Soon Collides

Was in my fourth collision in the last two months this past weekend. i was on a cheddar yellow school bus departing wisconsin for downtown chicago. however, instead of roaming the uptown area, i spent my saturday at an oasis before a series of buses took the group of us (all strangers) to a local hospital. though sore, my body turned out just fine. i will likely get the muscle relaxer Rx so that i can spice up my next drinking excursion.

in simplest terms, a small honda sedan merged too quickly and lost traction due to the icy conditions of the road, crossed three lanes of traffic (missing everything) and t-boned itself into the front end of the full size, 74-capacity school bus. upon the wreck, the bus was eerily silent, i remember hearing myself unvoluntarily droning "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" while bracing my arms into a right triangle with the seat back in front of me. i looked behind me and met the bewildered eyes of sixteen bewildered UW students. yet, fearing a jinx upon our luck, no one dared answer affirmation of well-being. a stocky fellow started colleting blood around his mouth, an indication of a bitten-through lip. another, a beanpole with facial scruff felt his forehead for oozing. we collected our things separetely and decided to exit the rear of the bus. as i made my way to the driver, all he could say was "won't be able to use the front door". he was right, too; the silver and gold specked sedan had wrapped itself around the front and right sides of the bus, making an exit there impassable. incredibly, the driver sustained no physical wounds. he took his time packing his bag and, collecting his coat and external wear, led the way to the rear of the yellow shell. miraculously, though as it should, the bus held it's form. it'll never run again as it did that morning, but it held together tight and defended its unbelted passengers against certain death. in any other machine, a Suburban, an Excursion, a Hummer perhaps, we would have smootched off the sedan and rolled over the median instantly causing an enmassing ball, a vehicular pinball gaining speed and size while projecting itself through rows of cars waiting an imminent gathering.

the whole ordeal stirred me yesterday--i felt myself on the brink of breaking down on several occasions. i had those two debating sides of me stirring up trouble, one begging my emotions to the surface while the other kept it all clammed up inside. after exiting the bus, i got curious and detached from the group of shellshocked students to check out the other participant, the sedan driver. the paramedics stood nearby waiting for the firefighters to loosened and pry the driver. it was a futile effort, with the honda a permanent partner pasted to the bus grill; there'd be no further animation from his body. nearby, at the base of a driver side door intact only because it was pinned upright, drizzled red onto the road shoulder. given the natural decline of the road toward the median, the blood followed helplessly toward the mounds of muddied snow embanked onto the cement median. it created a nauseating effect. i turned my head in horror, a neck-jerk reaction to the confrontation with the last pouring of the honda driver's life. he lay there, for lack of a power to do much else-a head and a body as a table to collect a mid-road sample of snow and wait.

to tell-all and sob or to savor the numb qualities of a near-death excursion, i opted for the latter because i really do hate stirring up attention into my corner. today was easier to manage, though i admit my outward feelings of grumpiness. i hummed with arrested annoyance at the most innocuous simple-minded jokes, things i often ignore. sometimes i needs my grumble pie. looking back over the past couple days, i see myself retelling the story of the wreck... five, six, seven times and hating myself for doing it. telling a story once or twice is fine but the continued recollection of any matter is a total annoyance bordering on the side of bragging. is this anti-social? ehh.

remember when ...

i made a list of all the things i was going to change about my life?

bought a wipe board. unwrapped it. sat with it. wrote down that which came to mind:

-figure out life plans for june 2009 (job end)
-smoke less (why do i?)
-floss more (battle bad breath!)
-exercise regularly (wanna look good naked)

i don't hate my job, but i can see myself getting lazy and complacent and i know there's more to life than what i'm doing. i can't see what that is but i know it's not here. one day i'll look back and sorta miss that i was so aimless and sloppy. i'll laugh with shame and then carry on.

post script: i checked the coast and it was clear that all of my friends i'd been close to and cherished had fallen off, enrolled in, got off their bums and toured the parts of the world where i could no longer reach them. lj used to be a commonplace to share thoughts and stories and photo to thumb through. now it's a ghost town. maybe now i write for myself. without an audience, what's to shame over?