I met Tiffany on the westside today for coffee. We had talked about getting together this coming Wednesday, but then she merged her two calendars -- personal and business -- together and discovered that she wasn't available. I had to go to the westside to pick up a prescription because none of the pharmacies I called over here had it.
It was great seeing her again and catching up -- I hadn't seen her since September 4. She told me about the politics and backstabbing going on at the hospital, I told her about the intrigues and politics in the movie industry. Okay, so none of the intrigues and politics are happening to me, but I had to keep up my end of the conversation.
She asked how school was going and I said, "Well, I don't know if I'm going to sound like a nebbish or an egomaniac," and she said, "Don't worry, I'll tell you." (laugh) I told her that writing's never really been a challenge for me, but in these classes, with these classmates -- I'm going to have to work. She said, "That's great! That means you're in the place you should be. If it were easy, then you'd be questioning why you'd done all this -- moved here, set up a new house, spending all this time away from your husband. This is really good to hear."
I headed over to USC, because I had to return a couple of scripts to the library and at least start editing my project for production class. There were a couple of other people from my class in there -- what are the odds? -- and they helped me out getting set up, because I forgot to bring the instructions. (Oops.) But once I got started I got done very quickly, because I already know how to edit. I had heard enough horror stories from others in the class about the fancier features of the editing deck, so I stuck to the assembly/insert editing I already knew how to do.
When I was driving home tonight I had a very scary experience on 110. It's making me worried about driving here. Right after I get on the 110 it splits and half joins the Santa Monica Freeway. There's a lot of crazy merging that goes on. This evening I was trying to move over to the 110 side and avoid the two battered sedans that were trying to move to the 10, one after the other.
And then one stopped dead in front of the other.
So the second one stopped dead right in front of me.
I slammed on my brakes and prayed. I haven't prayed like that since third grade and I was afraid of eternal damnation because I had gotten angry at my sister. I prayed like there was no tomorrow. Because there almost wasn't. I stopped within an inch or two of the car in front of me. The car behind me screeched to a halt at the same time, and it wasn't until I came to a stop that I could even look up. He didn't hit me either, thank God.
I hyperventilated all the way home. Even now, two hours later, my heart races faster just thinking about it.
I'm beginning to get scared that I'm going to get killed driving around here.