4 posts tagged “driving”

1.  Eldest children really do have it harder.  Please pity me :) Birth-order studies always interest me, because I find they are fairly accurate when it comes to Patrick and me. 

2.  I'm going to enter a writing contest.  Yeah!  I entered about a year and a half ago but I felt the story I submitted was a dud.  (I didn't win, obviously).  I think I will enter two stories this year. I wrote one of them during my creative writing class last semester. My teacher gave it a good review; I don't think it's great, but it's not as bad as the one I submitted last time.  I'm writing another story to enter.  I think it has a good premise, I just have to do a lot of cleaning up.  I've written maybe 25-50% of it.  Writing short fiction is hard!  You have to condense so much into a certain word count, make the plot interesting and engaging, and really make those characters jump off the page.   I just have to make my character believable, since we don't have similar backgrounds and life experiences.  I hope I succeed; there's nothing worse than reading stilted writing.

3. So today someone complimented by driving.  I know, right? I was about ready to start laughing too.  She's a coworker and it turns out she lives in the same apartment complex that I do, so she was following me in the parking lot.  "Wow, I'm really impressed by how you actually use your signals," she said.  "I don't see a lot of people here who do that, good job!"  I'm surprised she was complimentary, because as I was driving, I was so sure that she would be cussing me out.  In parking lots, I drive like an 80-year-old grandmother on Quaaludes (parking lots + parking garages = Jenny's worst enemies).  But hey, I'll take any compliments I get :)

Holy hell, how is it already Wednesday?  And almost May, at that?  That means that there's a little more than two months until I turn 24 (sigh).  January and February were so slow, but March and April just shot by. 

Today was a good, random day.  I started off my morning by making a dumb driving mistake.  It was nothing dramatic, I mistakenly went before my turn at a 4-way stop sign.  I texted my brother and asked him if he'd ever done that before and he said that he had...just this morning! Isn't that funny?  I'm sure it will warm my parents' hearts to know that their children do not know how to wait for their turn at stop signs. 

At work I got assigned to do a small research task for a project we're working on.  It has to do with bioremediation, which is right up my alley.  I don't care if my task is just a small part of the project.  I've been doing a lot of support work for the infrastructure group lately.  Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the work there and I'm learning a lot.  But remediation is my baby, so I'm happy that I'm getting work in that department as well. 

Today I drove all the way downtown and was all ready early for the meeting that we'd had scheduled.  I got antsy when it was five minutes till the meeting was supposed to start and no one had showed up.  I knew that I'd gotten the right place and time, so I called my coworkers.  Turns out they had canceled the meeting that morning and conveniently had forgotten to tell me.  I'm not upset because the mileage and $2.50 I spent for the parking meter is reimbursed. I'm going to mess with them the next time I have to attend a meeting.  "Are you sure you all aren't going to cancel this at the last minute and forget to tell me about it?"

The run today was AWESOME.  Today's run was the first time in nearly four years that I finally felt closer to being the runner I was when I was nineteen.  I didn't finish last, and instead of using the recovery time to walk, I kept running.  I pushed myself and was doing really well for the first two laps; I just have to work on having a strong finishing lap (which has always been my weakness).  Everyone is so encouraging, cheering you on at the end.  What a great group of people.  Like my dad says, "Have you ever met a runner who is unhappy?"  There was a bit of a commotion today as there was a rattlesnake on one of the trails.  He was all curled up, luckily, and not shaking his rattler.  I had advance warning and I thought he was a small critter, so he didn't really bother me.  I thought it was kind of cool, actually, as I'd never seen a rattlesnake in person before.  Some other people were freaking out over him though.  Now if he had been bigger and had that rattler going, THEN there would be problems.

I'm enjoying it here so far.  I've been here for three months and I finally feel like I'm making a life for myself here.  I'm meeting people and doing things that I enjoy. 

Man, I scratched up my leg today after the run.  I scraped my leg against the pavement.  It looks like I've been clawed.  Will I ever have ladylike legs?  They are constantly bruised. 

I came up with a story idea today.  I think I will work on it.  It's an idea for a kid's novel.  I think it has potential if I develop it more. 

Volleyball double-header tomorrow.  James is now the team captain.  This ought to be interesting.

I want to read a bit before bed.  I never want to fall asleep, and I never want to get up in the morning.  It has been this way since I've been a baby.  Night, y'all. 

I'm proud of myself because I didn't get Panda Express today. (I'm saving my splurges for the weekend!) I was so close to getting it, but I'm too lazy to go out there during Friday rush hour traffic to get any.  One day, Orange Chicken, you and I will be reunited.  One day.

So today ended up being really good.  Yesterday, after arriving at work, I had an email asking me to deliver a proposal to a client in a town about an hour and a half from here.  I found it heavily ironic, especially since all my posts this week were about how much I hate finding new places.  I was a little nervous, as I'd never been to another town before without having seen the route physically.  Besides, the route required me to drive a stretch of highway that has been in the news ever since I've moved here, due to the recent spate of deaths from accidents there.  Can you blame me for being nervous?  However, as these accidents happened either at night or in rainy weather, I decided that I would be okay.  Besides, the interstate highway I use to get home is not all that much safer (I nearly got rear-ended just last week), and my own accident had been in a rather innocuous location. 

