A bad day went well.

I had such a horrid day yesterday I had to cancel my social plans. I wouldn't have been able to relax. I was sad to miss that Friday night cunnilingus demo, but no, with such financial turmoil, I also couldn't justify discretionary spending.

Instead I stayed home and enjoyed some comfort food: pizza. Too much pizza.


Most of the money problems were due to my car. One thing I immediately noticed when my ride had a dragging cylinder was my fuel costs were out of control. I know for most people, that's a no brainer, but I have to admit I forgot about that. So, I needed another refill on my tank. Then I found a ticket on my windshield. Expired plates? I had received no notice.

When I went into the DMV, things quickly devolved into a bigger disaster. For one thing, I pulled out my insurance card. Turned out to be expired. I was driving under danger of arrest. Now, I know I saw the insurance cards arrive in my mail, and I thought I had swapped them out. No, it turns out, I couldn't have done that. So, why do I have this memory of doing it?

When my memory tricks me like that, I get rattled. A little more than rattled, I'm fighting an anxiety attack.

Then the DMV lady tells me-- due to the fact I had the car in mothballs for 33 months or so-- I needed another emissions test now to get the tags. I had one done just last year, and normally, I'm required to have them in even numbered years only. However, because I missed a few due to not driving the car, it turns out the state was now demanding I have one every year for the next four years.

That finishes any chance for me to keep this car. I know it won't pass an emissions test with one cylinder blown. The state is strange, though. They want to test me retroactively for those years. The purpose of the test is to determine whether the car is polluting, which renders further tests absurd, but state apparently still wants its money. That's fair, I'd be willing to pay it up front and forget about those inspections, and I expected to last year when I told them of the situation. But no, the State wants to test it anyway, a total waste of taxpayers' money. 

To add insult to injury, my title and the DMV records say I still live in Wentzville, Missouri. 

I got the Saturn registered and paid up all the taxes they asked me for last year when I got it repaired and took it out of my parent's garage. Now, the DMV wants to see my 2011 Property Tax receipt too. I brought that to them last year to get my tags. Nobody at the DMV told me there were loose ends then. I told the clerks at the DMV about this situation then. I thought I had all this straightened out and caught up.

I thought I could get maybe another year out of it. Nope. Gotta sell it.

That depressed me until mid-afternoon when I spoke to a friend. He cheered me up. I'm now more optimistic about the prospect. When I look at how much money I'll save per month, and then consider the cash I'll get from the sale, I'll come out better. I can't possibly afford a down payment and a monthly installments to finance another car. I can ride the buses. Though it does limit me in some ways. For the most part, I simply have to take more care in planning my trips, and they're going to take longer.

Therefore, today turned out well. I have 2,000 words of my novel written to read at my writers' group. I got it done despite all the stress. My writing skills have improved a lot as far as speed.