I Passed My Driving Test!

6 weeks after starting to learn to drive, I had my driving test today and I'm chuffed to say I passed. No, that's wrong - I'm exceeding proud to say I passed. Never been prouder of anything I've ever done in fact.

Last night I felt a bit nervous so I reminded myself that I was not afraid of anything except spiders and zombies and, as I was unlikely to encounter either of these on my test, it was silly to be nervous. I went to sleep quite happily (whereas the last 2 nights I had slept badly dreaming that I'd failed my test) and I woke refreshed, unafraid, and with one thought: "today is the day that I get my driving license".

And I did. I only had 5 minor faults (you're allowed 15 faults and no serious faults - this is where your actions may cause someone else to change speed or direction) which is very low and I only started shaking as I sat in the test centre car park waiting for the end result. I felt I'd done well but I didn't want to be a deluded, disappointed idiot.

I am so pleased with myself that I could explode. As you know the whole thing has been quite hard for me and I have really struggled with it. At one point I didn't think I'd ever get it and not just a few frustrated tears have been shed in the process. This is the reason I'm proud of myself; it's the hardest thing I've ever taken on and I finally made it. I passed first time. 

I'm now a driver.

Got An Ear Worm?

The other day I was reading on the BBC website that they are doing studies into earworms. An earworm is basically when you get a piece of music or a song stuck in your head and you can't get rid of it! I'd never heard the term before but BBF calls them that all the time.

I always wake up with a song in my head and I'm 90% sure that I have a song or tune constantly going around and around on a loop. Usually its the last song I heard but lately I have had Born to Die by Lana Del Rey and Rolling in the Deep by Adele in my head all day, every day for over a week now. In fact I've got to the point where I could stab myself in the head with a chopstick just to get rid of it!

If you fancy partaking in the survey then you can do so here on the Earwormery website. They're collecting earworms if you'd like to donate one!

Vegas - Like Purgatory?

View from my hotel room

Well Vegas is pretty mental. Before you come you think of it as being this bold, colourful, exciting place where everyone is having fun, fun, fun but in reality it's a 24 hour money-making machine that's essentially all fur coat and no knickers!

It's almost like the situation where everyone tries desperately to have fun at New Year but you know it's all a bit of an effort. In fact, hardly anyone looks like they're enjoying themselves playing poker or slot machines - they sit and stare with dead, empty eyes for hour after hour and they all look really sad. 

There's music everywhere - even in the street. There's always really loud cheesy pop songs blasting out of every building or plaza or some chick telling you to come visit this show or eat in that restaurant. It is full on here. There's also lots of people riding around in mobility scooters who look like they have nothing wrong with them.

It's a mixed bag to be honest. Half of me looks at things and is enthralled and the other half is quite appalled. In The Venetian there are Gondoliers rowing about on water under fake painted dusky skies... on the second floor. How weird is that. The fake Trevi Fountain is fun unless you've been to the real Trevi Fountain. I sound a bit jaded about the place and I have had some fun wandering around taking billions of photos, but it's like being in a dream. This place is not any kind of recognisable reality.

Everyone is out for a buck here; if you have no money, or once you have tipped someone for doing their job, you are history. They have absolutely no interest in you apart from what you can give them. On the plus side though, it's very clean and my hotel room at The Mirage is lovely. The maids even tidy up your toiletries in the bathroom which I found quite unnerving at first - I'm pretty tidy & I line things up so they barely had to touch a thing really.

I do miss BBF a lot. I thought I'd be too busy to miss him but that has not been the case. Turns out it's weird being in a holiday destination without anyone you know! I like my own company but I miss normality, decent coffee and having something to do.

Yesterday I discovered Victoria's Secret though. We don't have one in the UK but their bra's are amazing. When I tried on the bra I ended up buying, I let out an involuntary sigh it was so comfortable. It is like a dream to wear. And strangely a size smaller than the one I was measured for and bought in M&S last week. The 2 I bought are not racy (nude and black) but they are without a doubt the comfiest ones I've ever owned... ever.

I fly back tomorrow which will be strange. I leave Vegas at half 4 on a Wednesday afternoon and arrive back in the UK at 11am Thursday! The flight is 9 hours and I have a driving lesson in the afternoon. I definitely need a nap before I attempt to navigate the streets of Brighton in a Toyota Yaris! 

