Just 2.6 percent of Massachusetts drivers have junior operator's licenses or learner's permits, but when state laws governing these drivers change on Saturday, nearly everyone will be affected. The list includes teen drivers, their friends, their families, anyone who pays car insurance, and anyone who's ever been touched by stories of teens killed in high-speed crashes. The changes are aimed at making teenage drivers take safety seriously by toughening the punishment for those who don't. Junior operators -- new drivers under age 18 -- who get a speeding ticket will have their licenses automatically suspended for 90 days. Almost all basic offenses will carry suspensions, as well as fines and fees of up to $1,000. full article

Essentially, a teenager, naturally unfamiliar with the roads around where they live, accidentally goes down a one way street the wrong way and gets hit by $1000 in fines? Or maybe they didn't notice a speed limit changed and WHAM your family's not making rent this month! The fines for a simple error are outrageous and fly in the tradition of treating minors as less responsible for law breaking. Now teenagers will face fines over an order of magnitude larger than adults charged with the same violation.

This kind of fine-base approach, as in the state's shining "universal" healthcare law that provides healthcare to everyone by fining uninsured people who don't purchase health insurance just makes Massachusetts that much less affordable. And the cost of living in Massachusetts is the reason so many people are leaving this so-called liberal state.

I've had some interesting dreams recently. The night before last, I dreamed I was on a holodeck. I kept switching through setting, but I was changing more than my environment. I was not only trying on different clothing, but different bodies. However, at some point I stopped changing and the room began changing more like a standard Star Trek holodeck. The finally room I was in was filled with shallow wooden boxes with large amounts of baby budgies. They were all blue and just getting their feathers in. They were pulling themselves from box to box, in the baby-budgie head-first method of locomotion. I was in a happy place.

Last night, I dreamed I was in a maze of a house. There was a strange man in whiteface who was running the place. The house was so large that it had a lake and a hill with cars. It was almost a village in a house. There was something wrong, a sinister air. I felt compelled to investigate what that wrong was. I followed these streams of crusty liquid up the hill and found an old stationwagon that had rusted with the years. purpleglitter was with me then and at that point had been with me on my explorations in the house even though she hadn't been with me earlier in the dream. We got in the car and I was able to start it. There was a road at the top of the hill; and after driving a short distance, we realized we were on the outskirts of Moscow. We drove back to the hilltop and looked down. There was the house and all it's trapping that we had departed. I concluded that there was some sort of portal to Moscow at the top of the hill. purpleglitter and I decided to drive around and explore the outskirts of Moscow. purpleglitter's cell phone miraculously worked and we called zarthon who told us we ought not be traveling around through portals willy-nilly and should head back at once. But we ignored him. Who was driving kept switching seamlessly in the dream, sometimes it was purpleglitter sometimes it was me. The controls on the car ended up locking up and we skidded into a ditch. It faded out after that.

Somewhere in last nights dreams purpleglitter and I were in a bank trying to stop a $2500 transaction from her account to a con artist. The bank was entirely bureaucratic and unhelpful, and we felt as if we were fighting against time. They kept asking invasive questions that had nothing to do with banking. Odd randomness. Why must bureaucracy even invade my dreams?

Money can't buy happiness. This is true. However, it can eliminate a lot of the causes of stress and sadness. Yes, the rich suffer too, money affords more opportunities to alleviate that suffering. Money can rid one of having to worry about unstable housing or the affordability of food and medicine. A trip to the emergency room doesn't decimate the finances of the well-off, and if one has wealth one has the luxury of being able to prepare an emergency fund for any unforeseen blip in their cash flow.

Pervasive in this culture a perception is that wealth = good; and motivated, hard-working people will end up rewarded. The reality is that wealth has a lot more to do with luck than it does anything else. Yes, there is work involved, but the idea that the $400 million CEO works harder than the day labourer is ridiculous. If the labourer ends up in a nasty car wreck and falls into utter financial ruin, it is perceived as their fault and that they deserve their fate. The CEO who screws up often still makes off with millions in severance.

The simple act of making money may not be evil in and of itself, but neither is it a virtue. There is no inherent dignity in wealth. The past clings too hard to the future, and we still live with the age-old stench of poverty = moral inferiority. The rich have their money because they are the best stewards of it. The poor wouldn't know what to do with it and would simply squander it. When the rich get richer, everyone will benefit as those on top unzip their flies and trickle down on the unworthy beneath them. Bullshit.

I just got a call from the wildlife rehabber that took the squirrel. He was doing very badly last week, and the vet she took the squirrel to didn't think he was going to make it. Apparently he had been hit by a car and probably bounced off the wheel well giving him a severe head injury.

