For some reason, rather rudely and abruptly, my brain has decided it needed to take a break from writing stuff for my memoir.

Now, I’m hopefully getting close to finishing the first draft of my memoir, but as long as I can’t write anything for it, I will not be able to progress. Which sucks. It really sucks. Especially since the ideas are there all the time, at least until I pull up Google Docs, Libreoffice, or whatever writing thing I’ve got with me (I would write ideas down by hand, but my handwriting is so bad I can't even tell what I've written half the time). Then, they just leave me in the dust, never to be seen nor heard from again. At least, not at a time that’s convenient. 

I’ve literally sat up for almost the whole night, every night, for the last week trying to get something published. But, no matter what, the ideas don’t start flooding in until I’ve closed my laptop, turned off my phone, and turned off the lights. Then, as soon as everything I need to write is out of the way, I get the best ideas ever. But, as you probably already guessed, they’re gone by the time I have my phone opened up to Google Docs.

I’m not too tired to write. I get 8 hours of sleep a day, usually between 4 AM to 12 PM. I also drink a lot of caffeine. My mom gave me a cold that turned into a throat infection, so I’ve been drinking lots of caffeinated hot tea with honey, as well as a daily diet coke. I also take my dog for daily walks and go out on drives to see what I can do with my truck. And, I do go out every few nights to be social with family and friends. I’m doing everything I know to do. But, the ideas for my memoir are just out of reach all the time. And it is super infuriating. 

At least I know I’ve gotten comfortable with driving, now that I get the best writing ideas while I’m on quiet stretches of road. Or, quiet stretches of roads in Denver, which are probably hellholes for everyone else who doesn’t live in a big city run by assholes and idiots. Of course, those thoughts scatter as soon as I pull into my driveway, or when someone tries to challenge my place on the road, either by cutting me off and then slamming on their brakes, making extremely illegal turns that cause them to pull out in front of me while I’m charging down the road through a green light going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, not checking their mirrors and blindspot before trying to merge into my lane, and my favorite, tailgating me when I’m speeding in the right lane, and then getting upset when I brake check them. 

Also, there's lots of wildlife where I live. Some soccer mom in her Honda minivan pulled up beside me at a light and started berating me, after she witnessed me plow through a gaggle of geese without slowing down around a bend. No, I'm not gonna touch my brake pedal for a handful of really stupid wild animals that aren't big enough to kill me, when I'm going around a blind bend going 40 miles per hour. A goose isn't gonna hurt me or my truck if I hit it. If it was a deer, maybe. But, I'm not risking getting rear ended or worse to spare the life of a cute little animal. But, I didn't hear any thunks when I drove through the geese, and there weren't any blood or feathers on my grill. So I think everyone survived. Regardless, Karen was not at all happy!

Seriously though, what the fuck is wrong with so many people?! Did they all eat lead paint chips as kids? Or maybe they’re still drinking water from lead pipes. Judging by the current housing market, and how many dilapidated historic homes there are on the market in Denver and the metro area, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

However, I can’t fairly complain about everyone else without admitting my mistakes and misfortunes. The first time I drove my Xterra, I was never told how the dial to switch from rear wheel drive into 4 wheel drive worked, or what happened if I tried to do donuts or take one lane turns in 4WD. So, when I got to Enchanted Grounds and saw I still had some time to kill before going in side, and realized that there was an abandoned parking lot with plenty of ice to play in, I couldn’t help myself. 

I would’ve whipped some damn good shitties if I was in RWD, but in 4WD, my Xterra gripped the road like a gecko grips a stucco wall, and because the turning radius for the front wheels is different than the turing radius for the back wheels, my tires jumped to try to keep up with each other. Thoroughly freaked out, I parked, went inside, ordered my hot chocolate, and called Clarke. He knew instantly what I was asking when I said the word “four”, and laughed hysterically at me over the phone. 

Finally, after he could catch his breath and wipe the tears out of his eyes, he explained what was happening. 4WD in trucks like my Xterra is different than 4WD in other, non-offroad vehicles, which explained the jumping and jerking. Thankfully, my cluelessness didn’t hurt my truck at all. They’re built to withstand hell and high water. But, for a better driving experience, Clarke told me to keep it in RWD unless I needed the 4WD. So, that’s what I’ve done ever since. 

On the way home that night, I had a smooth ride home until I reached my neighborhood. The plows did not come through my street. I ended up driving around the first icy bend going about 20 miles per hour (10 miles under the speed limit), and finally achieved a sick drift. Only, it was entirely unintentional, and I kind of panicked. I made sure to take my foot off every pedal and turn into the spin, like Clarke, my dad, and my grandpa Lyle have all pounded into my mind (Clarke is from Canada, my dad’s from Minnesota, and my grandpa’s from North Dakota, so I trust their snow driving advice), but I didn’t turn into it enough, which is why I ended up almost perpendicular to the road. 

But, I wasn’t the only one in that predicament. A person behind me driving a Honda Pilot found themselves in the same position. But, once I stopped and took in a deep sigh of relief, I turned the dial to 4WD, and my Xterra treated that road like any other road. I still only drove about 15 miles per hour, and even less around bends. But, my Xterra never slid again in 4WD. 

It took me a lot longer to figure out my place on the road, however. I still run over curbs from time to time, and still take certain bends way faster than I probably should. I didn’t have these issues in my little tin can. Of course, my Rav4 was less than half the size of my current truck, and I honestly wanted it to break so I could speed up the process of replacing it. So, I’ve had to relearn how to drive my Xterra. 

