Monday morning when I walked to my car, I discovered that it had been side-swiped over night. The drivers-side mirror was hanging limply from an electrical cord, and the car looked very dejected and sad.
I called Geico and filed a claim, they set me up with an appointment for this morning at a body shop and guaranteed a rental car.

I arrived at Pat's hi-tech auto body at 8:02am. Which was pretty impressive since it is 5 blocks north and 5 miles west of me and I didn't get out of my house until 7:40.

I was met my Ulysses "Chris" from Geico. He did a quick appraisal, said "Friday, probably" and had me sign some forms. then I met with someone from the auto body place and showed them the car. Then I sat and waited for 30 minutes. Then I met with the auto shop man again and he gave me a list of "pre-existing damage" to sign off on. i.e. all the things that are wrong with my car that they aren't going to fix. The list is long: scratches on both rear side doors. A small dent on the passenger side door. Dents and scratches along the bumper. A missing piece of glass, about the size of a quarter, in my right tail light, more scratches...and so on. Made me feel like a bad mother.

then I met with Maureen from Enterprise. She had me sign a bunch of forms and showed me to my interim vehicle. A back two-door 2005 Chevy Cavalier.

i drove out of the garage and then paused so I could adjust the seats. This took about 10 minutes as the controls are not conveniently located. Ditto the side mirrors.

Drove on. Noticed a few things about the car that make it Not. For. Me.

First, the front windshield is angled very steeply. Perhaps because I am not very tall and like to sit close to the steering wheel (others criticize me for this all the time, but it is how I am comfortable) the steepness of the glass creates a distortion. So it feels a little like there is a blurry spot in the middle of my vision.
Next, the car is much less sensitive to braking and much more so to accelerating than my car. My little prius needs me only to think about braking before it gently slows, this one needs me to stomp. Created some interesting moments on the highway.
Third, the steering well is, I think, supposed to be ergonomic. But as many of you may know, I have perhaps the smallest hands seen on an adult woman of average (read average American) stature. So the wheel is wider exactly where I want to put my hands. Too wide. Not too wide for me to hold at all, but too wide for me to hold without tension in my hands. Not fun. See above comment on highway driving.
Fourth, I have no idea what the heck the different light setting mean. No idea if I left the lights on.
Finally, there is this weird feature, apparently new and exciting. When you turn the car off, the radio doesn't turn off. This took me a while to figure out. Actually, I had to read the manual. I was so confused.

Chalk it up to more reasons why owning a car is a just a huge pain.
- posted by Heidi @ 9:55 AM

 
My high school just sent me a condolence letter. For some reason that just was more than I could handle. Not sure why...probably because of my intensely mixed feelings about the whole experience, and also because it was the time in my life when I felt most defined by my family.
Don't get me wrong, the letter is nice. And I should "be assured that [my] grandfather's death will be featured in the next issue" of the alumni magazine.
Because, you know, I was worried.

If you have any thoughts about Oprah, email me. My final project for the class "Power and Influence in Organizations" is on Oprah. We have an argument and lots of research, but I'm having a lot of fun getting an informal survey of what people think about when they consider Oprah's sources of power. So I'm serious, email me.

Spellcheck still doesn't work. Might be a firefox thing.
- posted by Heidi @ 7:08 PM

 
Frank Rich: On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide
- posted by Heidi @ 1:15 PM

 
I have had several things to post in the last week or so, but now I forget them all.

My one basic point is that whoever is smiting my friends needs to stop. There has been far too much smiting recently.

By now you've heard that Arafat died, we're still fighting in Fallujah and the Peterson trial keeps having problems with its jury. Also, a former bodygaurd is suing Liza for assault and there's a new guy on Law&Order.

In other news, my boss has decided that she and I should go to the gym together. When I suggested 8am--my favorite time to work out--I did not expect her to agree. You see, she is not a morning person. She typically arrives at work between 11 and noon. She stays late, it's not that she doesn't work, but she is not a morning person. However, she agreed to meet me at 8, and was only 10 minutes late. She had so much fun she wants to do it again tomorrow. Partly because the gym is very crowded all of the afternoon and evening, but pretty empty in the morning, so it really is the only time that makes sense. Meeting her at the gym was fine. We didn't interact all that much, and I didn't feel like her presence in any way changed my routine.

But here's the thing: she told the rest of the people I work with who are regular gym rats that we should ALL go at the same time.

As I've told several people recently, if there is one thing I find more boring than going to the gym, it is talking about going to the gym (I recognize that is what I am doing right now. But please allow this minor hypocrisy). And if there is one thing that ignites my insecurities more than locker rooms, it is being given advice on what I should be doing at the gym by anyone other than a trained professional whom I have paid. For example, my co-worker saying "we SHOULD all go to the gym together [turns to me] I could give you a lot of pointers " leads me to snap back obnoxiously "I don't need your pointers Dan" Etc. Now, the thing is, I know Dan meant well. But he set off automatic defenses and alerts. I can't remember the rest of my response, but I know it was not aimed to please.

I don't like talking about it. I don't like acknowledging it. I've been making a concerted effort to work out more often since May. But I haven't told anyone at work that--why bother? Why discuss it? It's personal and boring. So they all assumed that yesterday was the first time I'd worked out in years. Right, because clearly I've lost weight by breathing differently. They've all commented on that, they could have made the logical assumptions. It's not really worth correcting them because either I'll get defensive and annoyed, or else I'll overexplain things that I really don't want to talk about.

That's my story. Now some fun links:

Heilpern gets on a high horse

The staying power of musicals

PS spell checker isn't working. I'm very very sorry.
- posted by Heidi @ 8:04 AM

 
have I mentioned that

I DON'T UNDERSTAND

I think I speak for everyone I've talked to today when I say...
angry, sad, hurt, incredulous, numb.

Mostly numb.

It has been so awful for 4 years, and it's just going to get worse? Do people not live in the same country that I live in?

Or is it really just that people are pro-life and hate the gay?

I've been fighting back tears at work all day. Well, the whole 2 hours I've been here.

It's kind of pathetic. And apparently I can expect a concession speech at noon, CST.
- posted by Heidi @ 10:44 AM

 
I just don't understand, and I think that's the problem.

Here are the people I can understand voting for Bush:
-those earning more than $200,000/year who vote with their wallets
-those who are pro-life or homophobic/anti-gay and vote on social issues.

I can't come up with any other reasons. None. Not that make ANY sense to me. And I can't believe that more than 50% of the country can. It, frankly, scares me.

My brother reminds me that the Red Sox did the impossible. And Sox owner John Henry has given the Kerry camp his plane to fly around in. Lets hope it spreads more good luck than Curt Schilling.

BTW I didn't like Curt Schilling much before (that is, I like him pitching, can't stand him talking), but after all this I hate him even more. I know he falls into my description above, but I still hate that he told us so obviously.

I live in a nice liberal bubble. I don't interact with any conservatives on a regular basis. I don't think I talked to anyone yesterday who'd voted for Bush--except perhaps/probably for the republican election judge at the polling place. But I'm about 99% certain no one else at my polling place was voting republican (this could be a stupid assumption, but frankly I have no way to judge, obviously, except by Illinois demographics esp. on the north side of chicago).

Obama 2016.
- posted by Heidi @ 7:50 AM