Another great thing that happened (apart from Victoria's Secret) was that I met up with the formidable Wolynski. I have been following and commenting on her brilliant blogs for around 3 years and a couple of days ago she came to the hotel and we had coffee out by the pool. She is a right character and was a joy to be around even if it was only for a couple of hours. How she manages to live here is incredible to me, but I've only seen the touristy strip part of Vegas and not the 'real' bit though.

Anyway, that is Vegas so far. I arrived on Saturday and go home tomorrow; I have yet to talk shop with my potential future employer and I'm sitting around waiting to be summoned. I have no idea why I'm here, what my purpose is, or what is expected of me. I'm in the dark and a bit lost to be honest. We shall see what happens but at the moment it's all a bit unsettling.

Going to Vegas Baby

Such is the bizarreness of my life at the moment. I received an email from the potential employer on Tuesday asking if I was free to travel and visit him this weekend. I only had a driving lesson planned so agreed asking him where he'd like to meet me. Vegas that's where!

Yes, he is going to be celebrating his son't birthday in Vegas this weekend and wants me to come out to see him. I hope we will be discussing the potential job, but I think it may also be a get-to-know-ya situation to see if we want to work with each other. He's asked me to bring my laptop so there may even be a trial-shift situation going on.

If I do get to work for this guy, then I won't be talking about him on here although I will hopefully be telling you all about the far-flung places I'll be visiting. I've never been to the US before and I might even get to meet up with Wolynski whose Vegas blog I've been following for around 3 years now. Meeting a virtual person is quite bizarre in itself but if I'm to get this job then knowing people all around the World will come in very handy!

So I leave tomorrow morning and come back Tuesday night I think. I'm staying at The Mirage which looks kinda cool on their website, and I have no idea what to expect. I can't stay too long as I have my driving test quite soon and I want to be able to pass it first time. Then I can start travelling properly!

"Please Do Not Enter This Bin"

I've come to a mental arrangement with the driving. I've decided that I just can't go on having meltdowns every few days so I'm just going to do what I can do and slow down with the hours a bit. So my new mantra is "it's just driving".

I've got my test in a couple of weeks and if I pass then I do, and if I fail then I will simply take the test again. If the client waits for me and hires me then that's great, and if he doesn't then he just doesn't. I feel much better and my driving has suddenly improved as well.

The driving wasn't really that bad looking at it, but I've never taken on anything that takes so long to master! I kept getting frustrated seeing complete idiots driving around when I hadn't gotten the hang of it yet. I see people driving appallingly every day and it's galling that I probably drive better than they do yet they have their license.

I was at the 7 Dials Roundabout in Brighton today - this roundabout has 7 roads leading off from it hence the name and even experienced drivers shudder when they speak of navigating it. It's basically a free-for-all situation that can and does turn into a cluster-fuck in the blink of an eye. I'm still apprehensive when I approach it but I'm getting much better.

Talking of complete idiots, all the big dumpster bins in Brighton have a warning sticker on them alerting people to the fact that it's dangerous to sleep in them. On a par with printing that a bag of peanuts "may contain nuts", they've had to state the obvious because some fool did indeed drunkenly climb inside for a kip and was then turned into a human pancake when the binmen emptied the snoozing thicko into the back of the truck the next morning.

So because one solitary dimbo (obviously it was a man, as no woman would sleep in a bin. Even if drunk she would get herself home) at some cost, all the bins in Brighton and Hove now warn people that sleeping in one may not be the best idea. The bloke in question was actually a teacher if you can imagine, but just because one person did an unimaginably stupid thing, they've had to label them all just in case someone else has been eyeing up a bin as a good place to spend the night.

I'm uncertain as to whether they based the image on the victim himself, but here is the Council's impression of what a foolish man looks like. So if you're staggering home from a night out on the lash, do not consider climbing into a bin for a snooze. Your Council may not be as vigilant as ours, but I can inform you with some confidence that it will end in tears.

Unleash Your Inner Autism

Today BBF sent me a link to a website called Things Organized Neatly and, when I clicked on it, such a calm, zen-like feeling came over me that I had to share it with you.

I do appreciate that not everyone thrives on solitude, minimalism, and order but if you are such a person then this is the site for you. With my life feeling like it's spinning out of control, seeing all these items neatly lined up makes me feel all calm and happy.

