A more complete recounting of Thursday, May 24:

After a lovely and rather responsible (I was in bed by midnight) last night in Chicago. I woke up at 6:45 in the morning and packed up my car. I put Zul in his carrying case and we were off. Not without Zul meowing a lot but I expected that. I had hoped to get him tranquilizers but one vet had no open appointments and the other said that I shouldn't sedate the cat in the first place. That second vet was extremely wrong. Or, rather, their receptionist was extremely wrong. I left the apartment around eight and drove to a gas station to fill up my tank enough to get me to a gas station in Indiana where gas would be cheaper. So far, so good. Except that Zul was not only meowing but breathing hard and with his mouth open. The open mouth breathing was exactly what Meow Cat did hours before she died…I freaked out. I drove to the closest animal hospital and said something along the lines of: I'm about to go on a nine hour trip and I think my cat's in respiratory distress and no I don't have an appointment and no I have never been here before. The Uptown Animal Hospital's staff was amazing. They managed to fit me in to their schedule within twenty minutes. The vet Zul and I met with determined that Zul was not dying. That as long as his ribs weren't heaving the open mouthed panting was okay, as was the yowling. She then wrote Zul a prescription for sedatives and gave him one right then and there. I was thankful. We were out of the vet's office by 9. I positioned Zul's carrying case on the passenger's seat, facing me so I could keep tabs on him. And then I started driving in earnest. Zul settled a bit but he was still doing that open mouthed thing that I couldn't help but think meant he was going to die any second. It didn't help that my car doesn't have air conditioning. The windows were down and I had fashioned a tent of sorts over Zul's cage that lessened the amount of sun but still allowed plenty of air to circulate. Then, as often happens on long car trips in my car, something went wrong. I was driving and thinking it was about time to get gas, some water for me and some ice water for Zul when every single maintenance light in my dashboard lit up. According to them my brakes had failed, all my lights were out, my fluid needed to be checked, my parking brake was on etc etc. I knew this couldn't be good so I got off I-65 and went to the closest gas station. I filled the car up with gas. Brought Zul with me as I used the restroom and got water for the both of us. Oh! I forgot that after I filled the gas tank I noticed a green liquid pooling under my car and trickling out onto the pavement. This concerned me. I asked the cashier what it might mean and he said probably my radiator was leaking anti-freeze (or I think that's what he said). Meanwhile some dude at the pump next to mine (he wasn't really a 'dude' as much as an older gentleman) had noticed the fluid leaking out of my car and was circling my vehicle with an appraising eye.

I admit it: part of me seriously considered ignoring the green fluid and getting back on the highway. Zul, though sedated, wasn't looking all that thrilled and I couldn't fathom stopping the drive only three hours into it. Unfortunately (fortunately, really) the older gentleman insisted that I was not to get on the highway under any circumstances. This was said even more vehemently when he looked under my hood and saw that my fan belt was no longer in operation. The gentleman was nice but kind of weird. Weird in that friendly/helpful/authoritarian way that never sits quite right with me. I did need the help and input but his tone niggled. So we went back inside and got the number of a mechanic. The older gentleman wished me well and insisted, one last time, that I not go anywhere until my car was fixed. The mechanic I called said that he wouldn't have the part my car needed since Frankfort, Indiana (that was the closest town) wasn't really a Volvo kind of place. So I called AAA for referrals to mechanics. I called two. The first guy was nice but said similar things about the availability of parts and suggested I might have to spend the night. The second place was equally unsure of their ability to fix the problem. I decided to go with the guy who sounded nice so I called him back and asked for directions to his garage. He gave them to me (turn right out of the gas station, turn left at the second light in town, go through the square, cross the railroad tracks and we're the second building on the right) and off Zul and I went. I pulled in about fifteen minutes later. And a woman came up and asked me what I needed. I said I spoke to someone on the phone about a blown fan belt. She said I probably spoke to Richard. Suddenly she and two other men were looking under my hood. One, Richard, said that it wasn't just that I lost my fan belt it was that my alternator had seized/stopped working. It was agreed. Richard said I probably had spoken to Gerry. They all seemed happy to work on the car but none of them seemed to remember speaking to me. I brought Zul inside their office and smoked cigarettes with the woman while the parts needed were ordered. I then asked her if she thought I'd have to spend the night. She looked at me like I was crazy and said no. The parts arrived within half an hour and then the guys (Gerry and Richard) got right to work fixing my car. Eventually we figured out that I hadn't spoken to anyone at the garage that I was actually in the wrong place. I missed a building after the railroad tracks and had overshot my original destination by one street. I can only imagine what the guy I did speak to thought if he looked out his window and saw his competition working on a Volvo. But then again they all said that he would have charged me double or more and would have taken a day to do it. In the end it was a two or so hour stopover in Frankfort, Indiana that ended in me having to take $230 in cash out of the ATM (they didn't take credit cards) to pay for my new alternator, fan belt and labor. Then we were off again.