So I set out this afternoon, my (somewhat) trusty Google Map sitting in the seat next to me.  Google Maps really is a wonder...it takes away a lot of the guesswork when you can zoom in and see landmarks you should keep an eye out for. How much more can you ask for? Thankfully, the route seemed fairly easy: head out on a ranch road, turn onto a state highway, and then turn onto a farm market road. My nervousness ebbed as I felt in control behind the wheel.  It was a really pretty drive too.  And that particular stretch of highway I was nervous about wasn't all that bad in the dry weather-it was just kind of hilly and curvy.  And get this-I didn't get lost!  Since this is the first time I've driven to a whole other town without having someone else show me where it is first, I feel pretty good about today's accomplishment.

I'm pumped about this weekend.  Sunday is going to be a lot of fun because I'm having company. And tomorrow, I'm going to visit my aunt and uncle.  I'm so excited to see my little cousins, I haven't seen them in a long time. What I love about being here in this town is that I can watch my cousins grow and see their birthdays, and I'm still close to home so I can visit for the quadruplets' birthday in August.  Win-win.

Tomorrow morning I'm planning on a Target trip, because it's payday (yay!)  I really want to check out the Jovovich-Hawk  collection and see what the fuss is about.  I need to get a new remote for my TV, because I think my company will balk if they have to change the channels manually.  I'd also like to pick up a little something for the boys...I'm not sure if they'll remember me, as they were 2 when I last saw them, but nothing helps bridge unfamiliarity like a fun toy. 

Well, I should make dinner now. I hope you all have a fun weekend! 

Confession-I have a love/hate relationship with driving.  For some of people, driving is an intuitive process that comes naturally. It's never come naturally to me; I have to work at it. I love how driving gives me independence to go wherever I want to, and since I didn't get a car until I was almost 23 (the dearly departed Pearl), I definitely appreciate not having to bum for rides or having to share a vehicle with my parents.  But I hate everything else that comes along with driving-traffic, yielding, making sure you don't do something idiotic to wreck your vehicle.  I've come a long way from where from where I used to be; I used to be so afraid of driving that I refused to drive on the freeways in my hometown. Now I have no problem jumping on the highway to go home to my family, who are hours away. 

But one difficulty remains: I hate having to find new places.  Any adventurous spirit I may have evaporates as soon as I open Google Maps.  I hate using maps and I dread getting lost.  It's a waste of time and it's a pain in the ass.  But since I live in a new, bigger city, I don't have the luxury of knowing where I'm going like I did at home.

I think some entity is trying to give me a message to stop being so negative about this, because today I a. found out I have to go in for random drug testing tomorrow, b. had to deliver documents to an agency, c. got a dinner invite from my aunt, and d. decided to go running with a group of people.  All at locations I've never been to before.  I got lost, of course, when I was trying to find my way to the agency, but it wasn't as bad as the last time that I got lost, because at least this time I found myself in a familiar location.  I get a stupid feeling of pride everytime I venture out into another part of the city, where I can mentally check off in my head an area I explored and (kind of) conquered.

Speaking of my aunt: I am really bad about keeping in touch with people outside of my immediate family. I came to terms with this today, so I emailed my grandparents and aunt, who both live relatively close to me (20-30 minutes).  My aunt sent an enthusiastic message back, kindly inviting me over her house on Saturday for dinner with her, my uncle, and my little cousins. I'm so excited. I haven't seen my cousins for a long time (they are 3.5-year-old fraternal twins).

So today I decided to join a running group.  They meet up at an area that's ridiculously close to work, so it would have been silly for me not to go.  I really, really, really enjoyed it.  I can't run with my dad all the time, so I needed to find a group of people who would motivate me.  I go through phases with my running.  There have been times in my life where I was really good, and then times where I burnout and suck at it.  The last time I was really good was when I was 19 and doing marathon training, so I want to get back into the shape I was in then.  I have a hard time running outside of my comfort level on my own, but if I run with a group of people, I become more competitive and push myself more.  We did drills before working out.  The coach divided the trails into short and long workouts.  "People who are new to this group, you may want to do the short workout," he said.  Haughtily, I thought, "I've been running since I was 8. I am not a beginner."  So I set off for the "long" route, which was three 1-mile loops.

It. kicked. my. ass.

So, my legs were already sore from Sunday's run and a workout yesterday, and this is all trail running, something I haven't done since I was in Virginia.  Plus, there were little "hills" to conquer, and at home, my route is as flat as Kansas.  At least I had no qualms about being one of the slower ones in the group.  Just you wait, people, until I get more speed under my belt.  But I don't have to prove anything to anyone right now.  I think I could have pushed it a little harder because once I stopped, I felt okay; this means I need to get my mental strength in shape as well.  So that's something to work on. I have no idea how fast I was going, because I left my stopwatch at home.  But I'm so excited that I have a group of really, really good runners to train with.  It'll take awhile but one day I want to be running as fast as they are.  I made that same vow before at sixteen, when I was getting back into running and was in bad shape. I wanted to run as fast as my dad did, and I did it.  Now I can keep up with him.  I'm confident that I'll get in shape as long as I keep on training.

Man, it's already almost 9:30.  I'm going to go relax.  I really want to head to sleep earlier.  This time has me all messed up; I don't feel tired until about midnight.