I have lots of choices. Well, choices that involve walking. Or I could rent a car. If my boss crashed her car, she would rent a car until she bought a new one.

I'm looking for something a little more dramatic. My boss can rent a car because, as I can tell by the flowers she has on her desk from ad agencies and boyfriends, her life smells nice.

I could call my therapist and say, Hi, I crashed my car so I can't see you tomorrow, and just cross out my weekly spot on Thursdays. I'm not coming for a while. I'll call you.

I will call my therapist in the middle of the day, in the middle of the hour, and I'll get her answering machine.

She'll call me back. She'll say, How do you feel?

I'll say, I feel self-destructive.

She'll say, How's that working for you?

I'll say, Fine, and then I'll hang up.

Then I'll spend the rest of the day in bed. Or the rest of the day on the bus, if it's a workday. I want to wallow in depression and destroy my life, but I don't want to be poor again.

I'll spend my days on the bus reading. And looking at single mothers overwhelmed by their lives, losing patience with their kids, because if things were good for the mothers, they would not be on the bus. That's just how it is in Los Angeles.

I can never be a mother if I won't rent a car.

I won't rent a car this time, but next time I crash, I'll take care of myself. But I'll tell Tano I want him to commit to having kids and he'll say he can't because I'm too unstable and I'll say, Fuck you, I'm stable, and if you can't commit, then I'm wasting my time with you. And then I'll say, Tano, I need to have goals. Milestones. I need to have kids before I'm thirty-six, or else I'll end up with Mongoloid babies.

Tano will hug me and say he's sorry.

I will not have time to hug him because I will have a three-hour bus ride to get to work. And two transfers.

I get the glass out of my shoes. And walk to the grocery store to get peas. I go slowly. I sit down on someone's lawn, but there are so few lawns in our neighborhood that each supports about forty dogs, and I feel my shorts getting wet.

I stop thinking of taking rests.

I get the most frozen bag of peas I can find and I pay by credit card in case I have to pay cash for a car, or $2,000 for a ticket for not having insurance.

At home I lie on the floor, look up at the ceiling, and nestle the peas under my neck to keep the swelling down.