But, he's recovered surprisingly well. A couple days ago he started eating on his own, and now he's grooming himself again. He still walks towards one direction and is disorientated, but if he continues to recover at this rate he should be releasable back into the wild in a couple weeks. With head injuries it's still not possible to say for sure that he's going to be okay, but things are looking much better than they did when we found him last week.

I dislike the term "safer sex". It is a reaction to right-wing criticism that safe sex techniques are not 100% fail-safe and that this needs to be pointed out every time someone mentions a condom or dental dam. Nothing in this world is 100% and safe sex is safe relative to unsafe sex. Do we feel the need to make it a point that you can still get killed in a crash even if you are wearing your seat belt every single time we tell people to buckle up? Should we change the name of "safety harness" to "safer harness" because you may still fall to your death even if you are wearing one, or how about "safer pins" because they can come undone and cause injury in the same manner as straight pins. No, and any one who's suggest that we do would seem ridiculous. They are all safe relative to the alternative. Then why is it only when it comes to sex that we must perpetually qualify the word "safe"? Because sex is "bad" and you shouldn't be doing it anyway.

I freaked out earlier about what was apparently just me reading people wrong. I went off and headed to a place in Somerville were I was going to let the commuter rail hit me. I kept blanking out on the way there, and it was very confusing. I saw two car crashes today since I got out of the psych ward. One right in front of the house_of_clocks and the other on Mass Ave in Cambridge as I was walking to Union Square. I made it as far as porter then I had a spell and ended up on the ground and skinned my knee when I fell. A couple people were asking if I was okay, but I couldn't really walk right or talk to well. I kept telling them not to call anyone, but the guy called 911 anyway. Luckily Glenn and dicotomygrrl drove by and saw me. dicotomygrrl jumped out and rushed to help me. I told her that the guy had called the cops and she said she'd help me get out of there. Glenn pulled onto a nearby side street and dicotomygrrl helped me get into the back of the van and we were gone before anybody that might take me away arrived. purpleglitter and merryperseis were very worried about me, and purpleglitter came and picked me up at the Magic Dragon and we drove around and had egg salad and went to trader joe's. I feel bad that everyone has to worry about me. I keep flipping between deep suicide death want feeling to delirious dancing mood. I think I've completely lost it. My mind has snapped. i don't want to go back to the place. They are mean there and they want to make me a zombie and they don't believe anything i say. I want to stay out. I want this rollercoaster ride to end, it's making me dizzy and it makes everyone around me worried and sad.

There was just an accident outside my window. Looks like a fender bender. I'm pretty sure no one was hurt this time. We seem to be in a prime spot for accidents.

i went downstairs to get a better view. apparently a motorbike was involved. i'm not sure what happened, but the rider is sitting up on the side of the road and while i can't tell the extent of his injuries, they do not appear to be severe.

the accident occurred just as i was posting that i would like to just take off and leave. go somewhere new and start over. or maybe make my journey north and find my destiny.

north, it's been a long time since i heard that call. i don't know if it was some sort of psychotic symptom or real, but that's where the spirit or voice or whatever it was told me to go. it's been a decade since i've heard that call. to nunavut on the shore of the hudson bay on the winter solstice. even if it was real, i don't know if what's there is anything for me there anymore. but i still think about making the journey. finding out if it is real, even if i don't end up coming back.

i don't know what sort of omen the timing of the accident to that thought process is. quite odd. quite odd indeed.

there was just some sort of car accident outside my window. i can't see how bad it was. i called the police about it and they are arriving as i type. they are telling someone not to move. a fire engine just arrived. i hope the no one is seriously injured.

I was in a bad mood and didn't want to deal with anyone. I was thinking of cutting or purging or self-harming, so I did what I've learned is a very healthy activity that really helps me get through a state like that: I went for a walk. I got as far as Foodmaster up by Arlington High School. I had intended to try to reach Lexington Center again, but I was feeling quite dizzy and it was quite sticky and muggy outside, so I decided to go into the air conditioned Foodmaster.

I was walking haphazardly through the isles until store employees started questioning me if I was looking for something and if I was feeling alright. I probably did look a bit strange wandering in a daze with neither a carriage nor a basket.

I left Foodmaster and headed back towards the house_of_clocks. However, shortly after I had set out on my return trip, purpleglitter stopped behind me and meowed. I was supposed to help her look at cars, and when she found out I wasn't at home she figured I had set off on a walk and came looking for me. I hopped in and we headed off to our first stop: a 1997 Ford Escort wagon at a dealership in Winchester.

The Escort looked fine from the outside. The first hint of trouble was the odd sound the engine made when the salesperson started it. However, the real problems were found after we got into it. The ceiling was a bit damp and the air coming out of the vents had a nautical flavor. The car had taken a dip. Needless to say, the car was a no.

After we left Winchester, we picked up some hot cheese-covered breadsticks at My Brother's Place and ate them at purpleglitter's apartment and then headed out to car #2: a 1996 Buick Century from a private seller in Union Square in Somerville, just one street over from our apartment on Dane Street in the mid 1990s.

