Today's rambling: Mustang Sally
Written on Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2003 at 2:03 a.m.
while feeling a bit

My new favorite cereals are the ones with those dried strawberries in them. Special K is the best, but Honey Bunches of Oats with strawberries is pretty good, too! Mom bought me Cheerios with strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries in it...but that one isn't very good. I think I'd like the new Cheerios with strawberries, though, because it's just the blueberries and raspberries that I don't like in the kind I have now. I don't like raspberries to begin with, hehe...But anyway, yes. I like all these new berry cereals. They are quite tasty, and as weird as it seems (to me) to be eating cereal with dried fruit in it, they're almost just like real strawberries once you pour milk over them! *laughs* Oh, what a lazy society we've become when we'd rather get dried fruit in a box instead of cutting our own fresh fruit each morning!

In other equally pointless news...

I. Am. Sooo lonely.

And what sort of person have I become that I would sink so low as to depend on a stubborn male this much? Sheesh.

The worst of it is, Tim hasn't called me once since getting back from his mini vacation...and I miss him, too! X_X I talked to him a few days ago, but only because Mom called him at work to find out about where he and Geoff had gone for vacation. She called him last night (because I was lamenting the fact that he hadn't called me at all, but I was too chicken to call him at work, lol), and he said he would call back...but he never did! 'Course, he's always doing that...but yeah, I'm being silly and fickle, wanting him to call me even though he's only going to end up aggravating me. :P

I finally went out driving today...and yeah, I probably ought to seriously consider pushing back the date of my driving test. I'd be better if I was by myself, because I don't judge myself so harshly and get discouraged so easily, but obviously you can't drive by yourself without a license (or I wouldn't be going through this problem!). It doesn't help to have Mom over in the passenger seat saying things like "Don't jerk the wheel!" and other such paranoid things (I didn't, by the way, 'jerk the wheel'). I feel like such a loser, 22 and still without a license. We drove past Kathy and Amy's house, and Kathy's had her license for close to a year now! Amy'll probably have hers soon as well. So as I drove past, I was thinking, "Wouldn't they find it amusing to walk outside and see me driving all cautious-like, still license-less!" I hate it. I hate that I've been so unmotivated to get my license, and I hate that my perfectionistic tendencies are getting in the way of my learning. I barely even drove around today before I finally said I was through! My mind keeps telling me that if I can't do something perfectly the first time, I shouldn't do it at all. That's half the reason why I've never really pushed to get my license.

Mom keeps saying that I'd be so much better off if I had someone else teaching me, but she doesn't get it (and I repeatedly told her so until she DID understand). It doesn't matter WHO is in the car with me. If they're an experienced driver, I'm still going to be overly critical and hesitant and nervous. I'm like that with everything. Like when I was getting trained to work behind the Customer Service counter years and years ago, even if I could have worked something through by myself I never did when another experienced person was there, because I knew they'd look over and see I was doing something wrong, and that would get me all flustered and embarrassed. When I was driving today and I cut a turn too sharply, had I been by myself I would have laughed and exclaimed "Well that sucked!" But with Mom, all I could think of was, "Oh geez, she's grabbing onto the door handle, I'm obviously doing really badly..."

'Course, she made the mistake of taking me on a bunch of really twisty back roads, thinking that it would be good for me because a)There's no traffic, and b)If I learn how to drive on the difficult roads, I'll be able to drive anywhere. What she doesn't realize is that I need practice driving on some straight stretches and just getting the feel of the brakes again before we go on rural, hilly/curvy roads. If I could just have her in the passenger seat, duct-tape her mouth and hang a curtain between her and I so I couldn't see her getting paranoid, I'd be fine.

Speaking objectively, I really wasn't THAT terrible. Oh, there's a definite need for practice, because I made quite a few mistakes, but considering I haven't driven in a couple years I think I did quite well. But having someone else in the car with me makes me so nervous that even if I know what I'm doing, I mess up anyway! I just can't seem to make her understand that. She has this idea that because I'm so close to Geoff and Tim, they'd be better teachers. But I'd be just as bad, if not worse. With Geoff, I'd have this nonsensical idea that I had to be absolutely perfect (on top of the aforementioned nervousness being with an experienced driver). As for Tim, I'd feel like every mistake I made would be cause for him to tease me later, and that would cause me to make even more mistakes. So I repeatedly tell my mother that no, letting them 'tutor' me (as Penndot calls it) would not be any better.

I think we're going out again tomorrow. I'm going to have to force myself to go, because right now I'd be content to just hole myself away here and use public transportation for the rest of my life. I must continually remind myself about the Clarion bus system (aka The Satan Bus) and use that as my motivation for practicing. Stop thinking about what a lousy driver I am...

And hey. If Mel could get her license, I've got to be able to get mine. If I can just get past that parallel parking...