7/20/05

5:15 a.m. I am stuck in traffic on the Tristate Expressway heading down to my second day in the hood. I am listening to "Headstrong" by (I think) Trapt. "Back off! I'll take you on. Headstrong, I'll take on anyone. I know that you are wrong and this is not were you belong!" I am pounding the steering wheel and feeling like I could kick some serious ass. Good thing Bones isn't around or he'd be sorry! I look over at the car next to me. A little kid, maybe 3 years old, is watching me. I stop dancing in my seat and smile at him. I wave. The little kid looks up at the back of his mother's head kind of uncertainly and then starts to cry. Oh. Gee. I didn't mean to scare him. I wasn't going to KILL the steering wheel.

I make a funny face to see if I can make the kid stop crying. He just gets more upset and his mother gives me a dirty look. Huh. I'm usually so good with kids. I shrug.

I feel bad now and so I turn off my teen angst music and move on to something a little more calm. Ahhhh. This is better. "Sometimes....all I need is the air that I breath, and to love you. All I need is the air that I breeeeaaaath!..." Is this Roy Orbison? I can't remember.

Anyway, I pull in to the O'hare Oasis and go inside the gas station to use the little damas room. When I walk in the bathroom I look in the mirror. I stifle a scream. Oh, for the love of Pete and all that is holy! No wonder that kid was crying. I went to bed with a wet head last night. My hair is standing up approximately 9 inches off the left side of my head, the right side being as flat as a pancake. I try to force it down with water but it is no use. I open my mouth. There is a giant green piece of jalapeno pepper stuck between my front teeth from my ranchero breakfast wrap. (yummy) I am tempted to give myself a swirly in the toilet and start over.