A pause after the fact.

Sometimes I get in a mood to keep going, even if I'm headed in the completely wrong direction.
Case in point:
My roommate Sarah was getting a haircut, and wanted me to pick her up. She told me the name of the salon multiple times, but I of course promptly forgot it. She gave me the address and a few directions over the phone and I wrote them down. She needed to be picked up at 5:30.
It's 4:30 and I'm in Fremont with nothing much to do, so I set off. At some point, I realize something is maybe wrong. I've followed my chicken-scratch directions and gone north to 65th, but the address is 23-something. I've gone north to go south? I keep going. The street changes names. I cross a bridge. I keep going. It's after 5. My thought at this point is to find a computer with internet access and find better directions. I can see the street I want to be in now, but I can't get in the right lane. The lane I'm in will lead me onto I-5, at 5:15. I stall with my turn blinker on, hoping for a really nice person to let me over, but no such luck. Instead, I have a pickup behind me, honking. So I get onto I-5, and the entire time the only thing running through my brain is "F--, F---, F---!" I'm a little less than calm at this point. I'm tired and it's too hot and I'm hungry and I would rather be anywhere on the interstate. So I take the first exit possible, which lands me in downtown. Maybe I could have planned this out better... I keep trying to get over a lane, so I can make any kind of turn, so I can stop heading in the completely wrong direction. Finally, I end up on 1st avenue and drive all the way through Belltown and onto Elliot Ave. I pull into my own driveway. It's 5:37. I send a text message to Sarah: "Um, you need to take the bus."
My fatherly neighbor, Daniel, a carpenter who likes to hang out shirtless and usually chats with me when I get home, sees the look on my face and asks what's wrong. "Well, I was supposed to pick someone up at a place I didn't know with an address that didn't exist, and the short version is I didn't pick her up and I feel bad." At this point I'm starting to cry just a little, mostly out of pent-up frustration, and I turn towards my door.

I open it to the loud voices and laughter of two Hollywood boys. (I'm not kidding, they're really from Hollywood). They're friends of my roommate's boyfriend, and I knew they were coming tonight, but I just can't deal with them now. I walk straight past the kitchen door without looking at anyone and head for my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. Through it, I hear Cynthia's voice: "Um, that was my roommate."

I flop down on my mattress and put my pillow over my face, trying to focus on my breathing. I lie still for a while. Then I take out a map and trace out with a black pen the route I had taken. I had gone, in a nutshell, through Fremont, up to Greenlake, over almost to Ravenna, down through the University District, across downtown to the water front, and back up to Queen Anne. Basically, I went in an extremely large circle. I take out my newly-found copy of the Baghavad Gita and read for a while.

Cynthia knocks on my door and comes in with a gleam in her eye. She pounces on top of me and nuzzles my neck (not actually an unusual occurrence in our house), and I start laughing. I follow her into the kitchen, to be greeted by two very tan, very rock-hard, very racuous boys. They each give me a bear hug, and I can't say I mind. They're twins trying out the acting thing, and I sip red wine while they start telling us stories about working in LA, which for them means mostly serving at catering events (shirtless), dancing in music videos, and being the occasional gay escort. I'm tempted to ask if they get $50 for the powder room, but I don't. But allusions to Breakfast at Tiffany's don't seem that far off the mark. They both remind of Holly Golightly--innocent, maybe a little naive, even for all the things they've already seen and done. Making a living off their social skills and using their acting skills mostly at parties, where they are "so happy!" to see people they don't actually like. Their life sounds lonely. You can't help but feel a little twinge, a temptation to want to play Paul Varjak and try to rescue them. They don't seem to belong in Hollywood, even though they do. They seem less-than-passionate about acting, unsure of their own abilities, unsure maybe of the road they have chosen. But still they go on.

I want to say to them "Take it from me, sometimes it's best to pull over." Maybe the road seems smooth and straight, maybe you just want to see where it goes, but maybe it would be better to pull the cab over and stand still, even in the rain, and think. Because maybe the place you're going, even if you got there, would be nowhere. Maybe it's time to turn around.
These things are so hard to know. All I do know is, it's hard to move and think at the same time.