My toes hurt.

This car accident has shown me more of DC and Virginia than I'd care to know about. Yesterday, I brought my car to Allstate's Drive-in Claim Center in the District. It's located at the very very end of H Street NE. Right across from the Pepco Plant. Housed in a Shell Gas Station/ Enterprise dealership, the only signage for the center is a rickety old easel sign that balances on the building's far left side.

Oh, and I can't use the heating in my car. My body hurts from the cold.

My questions regarding this experience?

1) How did Allstate decide upon this location? Is it some deal with Enterprise to have definite advantage over people needed rentals? Why wouldn't Allstate choose to locate their center within a body shop? Wouldn't it make more sense to have advantage over that? And, what car dealership is located within a gas station? Isn't that sort of partnership usually reserved for Dunkin Donuts or Subway?

2) If you are a business operating across from a power plant, do you have to get special insurance to cover your employees in case of a nuclear meltdown? Just wondering.

3) How come residents in not-so-great-economic areas have so much time to "hang out" on the street? It's cold. It's the middle of the week. Don't these people have a school to be attending or work to be doing or a heater to be sitting near?

As I drove into the claim center/ car rental place/ gas station yesterday, a man in a leather jacket with skulls and snakes all over it was loitering in front of the gas station smoking a cigarette (fyi: My dad totally had patients who were burnt when a BP station exploded on account of a cigarette). The man looked at my car, shaking his head, and remarked, "Baby, please tell me that's not your BMW. Baby, that thangs a mess." I smiled and replied, "Yes it is. I can't use the heat so I'm freezing." "Well, good thing you've got you that fur coat. I wish I had me a coat that warm." I smiled and rushed inside. I mean, not that I assume he's going to do anything. He seemed perfectly nice, aside from the skull jacket and apparent lack of anyplace to be on a Wednesday at 11am.

Today, I was in my freezing cold car for 2 hours trying to find Duke Street in Alexandria. Mapquest sucks, by the way, and sent me down King Street. The auto body shop couldn't give me directions from one street in the same city to another, which honestly sort of makes me question how they'll fix my car, but anyways. So, I drove up and down King Street from I-395 to Route-1 and back. Didn't realize that there's a Bruegger's Bagels in Old Town Alexandria. Back in college, Erica and I used to go to Bruegger's in downtown Amherst so much that the hot guy who worked there once asked us why we didn't just go the supermarket. I finally found the place and metroed back to work. My toes are so cold right now still. This was not a great day to skip the shearling Merrell boots. Does anyone really care how I look when I can't move because I'm covered in a layer of ice and frostbite?

I'm alive. My car's getting a nose job. I didn't like my toes that much anyways, so who cares if we cut them off. Right?

From Missdy this morning via email:

In unrelated news, I came across a really interesting blog. This crazy (yes, literally crazy) middle aged guy who lives in my neighborhood writes incessantly about his tragically sad but intriguing existence. He's clearly very intelligent, he has his law degree and writes very well, but also completely insane. He's obsessed with the manager of the Cleveland Park library branch and a good chunk of his blogs are 'letters' to Brian (the library manager) but is completely aware of just how crazy he is and is honest about what meds he is on and how he has failed at everything in life. Anyhow, as someone who is into blogging and inquisitve about the world, I thought you might be interested. It's a great distraction from work.... http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/ check it out, it's fantastically bizzare