Freakin' DMV

Okay, so I have this van that's an old piece of shit, but very useful fo rhauling band equipment around. A year after we buy it, registration is due. It fails smog. Since at the time, we have no money and our friend who is a mechanic and agreed to look at it is busy, so in order to avoid being too late in registering it, I register it as "Planned non-operational." Then I leave the goddamn thing in the driveway and don't operate it. Now, the mechanic friend is back in town and ready to work on it, but I can't drive it to his place of business, so I'm having it towed (wouldn't want to operate it, right?). I start looking online to see what I need to do to re-register it as operational, and if I can just drive it to the smog test joint just this one eensy weensy time so I can get it smogged. Now, passing the smog test is required to register a vehicle. But as I'm looking around online, it says you can't even have a vehicle TOWED while it's planned non-operational. So to get it registered again, I have to pass smog. But to get the van to the smog test station, I have to have it registered! Despite being aggravated, I'm almost happy, because it's so rare that I stumble onto an actual Catch-22. What I'm going to do is just pretend I didn't know you couldn't have it towed, and tow the damn thing all over creation, because I don't really see a better option, besides letting it decompose in my driveway. Harumph.

There's a new special ed teacher at school, and she fits neatly into my theory about special ed teachers -- that they are in fact, a little bit special themselves. Not dumb, necessarily, but socially awkward or eccentric. She sits too close, talks too much, and while I'm trying to read, announces shit to me that I have no interest in. "I have to go to Staples later. I need a few things." "Mmm," I reply. Why did that thought travel out of your head through your mouth? And why was it addressed to me? Did I look like I cared?

Incidentally, I saw Silver City yesterday, and it was excellent. To be quite honest, John Sayles (the director) can really do no wrong in my eyes, but this really was a great movie that I'd recommend to anyone. There's a real focus on big business' stranglehold on politics and the media, and Chris Cooper does an excellent stuttering, stumbling, sound-biting Bush impersonation as Dick Pilager. Go see it.