Rolling...to a dead stop.

I'd say, oh, it was about 11 p.m., a little before, perhaps.

Let me set the scene: dark, warm in my car, somewhat sad, melodic music playing...my thoughts drifting as I drove down La Cienega up toward Sunset...

I've said this before, but it's often those split second decisions, not the long drawn out agonizing ones, but the ones you make without much thought at all, that often cause the most joy or regret, happiness or pain... In this case it was the latter, in both cases.

And I'd like to say, also, just to draw this post out, that I'd likely had it coming. I'd laughed in the faces of the driving gods too many times, missing cops by seconds, watching others get pulled over and driving on...

And so it was, last night, that on my drive home I saw a light change, somewhere after Norms...I was looking at the restaurant and I was deep in thought (not about Norms).

For literary purposes it'd be nice to say that the song reached a high or low point, that something drastic and dramatic happened leading up to my running of that red light. But no such luck. It was relatively anti-climactic.

As the light changed to yellow, I stared at it for a millisecond and decided I'd better go because I'd taken too long to decide otherwise. Cars were behind me, ya know?

And so, pushed along like a kid numbly succumbing to peer pressure and wanting to do it all along, I cruised through what quickly became a red light. And I was a movie star for a few seconds. The cameras flashed capturing my face, mouth agape, eyes glazed over, looking at the hidden boxes that would be the end of my "high rolling lifestyle" (*cough*) for a few months.

A few Internet searches later the sum total of my befallen karma is a $351 ticket and traffic school. First time for both, for me. And so, just like that, there we go...I figure it will take about seven weeks to recoup my monetary losses. The loss to my soul...well, that's another issue entirely.