Money = Cottage on Beach and Permission to Drive Drunk

Sometimes I get so antsy in my life, I wonder, what the hell am I doing here? Why aren’t I living in a cottage on a beach, near some trails where I can mountain bike or hike with my dog? It’s a mental check-in to see how I am doing. Am I living in a way that I’m going to regret later, or am I happy with where I’m at right now? I guess nothing is really that easy to answer. Obviously, I’ve been reading too much Oprah magazine.

I’ve been living in New York for four years now. Before that, I lived in San Diego, where all of the above-mentioned things were possible. The only problem is, I couldn’t afford it there, and couldn’t as easily pursue the career I wanted. So it’s a trade-off.

The pay in San Diego, especially compared to New York, is abysmal. But the price of homes is equivalent to those in Brooklyn, and once you factor in car payments and car insurance and gas prices, well, I swear to God, San Diego is a much more expensive place to live. So I was dirt-fucking-poor. Worse than that, I was in serious debt. But I did get to bike the boardwalk every night after work, and take 20-mile mountain bike rides through the desert on weekends.

Amazingly enough, I think I’m safer here in New York than I was in San Diego. I have never been in so many car accidents in my life. The worst was a hit and run by a drunk, rich, middle-aged woman in her husband’s company BMW. She hit me twice before pulling over. When she got out of the car, she kept trying to hand me some piece of paper which she must have thought was her insurance. As soon as I said I wanted to call the police, she got back in her car and tried to drive off. Stupidly, I stepped in front of her car, and she kept inching and inching and inching forward. It was a very bizarre game of chicken. Finally, I gave up, got through to the police and gave them what information I had. (“How is it a hit and run if she pulled over?” they asked.) She was on her way to pick up her kid from school, and was headed towards the freeway.

The cops asked me to stay there, and I did, waiting for over an hour, until I finally called back and found out she’d caused another accident a few miles up the road. The police actually wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, and said she was probably having a diabetic reaction. Uh-huh, until they tested her BAC found out she had priors. Had it not been a rich bitch in a BMW, I’m pretty sure the officer would not have suspected low blood sugar. Is there anything money won’t buy you?