Midnight cowboys A car totaled, a life in flux BY CAITLIN SHETTERLY

Last week, snow cascading from the sky, was punctuated by three crises: I slid on black ice and wrapped my purple Mazda around a telephone pole, totaling my car, up Downeast where I grew up; then I heard that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston separated; and I began a new relationship. Right when Brad Pitt is available. I’m not sure which of these three (or is it four?) has caused me more trauma, frankly.

After calling my father and then my mother from the snow bank where I sat with all of the laundry I had meticulously washed at my mother’s house the night before sitting in my lap, I felt this enormous wash of the fragility of life — as if I didn’t already know this from the tsunami news — come sit personally next to me. I’m 30 and I’m living too close to the edge, I thought. With only liability insurance, I knew I couldn’t report the damages to my car without my premium going up and I had no hope of getting any of it paid for. Luckily an uncle had given me AAA for Christmas, so I was able to call for a tow. When the mechanic who lives down the road from my Dad showed up, he chuckled and told me that my car was most likely "totaled."

But let’s look at the bright side, he insisted, I was fine.

My mother, on the other hand, was convinced that I must have been doing something wrong — she has an unerring tendency to look for guilt — and that, to her mind, I was clearly going too fast (I was going the racy speed of 15 mph). Truth be told, what I didn’t tell her was that I was on the phone with my girlfriend Golden Golda — yes, using the hands-free device — discussing such important topics as whether or not we thought the Pitt and Aniston breakup was true (this week’s People seems to indicate they’re fine) and if we get into Sundance does that mean we’ll be famous, like, tomorrow?

Accidents abound this time of year as if they are penitence for a gluttonous holiday season full of emotional backfiring at tables with relations who are painfully endured under the tyranny of Christmas which no matter what holiday we actually celebrate is inflicted on all of us. The best part about it being January is that at least the Wal-Mart greeter is no longer wearing that silly elf hat, which makes it that much more painful to scurry by the moment one is confronted with a large snaggle-toothed grin and a "Welcome to Wall-Maaat." Where do they find these people? And does Wal-Mart Inc. really believe that this makes people want to buy more things? All it does it put me in a terribly uneasy mood where I want to leave much more than I want to buy that packet of Bic pens I thought would be cheaper than at Staples.

Beginning a new relationship in January is a peculiar thing. This is the time of year when I feel like I’ve just survived 18 encounters with Job’s messenger and yet I’m still here to tell about it with a glorious full year until Christmas rears its ugly head. Right now is when I usually hunker down all day in my PJs in front of the computer and actually write something longer than a page — such is the glamorous life of a writer. January is a time of planning and making things come together for a year which from inside the tight ship of my post-holiday apartment looks wonderfully organized. But once you add another person — a guy — to this, it all goes haywire. Chaos is getting to know someone else. This means late nights talking until dawn, making Spelt pasta with cheese at 2 a.m. and then pancakes at 9 before a long day of work where I barely function because not only am I in a carb coma but I also cannot take my mind off the sex calorie-to-carb-calorie ratio, and why do my jeans feel so tight today?, and this is totally fucking up my life so it needs to go because it’s January and everything is supposed to be organized and calm and I’m supposed to be productive and making a whole year’s worth of career happen this month and instead all I want to do is eat and hang out with my Midnight Cowboy.

Ugh. It’s exhausting to even think about.

So I wrapped my car around a telephone pole instead. And Golda screamed on the other end and I had to reach down and fish the phone out from between my boots and under the brake and she informed me, "That was really terrifying. Don’t ever do that again." As if I somehow had planned on ruining her morning by almost dying. Death, of course, is all over the news in far away places and at home. And many of us feel universally bereaved and guilty that we were spared.

With a murdered car and my cowboy partying down in NYC, I went home to my Mom’s. In my childhood bed, her new cat Percy stretched out beside me like a child. He was holding my pillow between his paws where he rested his head and looked at me with big browny-green eyes and I looked out the window at the pointy firs and downy white pines and wondered at how everything can turn in a tiny instant and suddenly the topography of one’s life is forever changed.

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@yahoo.com