I wrote a poem today
Mar. 29th, 2011 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zanzjanoriginally posted at Absolute Write
White Car From Connecticut
White car from Connecticut, you make me nervous.
You drive as though you think you are impervious.
Traffic lights and stop signs and lanes hold no sway,
Your hand upon the horn to warn us away.
Motorists and pedestrians, bicyclists and I,
Are extra-special wary whenever you pass by.
White car, O white car, I know about your kind!
I've seen you speed and swerve, the damage left behind.
I've driven many places, and I find it true:
In Boston, New York City, none so bad as you.
Vigilant and cautious, I kept you in my sight
So instead the fucking beige car got me on the right.
---
I was actually hit on the left (driver's side) but I didn't have a good word to rhyme with left. Art is its own reality.
I was on my way to the eventual scene of the accident and was briefly behind a white car with CT plates that was driving very erratically, cut someone off in front of me, etc., and I was contemplating how a very large proportion of incredibly shitty drivers seem to drive white cars, and likewise how CT drivers -- especially once they've crossed out of CT onto the roads of other states -- can be remarkably bad, and how "white car" + "Connecticut plates" was sort of like the automobile equivalent of those super-bright-colored snakes whose coloration is meant to loudly declare STAY AWAY OR I'LL KILL YOU! I expect if I saw a white Prius from Connecticut I'd likely get off the road entirely until it passed.
Anyhow, so I was driving along and thinking about the White Car Phenomenon, even after the white car turned off and went some other way, and I was thinking it'd be funny to write a poem called "White Car From Connecticut". Then I was thinking about my accident last October (rear-ended by a little old lady from Connecticut, although car was silver) and how much I love my car and was glad it was fixed and how I was finally starting to feel better and what a nice sunny day it was and everything was looking up in my life and... BANG! Some 18 year old kid tries to take a hard left turn through my drivers side door.
So yeah, not a white car but beige, and the kid didn't even have the decency to say he was sorry. The initial repair estimate (believe it or not, they didn't total my car) is $7000. Anyone tells you Hondas hold their values well, this is what they mean. Meanwhile I have a rental car that's not at all bad except that it smells like cigarette smoke. Oh, and aside from the expected back & neck pain I also have a mild concussion, which explains the stupid headache that even vicodin isn't bringing down. Doc said it could take weeks for the effects of it to wear off, and in the meantime I'm having these little random episodes of completely spacing out which are a little disturbing. Dizzy a lot most of the time, but every now and then my concentration goes and I'm just for a second totally not sure where I am or what I was doing. So I'm trying to severely limit how much time I'm spending behind the wheel right now.
But anyway, I wrote a poem, full of factual inaccuracies but, then, poems often are.
White Car From Connecticut
White car from Connecticut, you make me nervous.
You drive as though you think you are impervious.
Traffic lights and stop signs and lanes hold no sway,
Your hand upon the horn to warn us away.
Motorists and pedestrians, bicyclists and I,
Are extra-special wary whenever you pass by.
White car, O white car, I know about your kind!
I've seen you speed and swerve, the damage left behind.
I've driven many places, and I find it true:
In Boston, New York City, none so bad as you.
Vigilant and cautious, I kept you in my sight
So instead the fucking beige car got me on the right.
---
I was actually hit on the left (driver's side) but I didn't have a good word to rhyme with left. Art is its own reality.
I was on my way to the eventual scene of the accident and was briefly behind a white car with CT plates that was driving very erratically, cut someone off in front of me, etc., and I was contemplating how a very large proportion of incredibly shitty drivers seem to drive white cars, and likewise how CT drivers -- especially once they've crossed out of CT onto the roads of other states -- can be remarkably bad, and how "white car" + "Connecticut plates" was sort of like the automobile equivalent of those super-bright-colored snakes whose coloration is meant to loudly declare STAY AWAY OR I'LL KILL YOU! I expect if I saw a white Prius from Connecticut I'd likely get off the road entirely until it passed.
Anyhow, so I was driving along and thinking about the White Car Phenomenon, even after the white car turned off and went some other way, and I was thinking it'd be funny to write a poem called "White Car From Connecticut". Then I was thinking about my accident last October (rear-ended by a little old lady from Connecticut, although car was silver) and how much I love my car and was glad it was fixed and how I was finally starting to feel better and what a nice sunny day it was and everything was looking up in my life and... BANG! Some 18 year old kid tries to take a hard left turn through my drivers side door.
So yeah, not a white car but beige, and the kid didn't even have the decency to say he was sorry. The initial repair estimate (believe it or not, they didn't total my car) is $7000. Anyone tells you Hondas hold their values well, this is what they mean. Meanwhile I have a rental car that's not at all bad except that it smells like cigarette smoke. Oh, and aside from the expected back & neck pain I also have a mild concussion, which explains the stupid headache that even vicodin isn't bringing down. Doc said it could take weeks for the effects of it to wear off, and in the meantime I'm having these little random episodes of completely spacing out which are a little disturbing. Dizzy a lot most of the time, but every now and then my concentration goes and I'm just for a second totally not sure where I am or what I was doing. So I'm trying to severely limit how much time I'm spending behind the wheel right now.
But anyway, I wrote a poem, full of factual inaccuracies but, then, poems often are.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:12 am (UTC)And as you know, I hit my head in the hospital two years ago and I'm still a total flake. I think I musta smashed the smart right outa me. It got better, somewhat, since I no longer want to fall over all the time with the dizzy! So cheer up. You'll heal, at least mostly!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 10:49 am (UTC)Mine was massive..and all of the doctors who worked with me, and still work with me, remind me that its effects are likely to come and go for the rest of my life.
They never really heal; the CT scan of my head still shows a dark area; the place where things got really scrambled when I got clobbered.
I am glad you are essentially all right. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 01:42 pm (UTC)Sorry about the car. I'm glad you're okay and the sprogs weren't present.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 08:45 pm (UTC)Re: rental car & smoke -- Sorry to hear that-- the stench will not help the headache either.
I know that saying all will be better with time doesn't help the 'now', but I'm glad that you are otherwise unhurt. Cars are much easier to fix! And your post is completely coherent, concussion notwithstanding, which is more than I can say about mine on my best days...
Feel better soon!