Small Corrections

There are three things I remember about my sixteenth birthday. The first was that my dad was in Jerusalem. He called me from the Wailing Wall that day, and bought a hand-made silver and turquoise necklace from a shepardess outside Bethlahem along with a silver ring with my name engraved in it in Hebrew for my birthday. I still have both of them but for the life of me, I cannot figure out which way the script on the ring ring is supposed to face.

The second is that I didn't have my driver's license, nor had I gone through Driver's Ed.

The first two things I remember play a good deal in the third. Since my brother and sister had long since moved out and my dad was halfway around the world, it was just going to be my mom and I. We decided to fly down to Texas to visit my grandparents. They live about an hour west of San Antonio where it's stopped being flat oil fields and starts being a hazy hill country that in November turns brown or purple. They have a cattle ranch and at the time, my grampa still had cows there. Now he rents out the land to a neighbor who grazes his cattle on it. Circle of life.

Since I didn't have my driver's license, I obviously had very little behind-the-wheel experience. By 'little' I mean I wasn't aware of the fact that when you put the car in drive, it goes somewhere. Honestly. The first time I went driving that was a major shock to me. So one morning when my grampa asked if I wanted to drive in to town with him to get the mail, I said sure. We always did it, every time I visited. We'd climb in his old, tan truck with the cracked leather interior that smelled wonderful and trundle on down the long gravel driveway and winding, narrow country roads.

That morning, though, he asked if I wanted to drive. Bear in mind, by now his old tan truck had been replaced with a dark blue diesel leviathan. This truck was the size of New Hampshire. I must've said yes, because the next thing I knew he was talking me through backing it out of the carport without hitting the electric cattle fence, my gramma's car, the house, or the hundred-year-old oak in their front yard. I did it, and managed to drive to the post office without killing either of us. He kept saying 'Small corrections, just make small corrections.' to me, almost as if he knew that any time I played a racing video game I'd treat the steering wheel like a creature that needed its neck wrung. 'The truck will want to go straight by itself, so you don't have to steer hard as long as you make small corrections.' And he was right.

The memory of my normally-gruff grampa, paitently keeping me on the road, has been popping up a lot lately. Not because my driving skills are abysmal, but because I have no patience. When I start a task I want immediate results. When I turn a wheel, something should happen, dang it! None of this waiting nonsense. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

I'm trying to start running at the gym in the mornings. I've never been a runner. Never. Put me in the water and I'll go all day but ask me to run a block and I will most likely laugh at you. Hard. I tried it a few months ago, and it worked pretty well but for whatever reason I stopped. I can't remember why (which in itself is funny because I remember what I wore to dinner on my 16th birthday - a grey skirt and sea-green t-shirt. I had no fashion sense, and also chlorine-bleached hair.). I've started it up again though. Something about running, even for a few minutes, seems to set my mind right. I feel organized when I get to work, and less likely to want to take a nap in my car about 1:30.

I am disappointed that I'm not better at it. It seems like some sort of basic human survival trick to get up and run for an undetermined amount of time. If I lived 3000 years ago and was being chased by an invading army of whoever it was that was invading 3000 years ago, you bet I'd be able to run.

I need patience. I need to be able to tell myself that I'm not going to run a marathon next week, nor am I expected to. As much as I may wish it, there is not an invading army of Huns chasing me down with spears and stones and the Black Plague. I am, sadly, only human.

I am only human.

See? Small correction.

What Happens When You Build a Dam Over A Stream of Conciousness?

If I were to ever see Ben Bernanke on the street I can't promise I wouldn't try to hit him with my car or possibly a piece of construction equipment I have no business driving. I don't know if Mr. Bernanke is in any way, shape, or form responsible for the mortgage crisis going on right now but according to the AccuNet Mortgage commercials that I hear on the radio all. The time., he is somehow involved in my not being able to own a home. While the thought of chasing him down in my little 4-banger gleefully cackling out words that I can't repeat here because my mom reads this and then calls me to tell me she's worried about me is appealing, it's not the right answer and I know that.

I've been toying around with the idea of going back to school and getting my MLIS. I went to grad school once. For 6 weeks. I gave it the ol' college try, failed miserably, and have been living with a giant flashing invisible sign on my head that says Beauty School Grad School Dropout ever since.

I don't like failing or deferred sucess or whatever is considered politically correct to call it now. But at the same time, grad school costs money. And time. And look at me make excuses for not going back! What it all boils down to is this: I failed at it once, and I'm afraid I'm going to fail at it again. Failing at something once is appaling. Failing at it twice is downright un-face-up-toable, but is it worse than failing once and never trying again? This is grad school, not skydiving.

In other news, it's 2011 now which in itself is terrifying. What happened to pretty much every year since 1994? Is it still cool to make fun of O.J. Simpson and wear Zoombas? Ugh.

Being an adult is unavoidable and not always fun. You have to do things like make sure you don't go 8,000 miles without an oil change (which I haven't done since 2004, thank you very much) and change the kitchen calendar (which, for those keeping score, is still on May of 2010) and be responsible. I kind of wouldn't mind going back to kindergarden where boys had cooties and it was ok to glue your little history book with the ducks on the cover to your desk accidentally.