Interestingly (actually, more like scarily) enough, my Xterra has a shorter braking distance than my Rav4. I remember my dad mentioning that the front brakes were toast and the rear brakes were dangerously mushy in my Rav4, but that thing had so many issues, it kind of just went through one ear and out the other. But, once I started driving in my Xterra, I shuddered when I realized just how better at stopping my Xterra was than my Rav4. I used to have to run red lights from time to time in my Rav4, because it didn’t stop fast enough. But, in my Xterra, I haven’t run any red lights or even skidded my tires on anything but ice. Also, the emergency brake in my Xterra isn’t difficult for me to use. My Rav’s emergency brake was so full of gunk that it got stuck frequently, and in order to back out of my driveway, I had to literally wrestle it down using almost my entire body weight. 

Looking back, that was extremely dangerous, especially since my Rav4 actually had one of Toyota’s worst safety ratings. Not a single acceptable rating for that death trap! I think the fact that I survived driving my Rav4 is enough proof that God is real. I needed some Divine Intervention at least once a week to get me out of a life-or-death situation. Also, I was driving with expired plates and temporary proof of insurance when October rolled around, so there’s that too. If I’d gotten pulled over, or a cop behind me simply ran my plates, I would’ve been sent to jail for a minimum of 10 days for driving with expired plates an expired temporary proof of insurance. Still, I’ve learned from my mistakes and try not to make them again, unlike so many people in Denver. 

Most people in Denver are shameless outlaws who don’t care what the road safety laws are. They drive like they’re the only person on the road at 2:30 AM on a Wednesday. Except, when they drive, it’s not 2:30 AM on a Wednesday. It’s 5:00 PM on a Thursday, or 3:00 PM on a Tuesday, which is when I usually spot those idiots after therapy, or 5:00 PM on a Monday if I have to drive to writer’s group. 

I developed a backbone really quickly once I got my Xterra. People only pretend to sideswipe me most of the time. The ones who continue to merge even if I’m right there will jerk out of the way when they hear the horn. But, there was this one BMW driver (go figure), who continued to cut me off even when I honked the horn. I was literally an inch away from destroying their 2008 BMW 5 Series sedan. That was the first time I ever actually displayed my middle finger, and that BMW driver didn’t even flinch. Guess why that was? The dumbass was on his phone and wearing earbuds!

No wonder why Denver is on the top 5 list of worst places to drive in. People just don’t care! 

My dad admitted to me that he could not imagine what it must be like for me to be a new driver in Denver. My dad grew up in rural Minnesota, where the worst traffic jams always happened at the train tracks in the middle of Lake City. Even then, they were almost never bad, and nobody was ever terribly aggressive down there either. The worst road rage my dad ever experienced over there was the time he and his friends egged a rivals house, and that rival got in his truck with what appeared to be a firearm, and chased my dad and his friends down miles of isolated roads in the blufflands. But, my dad totally provoked the driver to do such a thing by egging the poor dude’s house at 10:00 on a Friday night. 

Road rage in Denver is almost never reasonable. In fact, they’re the reason why I’ve checked the laws and found out it’s perfectly legal to drive around with a 7 inch Bowie knife in the center console. Now, if only I could actually find where I packed my knife up in the first place in preparation for house pictures. Thankfully, I haven’t yet gotten into any incidents where my life was threatened, but so far, I’ve been tailgated, flipped off, honked at, and yelled at for following the law. No, I’m not gonna make an illegal left turn or drive faster than 5 miles over the limit in the right lane. No amount of raging at me is gonna change my mind. What the actually hell, Colorado?! 

I’m not gonna say I’m the best driver ever. I make lots of mistakes too. But, I don’t cut people off or drive the speed limit in the left lane. So, there’s no reason for people to get so upset at me. They just do. And, I’m sure everyone ends up being an innocent target for road rage at least once a week around here. I know my mom and grandparents are. My dad might be the only person who doesn’t get raged at, because he’s the ragey one on the road. 

But, I have to leave again in 5 minutes, so to get back to writer’s block. 

I probably can’t write stuff for the memoir because I’m so stressed out and anxious about driving. Only, instead of getting scared anymore, I just get mad. And trust me, nobody wants to see what I turn into when I get angry. Sure, I don’t try to run people off the road, flip them off (unless they really deserve it), or throw soft drinks at them. But, I have a growing list of favorite creative insults I’ve come up with that are so vulgar, even I won’t share them here. 

So, I guess the point of this is, I’m probably not gonna have much new material for my book for awhile. Hopefully, that’ll change soon. But, at the moment, my brain just doesn’t want to work with me. I’ll definitely show up in the system everyday, hoping this writer’s block curse has finally passed, but I won’t be writing much, unless I say otherwise. Also, I’m gonna try a new way to get to writer’s group, so I will avoid the lights and idiots on Bowels, er I mean, Bowles Avenue. It’s a little bit of a longer distance, but there are only a handful of lights on the new route I’m gonna try out. But, the other night, I took a turn too quickly which sent my bluetooth speaker flying, so I’ll just have to follow the route by memory instead of by GPS. 

At least it was a $10 speaker that was on its last legs anyway, so I’m not sad. I actually laughed when it happened. But, that’s one more reason why I’ve been pestering my boss for my paycheck (which I haven’t gotten yet for October), so I’ll have enough cash to feel comfortable buying a new radio that I can actually plug my phone into. 

Also, the country radio station sucks. But the comedy radio station is gold. At least, during the evening when there aren’t so many ads. 

Man, I miss listening to my Joe Rogan podcasts and country/rock/blues/bluegrass playlist while driving around....