November 15th, 2010
» not the valedictorian
This confession should surprise no one: I hate to get things wrong. I like reading instructions; I like to be able to think about a thing, logic it out or intuit it, and then pick it up for the first time and be able to do it, at least passably. I prefer to skip over the awkward stage where you really suck at a thing, where you’re just glaringly bad and mess it up, and all the ensuing attention. That I’m a failure and everyone’s looking at me feeling.
That’s why I hated gym class. Hated. I was a shy, chubby kid who loved books and math and making up elaborate relationships between plastic horses. Being forced to attempt a pull-up in front of the entire class was torture on par only to being made to do team sports with the aggressive, athletic kids, who wouldn’t scruple to kick a soccer ball full power straight into your face. It took me a long, long time to find any physical activity that didn’t make me want to curl up and die of humiliation. (Step aerobics. I can do it at home in front of my tv where no one can see me. It is bliss.)
Anyway, so, I like to be right the first time, and I really like routines. I like figuring out the best way to do something, and then doing it that way, every time. (I have, for instance, perfected how to cut a banana so it is absolutely perfect in a bowl of cereal. Well-cut bananas are a predictable spot of joy in almost every morning.) It makes me a bit of a stick in the mud about some things, obviously, and it takes me longer than the average person to come around to new ways of doing things. I know I sometimes miss out on other people’s awesome banana shapes.
Which brings me to the other hand: I also like, sometimes, to push my own boundaries a bit. It’s a good lesson to myself that I don’t always have to be right the first time. I’m not very good at finding the joy in trying, but — I’m trying. This is partly what my hair salon policy grew out of. When I go for a cut, I always try to make the stylist decide what to do. For the most part it’s worked fantastically for me. I’ve had a couple I’m meh about, but the majority of the time I leave the salon feeling like a rock star. Sometimes it scares the pants off me, and those are the best times.
Yesterday, for instance. I don’t go to the salon very often (maybe three or four times a year), so I usually let myself splurge on it. I have a lady I really like at this fancy-pants place, but she’s expensive. Really expensive. So yesterday I went to Fantastic Sam’s. I don’t think I’ve been to a place that doesn’t take appointments since…ever? The stylist is great: we have a chat about the atrocity of people wearing tights with short shirts but calling them leggings, and how you’re basically half-naked in public; and about picking out nipple colors after breast reconstruction surgery; and about role-playing documentaries. I say yes to everything she proposes. When she whips out the thinning shears and starts hacking away halfway up the length of my hair I do have a moment of dread. It’s like mini skydiving, a whisper of the feeling of kneeling at the edge of a plane. She’s right, though, and it all turns out great.
Anyway, I’ve gone a bit astray from what I originally meant to say, which is: I am not (as Dooce would phrase it) the valedictorian of driving stick shifts. My dad taught me how when I was sixteen. He’s the perfect kind of person to teach driving: kind, patient, unflappable, and able to clearly explain each step and feel. If I ever scared him half to death he never let on — which was good, because I had enough anxiety for both of us. He taught me how in an old Suzuki Samuri, which he then let my friend and I paint blue with gigantic yellow and orange flowers. I’m still flabbergasted he agreed to that. Anyhow, I stalled that thing and lurched through gears all over town for a couple years, then went off to college and didn’t touch another stick shift for almost a decade.
And now I find myself in temporary possession of a manual. I swapped with my boyfriend (and babe, if you’re reading this, I promise I haven’t stalled it or lurched through any gears [yet]), who sadly has a broken arm. (Jury’s still out if he’ll be able to swim in Bali next week — but he’s still very capable of sitting on a beach with a book and a frosty drink, so: silver lining!) I am exquisitely glad my dad taught me to drive a stick all those years ago, but I’m still out of practice and would be very embarrassed to have any passengers. I’m currently in the stage of over-analyzing everything I do with the car, in a sort of low-level panic about the damage I must unwittingly be doing, in constant dread of having to down-shift or, horror of horrors, stop on an uphill slope. In my illustrious stick-shift-driving career I have yet to roll backwards into anybody, but there’s always tomorrow.
Thankfully, interspersed with all of this neurotic apprehension come moments of euphoria. I love, Love!, upshifting from second to third and third to fourth. (Third is my favorite gear.) Every time I think I’m going to do something hideously wrong but it ends up working I feel like a genius and I want to grab someone and shout I downshifted and didn’t die! or I drove through the parking lot!. I really love my car — it’s gotten me through some pretty dicey situations, over a whole lot of ice and snow — but driving it is at best a time to zone out to an audiobook (not a bad thing really) and at worst a dreaded chore. The manual, though? The manual is a little push out of my comfort zone. It’s a chance to get the heart rate up a little, and to pull the key out of the ignition feeling like I have just conquered the world.