Off again into, almost immediately, stupid awful traffic. Zul still wasn't drinking any water and continued to look like he was on his way out. This was, of course, mainly paranoia on my part. It led me to stop yet again for more ice for his water and more delay. I had gone a total of, maybe, four hours in the seven hours since I left Chicago with about five more to go before getting home. I considered stopping. What with the cat worries and car troubles and the fact that I wouldn't be getting in at six as much as ten o'clock. And I should have stopped. I should have paid attention to my feeling that nothing was going right and that it would be better just to start over the next day. But I didn't do that. Instead I kept driving. I kept driving and I sholdn't have because what ended up happening is this:

Worried, again, that Zul needed to drink water I attempted to push his water bowl closer to him in his cage. This action took about twenty seconds or so. And in those twenty seconds my car, which was traveling at about 75 miles per hour in the left lane, veered to the left when I looked up feeling that something was wrong the car was barreling along the grassy median. I wasn't in complete control and the car started fishtailing its way towards the oncoming traffic. I can't quite recall exactly what I did or what my logic was. I assume I was braking and I know I was trying to steer the car away from either side of the road. I may have been cursing. Then I hit something or jerked the wheel too much and I felt the car get airborne. What I thought: well, shit there's nothing I can do now. I think I counted three big bumps. But in actuality there must have been five. The car flipped onto the drivers side, onto the top, onto the passenger's side, back to where it should have been and then back onto the drivers side. So that when all the motion stopped I was in my seat, parallel to the ground. Like, if I looked out my window all I saw was grass. I realized pretty quickly that I was okay. I could wiggle my toes and move my arms. Well, one arm, the other arm was kind of pinned up against the window my Zul's carrying case. It was awful seeing Zul looking at me, his body sort of a cat boomerang, his back feet and front feet much closer to each other than usual. The engine was still running and I didn't know if turning it off was the smartest thing or if leaving it on was. I definitely yelled for help. Mainly because I couldn't get out without someone taking the cat off my arm. Also because it was scary. As soon as someone came, though, I calmed down and started thinking about how this really mussed up my travel plans. I also considered how upset my parents would be. And that I would be delayed in getting to Georgia thus having a day fewer of seeing him alone before his sister, her boyfriend and their father arrived. And I was terrified that Zul was broken. Zul was my major concern and any time any one asked me if I was okay I'd say yes but that I wasn't sure about the cat. They asked me a few questions like: "where are you" and I answered "on the median on interstate 65". Eventually firemen, police officers, EMT people and tow trucks all gathered around. They braced the car and the passenger's door so that I could climb out without potentially tipping over the car. Someone took the cat (I yelled that they had to make sure he didn't escape since the cage door had broken). I kind of wish someone had taken a photograph of me emerging out of the car…but no one did.


It was confusing after that. I always assumed that being the victim of an accident would put you in center stage. That people would be asking you questions while someone else took your pulse etc etc. But that's not exactly what happened. A police officer asked for my insurance information and asked me how I felt. I said pretty good, moving all my limbs to show that nothing was broken. He then said that if I wanted to get checked out I should head on over to the ambulance. But no one was at the ambulance so I didn't understand why I had to do that. I started in that direction but realized I'd rather get my camera and take some photographs before they flipped the car back over. They asked me again if I wanted to be checked out. I said here? They said, no at the hospital. And I didn't like that so much (my insurance situation is iffy). Then I called my parents and told them that I'd need to be picked up. They asked me where I was, I asked the officer where I was. Where was I? I was in between Scottsburg and Austin Indiana. I have decided that, though pretty in places, Indiana is an awful place. My parents and I agreed that they would come up the next morning and get me.

Then there was the question of how I was going to get off the median and into town. I had assumed the policeman would give me a ride but something he said made me doubt it. This doubt then festered until I pictured all these emergency vehicles driving away leaving me and Zul sitting with a pile of my stuff in the center of the median, waiting until morning for my parents to pick me up. I didn't really like that image and was happy to learn that actually the tow truck driver would be giving me a ride into town. His cab was air conditioned which felt good on my skin and I know Zul liked it too. Because of all the flipping there was dirt in my hair, in my ears and on my skin. And it was a hot day so it was dirt and sweat. Yick. He listed a bunch of hotels in town and I (half jokingly/half not) asked if any of them had a pool. He said that one did so we went there. There was a line for registering and it took about ten or fifteen minutes to get to the counter. Once there I made the mistake of saying I had a cat. The woman said, a bit apologetically, that they didn't take pets. This was when I teared up a little. I hadn't cried at the accident site nor in the truck but hearing I wouldn't be allowed to use the lovely pool got to me a little. But just a little. Just a few tears, no sobbing or inability to speak. So we moved on to the Super 8. The Super 8 was more expensive, had no pool and was definitely dirtier than the Mariann Inn. But it had cable, air conditioning and free wireless. My parents had changed their minds and had started to head up the interstate to get me. I got Zul out of his cage and he quickly hid under the bed. I worried that he had broken something but wasn't going to let me see it. This, also, made me cry a bit. Amazingly, the 1.75 liter of Johnnie Walker Red I was bringing to Tennessee didn't break. So I had a finger full of that and did some blogging. I had a few bruises already making themselves felt. One on my left calf, two on my left arm, one on my left shoulder and one on my left temple. I also had a small cut on my nose and another one on my right eyebrow. And my head felt funny. I spoke to the boyfriend for awhile. Then watched MTV cribs and posted the photographs of the crash. I also ordered pizza. My parents arrived in time for the Daily Show (funny). And that's it.



The thing is that I really could have died. As the boyfriend said: any time a car flips there's a definite chance of dying. And yet I got off with some bruises, a limp for two days and an especially sore shoulder (still sore today but less so). But I didn't die and I didn't feel any different. I was definitely glad to be alive but I wasn't overwhelmed with the beauty of life or the beauty of my survival. I was simply confronted with logistical problems like: how was I going to get to the boyfriend in Georgia? How was I going to get back to Tennessee or Chicago from Georgia and if I did get the Key West job where was I going to be coming from?


The boyfriend and I returned from a quick camping excursion on the Gulf Coast yesterday. I wrote all the above this morning and have not spell checked it or fact checked it. I am currently blogging in a hotel parking lot (they have unprotected wireless, the sillies) and feel a bit rushed and suspicious. I'll only become more so since I'll be back in the coming days. There is so much food and ocean to show but not today. I got a John Dudley stopping by and I'm not sure the directions I gave him made any sense.