Behold:

Driving Me Mad!

So I guess I haven't posted anything for a while - this is because I have been doing nothing but driving. Driving, thinking about driving, dreaming about driving, worrying about driving and worrying about my business.

Not only has learning to drive been harder than I thought (scary right turns across junctions and navigating roundabouts - apparently thickies learn to drive quicker than intelligent people as they don't over-think everything) but being in limbo for a month has been even harder. 

My business is hanging by a thread until I can pass my test and get a job with the client, so it's a bit of a worry that I haven't even put in for my test yet. I'm just ticking over so I can dedicate 20-odd hours a week to driving and now I don't know if I'm coming or going. Nothing is stable and I have wild moments of insecurity and fear which are totally new sensations to me.

Not being able to do something correctly every day for a month has made me doubt other things in my life which is something that I also didn't predict happening. I sometimes even second-guess myself when I walk across the road and I often make silly mistakes driving when I know what I'm supposed to do. It's disconcerting, frustrating, and brings out emotions that I don't like and didn't even know existed. It's been quite horrible in that way actually.

I have 2 driving instructors as well. One who has the better car (smooth, with power behind it) but spends 20 minutes explaining everything in frustratingly pointless analogies when he could just tell me. He also seems to want me to be the best driver on the planet before I even think about taking a test. The other one is more test-geared but has a shonky car. I've done over 50 driving hours in 4 weeks and I want to be done with it but the thought of doing a test scares me as well which is also an alien emotion... grrrrrrrr!

I cannot wait to have something certain in my life again. I need to know if I have a new job or not, if I have a business or not, if I'm leaving the country of not, if I'm leaving my friends and boyfriend or not, and where my next pay cheque is coming from. It may all sound like a pathetic first-world whinge, but my life has been in limbo for a month and it's very tiring.

I shall sincerely endeavour to write something more interesting on here soon!

Trajectories

I just read that Whitney Houston was found dead in a hotel bathtub yesterday aged 48. Obviously I didn't know her, but that doesn't stop me thinking how sad it is. 

When I was in my early teens I used to go round to my friend Sylvia's house and watch MTV. I remember us watching her bounce around singing 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' and she was all bright eyes and bushy tailed. She was very young, clean and fresh - my friend and I thought she was absolutely beautiful.

I've never bought one of her records, nor have I particularly followed her career but it was clear to see that she turned into a very troubled woman, supposedly led astray by her husband. Her descent from bright young thing into deluded haggard mess did appear to correlate with her marriage but who knows.

The reason her death also resounds with me is that my step-cousin Sean was found last week frozen to death in a church doorway. I remember him from when we were little - his Dad married my aunt and he and his younger brother and sister came into our family. He was only 2 days older than me so we were in some of the same classes at school. He was very lively but we all used to pay together very happily.

Sean was always very troubled though looking back; all 3 of them were I guess. Their Mum was unfit and their Dad eventually became an alcoholic and my aunt divorced him. Sean was naughty at school and by the time I left my home town aged 23 I had no idea where he was. He had gotten into drugs (rife in our area) and once Sean became an adult, my aunt had to start thinking more about damage-limitation to her younger children.

To be honest, I rarely thought about him. We weren't close, he was a liability and he wouldn't accept any help or advice from his family. They loved him very much but over time he ostracised them all, burnt every bridge (or thought he had), and put his family through hell. I hadn't heard his name mentioned for many years until one of my cousins called my last Wednesday to say he was dead.

He'd moved to another city and had been working for the homeless charity Emmaus. He had a place to stay, a job with them, and had started to work as a counsellor for other homeless people. I hear he had been clean of drugs for a couple of years, but that he still drank. Apparently he has been described as an 'all round nice guy', which I remember was never really the problem.

There hasn't been an inquest yet, but I'm guessing he was drunkenly making his way home in the snow, sat for a while in the church doorway and hypothermia got the better of him. Not a bad way to go in terms of dying I guess, but not a good way to go in terms of living. 

So sad and needless all round really. I'm not devastated by either of their deaths, I just feel that it's all a bit of a shame when you remember how they used to be all those years ago. I know we all have to go at some point, but there's no sense in playing on the motorway.

Clunk, Click - I've Got It!

