Join a writer’s group! It’ll be fun!

And it was. I look forward to going back. However …
I knew when I moved up here that one of the things I wanted to do was join a writer’s group. Meetup.com showed several in the area, and yesterday I headed over to the Durham Writer’s Group, meeting at Barnes & Noble (one of several B&N stores around here). It looked like a good group, focused mostly on reading work and getting feedback, which is what I wanted.
The trip out wasn’t ideal; I’m still not used to Durham. First off, I turned off I-85 onto US-15, then somehow I wound up back on I-85. I didn’t know where I’d screwed up, but when I realized I was leaving Durham and going out into the woods, it was obvious I had. So I took the first turnoff, which was another busy, narrow street, so I had to drive a chunk further and make another turn before I could find a drive to turn around in and head back.
Then the road to the shopping center with the Barnes & Noble turned out to be in the midst of heavy construction so I missed the turn, headed to the next traffic light to turn around, realized that would put me on I-40, went to the next light … turned around, came back. Browsed B&N (and picked up an HG Wells short story book), wrote for an hour, went to dinner at a nearby deli, came back. I noticed while browsing that my phone was very low on power even though it had been fine earlier; I’m beginning to suspect that the camera, which I’d played with, drains it a lot. And I remember thinking boy, wouldn’t it be awful if I had car trouble and couldn’t call TYG?
The meeting was good: Three readers, quite good, and the feedback was intelligent. However, I was getting tired during the third reading and I was going to be driving at night, on an unfamiliar road, so I left early, muttering apologies.
Good thing I did. I had no trouble with the road once I was past the construction area, but my radiator tends to run hot during cold weather, and it was very cold, and this time I noticed it was really, really running hot … and hotter … and hotter …as it nosed into the red, I pulled off at the first exit and stopped at the first gas station. Which was obviously not a good part of town. So I sat, watched the needle sink a little and started again … needless to say it was not long enough so I pulled off again as the CHECK ENGINE flashed, stopped in the parking lot of a seafood restaurant and called TYG (the battery burbled objections, but kept working). Actually first I sat waiting to see if it would cool off (nope), then despite the neighborhood, I got out and checked under the head. And the radiator had definitely overheated. So I was stuck there and then called TYG.
I’d already figured this was another not-good neighborhood; she was very, very alarmed and told me just to sit in the car and hold tight, not getting out for any reason until she got there. I then called AAA, which took much longer than I thought (apparently the address they had on the card was my dad’s, so they were very confused) but the battery held.
TYG came up and I got into her car; we waited, watching mine, and she was quite nervous. The guy from AAA showed up sooner than expected and took my car to the AAA repair center where I’ll pick it up, possibly today. TYG was completely freaked on the ride home (though she assured me I’d done the right thing under the circumstances), more so when we passed the gas station (it has a very bad reputation, I gather), and finally she gave in, bought cigarettes on the way home and smoked one (but only one).
So a good meeting but not, on the whole, a good evening.