Sunday Driving Session No. 3

Yeah, I know, I should have started this sooner. But to be honest, I didn't think about doing this until Janet told me I should. Why? Because it is a great referance to go back to when creating art like I stated in my last post.

So, what happened today?

Learning how to drive got a bit more frustrating, at least personally. The car kept either flooding or choking. It was eventually discovered that my brain keeps sending a signal to my feet along the lines of "remove both feet at the same time" when I was letting off the clutch. Jason thought maybe if this was more like DDR, it would be a little easier. There's something about that game that makes my brain function differently. Actually, all video games do that. Anyway, back to driving.

After several rocky starts and a few good ones, we pretty much plotted a course that involved going from one parking lot to another in a circut. Occationally, we would go inbetween or cut corners or even go the route in reverse. (Not with the car IN reverse, but the same route going the opposite direction.) This time around, there were no cars behind me. Just cars going the opposite way than me.

All in all, it was generally a good session, up until we did something that made me very nervous. We drove to Watkins. That's right, we drove to my college, passing the dorms, over the bridge, passing the garage where several students were working on their metal casting molds, and into the parking lot. The far side, as I felt evil with my nervousness. The only reason we drove there was because Jason needed to use the bathroom.

After he did his business in the building, he had me drive back to the parking lot where we switched off originally. He let me pick which of the many driveways I can pull out from that the school has (which is two, the dorm side and the school side). I chose the driveway that was closest to the traffic light.

I think I brought what happened next onto myself. The light was red, which meant I was in the clear as far as trying to get back on the main road. However, in my hurried state to beat the light change, I ended up stalling! Half the car was in the lane! Immediate panic took hold as I frantically tried to start the car and pull out like some player who forgot he was having sex without a condom. The car stalled on my second attempt, which only increased the panic. Finally, on the third time, I ended up squeeling the tires and rushing onto the main road. I would have checked my rear view mirror to see if all that rush and panic was for null, but I was too releaved that the stress factor had lifted for only a little bit.

It seems that with the exception of the first session, I'm going to have moments of panic like these every week. Jason pretty much confirmed that with several stories about how he or someone else would be in traffic and then the car would stall on them while trying to turn or go up a hill after a stop light.

However, that's not the worst of it. What's worse? I'm still driving without a Learner's Permit. Yeah, so that drive 5mph under the speed limit to the school so my teacher could use the bathroom was an illegal run. Screw the fact I was going the speed limit. I got lucky.

So, let's see. The main feelings of the day was frustration, panic, and suprisingly a sense of normality when nothing bad happened (i.e. when I was going straight with little to no problem). Frustration has been done in art, as far as I'm concerned, and in very cliche manner in my opinion. The escape for that is to put the frustration into context and produce a piece about the frustrations of driving or learning how to drive. Panic I've never seen done in art, so that should be interesting. Normality, especially in the context of driving, I don't think has ever been done. I'm sure it has, but how to do depict the norm visually without it being boring? That's the question that needs to be answered.