The car had some noticeable damage on the front which the owner informed us was from him hitting a deer. While the damage was large enough to cause us pause, it appeared to be only cosmetic. Another issue with the car was the passenger window that would not open.

We took the car for a test drive, and it ran smoothly. purpleglitter drove down 93 and ended up getting lost on the side streets in Boston trying to turn around. Heading back we missed our exit into Somerville. When we were approaching the FoodMaster at Clarendon Hill, I called the owner to tell him that we were running quite late due to this.

After the call, the car died, and it died in an odd way. We were sitting at a stop light and the dashboard lights got dim. Then the speedometer shot up to seventy, darted several times between 50 and 70, then every went off. By everything, I mean we didn't even have hazard lights and were were stopped on the very busy Alewife Brook Parkway at night.

Cars whizzing by, we called the owner to explain the situation. He sounded a bit annoyed, and asked if we could get the car out of the intersection. While it was bit dangerous to get out in the traffic to push the car, it would have been more dangerous to leave the car sitting there, so I got out and pushed. We parked the car on Broadway just over the Arlington Line. There we waited for the owner to arrive.

The owner arrived in an SUV with a friend of his. He sounded a bit accusatory, and wouldn't believe at first that we hadn't done something reckless to damage the car. While him and his friend were trying to get the car started, I called iamacliche and asked him if he could give us a ride back to purpleglitter's car in Union Square. He told us that he only had room for one passenger, so I walked home while he took purpleglitter to get her car. Upon finding her car, purpleglitter found a $40 parking ticket on the windshield. An extra jab from whatever mischievous spirit was amusing itself with us today.

Last night I had many layers of lucid dream. I kept waking from one to only arrive in another. I became quite good at figuring out it was another dream over the course of the night. In many of the dreams I was a Japanese girl that had her memory erased after a car crash and was living with several strange people. My room had turned into a swamp, from which I kept having to rescue the cats. Luckily my two favorite things to do in dreams is go underwater and fly. I spent much time doing both. After several layers of dream past someone found a dead baby in the swamp. Since I had my memory erased, I was a worried that I might have had done it. I never did find out who killed the baby. The dream went on for an extraordinary amount of time, and was much more complicated than I'm writing here. Places I visited were my old highschool, a highway that turned into a dirt road (I wasn't in a car, I was flying right above them, which I often do in dreams), a strange house with wires all over it, and the ocean. I discovered that in dream I can't always fly the direction I wish, often if I try to fly off the plot I'll involuntarily turn back to the direction the script sends me. Dream flying for me is a false sense of freedom, I must go where the dream takes me.

Earlier tonight, purpleglitter and I went to CVS. On the way there we saw a cat the had been hit by a car. I had purpleglitter stop the car. I got out and dragged the cat to the sidewalk so it wouldn't continue getting hit. I pet it and left a wish pod with it. I forgot to say the blessing "good journey" at the time, but I say it now. "Good journey, cat".

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I just got back from a wonderful walk with merryperseis. We spent an hour and a half wandering around the silent streets of Arlington. I've grown quite accustom to taking these walks and am glad when I have company. The silence. The cycles of the day. The details. Everything interests me in the heart of the night.

Around 7:00pm, Mitzi came over to watch Stigmata, a movie I recently purchased.

Before the movie, we decided to get pakoras. I hadn't eaten anything, and thought I might eat with someone else. It is sometimes easier to do that when I can convince myself it is an expected social activity. I don't know if I can pull off the same thing tomorrow, I'll see when I get there. I also know one order of pakoras is not a good nutritional intake for the day, but it is better than nothing.

pillowkisser joined us for the movie. She is a fabulous roommate. I love living with someone that not only accepts my psych issues, but can relate to many of them as well. Much can go unsaid, but understood. I think we can help each other a lot.

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Mitzi told me that Bob of Sinister was hit by a car last week. What is it with my friends getting hit by cars this year? First Kat, now Bob. Bob is at home recovering, but he had brain hemorrhaging, and it is unknown if there will be permanent damage. Please let there not be. Bob is such a kind, wonderful, gentle soul. I hope and hope he keeps all the gifts he has.

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Around 11:00pm; pillowkisser, riga_mortia and I went to purpleglitter's apartment and she drove us back. The reasons we had to go over there just to come back were complicated, but I'm glad she made the trip. purpleglitter and I had some very good talks in my room. I miss what we once had. I'm glad we're still close close friends. And, that as close close friends, we can still share so much with each other. But, losing what we had was the biggest mistake of my life.

Victor just told me that my good friend Kat got run over. I don't know the details yet, but I do know she's in the hospital and is in pretty bad shape. I'm meeting Victor tomorrow, and we're both going to go visit her.