Okay. I think I'll go watch fish for awhile so some of the car frustration can die down before I try to sleep. Good night.