And suddenly one day later I'm driving at will! Tonight I had my first evening lesson and I just got in the car and drove it. I drove all the way around town, I negotiated traffic lights, pedestrians, junctions - and even the roundabout of doom at Seven Dials (an area of Brighton renowned for its scary roundabout)

Apologies for keeping on about this driving thing,and you know this won't be the last post - but I am so chuffed with myself I could explode. To get it right this evening I basically mentally pulled off and stopped a billion times, in my mind I used clutch control to 'creep and peep' until I felt that I understood what I was doing. And it clearly worked cos now I can suddenly confidently manoeuvre the car.

Woo hoo! 

Driving is Emotionally Painful

I'm finding this driving malarkey really effing hard. On one hand I am doing really well - hill starts, downhill starts, U-turns, emergency stops, changing gear, driving around, roundabouts - I'm certainly getting there. But it's much more difficult than I imagined. Much more.

To be frank it's the bloody clutch. I know that the clutch has its uses and I understand how it works. But I am not yet at the point where I press it in the direction it needs to go to have the effect I want. I know all this takes time, and I have only had 11 hours of driving, but I want to be able to do it now dammit! 

One of the hardest things (apart from that damned clutch) has been to relinquish control and let someone teach me something. I talk over him, I second guess him, and I'm a bloody pain in the arse. I had a cry in the car earlier as I was so tense, frustrated, and wound up with myself. My job is to control people, ask questions, and to manage people, so to go against my nature is painful.

I am really enjoying the driving part of it though, and I know that in the next few days it should start to come together more and I will feel that I have control of the car. At the moment however, it feels like I'm trying to do aerobics with no sense of coordination whatsoever! I see complete numpties behind wheels and I think "If you can drive then so can I" but maybe because I want it so much, I'm finding it quite difficult to coordinate everything. I'm sure my instructor would say I'm doing marvellously, but I just focus on the bits I can't do very well.

It seems you have to look in every direction at once as well as over your shoulder, anticipate other drivers and the road ahead, steer the car, change gears up and down all the time, find the correct gear, use handbrake control on hills, drive the thing, as well as read and act on signs. I gather that this all comes naturally when you've been driving a while, but at the moment it feels near impossible. I'm desperately hoping that I'm not like Dillinger failing to work his catflap out. Although he did get there in the end I suppose.

Since I was young, I've heard people say "you're your own worse enemy" and at 40 years old, I'm dismayed that I have still not worked it out. I know I'm being overly critical of myself but I'm not used to coming across something that I can't do. That may sound big headed, but I like to think I'm quite bright and can work around a situation - well driving isn't like that. You have to do it right or the bloody car doesn't work!

I do appreciate that with time and practice I will get better until I can drive a car as easily as everyone else. But with such an important job resting on it, I want to be able to do that now and I can't and I'm frustrated. I didn't imagine that learning to drive would be so emotionally painful and that I would learn so much about myself and the way I do things in the process. 

And I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that I don't like it one bit.

Home Decorating Ideas

A few years ago I bought a picture of this woman. I can't remember where I found it but I remember that I thought she was beautiful and wondered who she was. I liked it so much that I framed it and had it for years in my bedroom.

My friend and I were just discussing 'women who deserved being called a c**t' (like you do - long story involving The Onion) so I Googled 'Evil Women throughout history' to see if I could come up with any more candidates after I got stuck getting past Myra Hindley and Margaret Thatcher. 

And there at number 2 was Elizabeth Bathory - one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. Now I'm not sure if this image is definitely a painting of Elizabeth Bathory but it most certainly is the same picture that has been adorning my home all these years.

I'm not sure what that says about me?

I'm Driving!

Well it finally happened. The DVLA worked out that I was a real person and gave me my provisional license. I had my first lesson yesterday and can report that I bloody love driving!

It's only been one lesson and I can't at all imagine that I will ever get the hang of the special moves (ie: changing gear and using the clutch whilst looking in every mirror as well as in front of me) but I'm really enjoying it so far.

At one point I hit 15mph and it felt like I was driving like the wind! I felt like I was speeding along and it was pretty scary. I'm not easily scared but you are moving around in a big metal box and that is quite daunting I guess.

I have another lesson tomorrow and you never know; I might even hit 20mph - pedestrians beware!