[insert joke about jesus taking the wheel of my life by empowering me to take the wheel of my car.]

Well, I'm feeling accomplished.  I finally, after nearly two full weeks of living in Columbia, got behind the wheel and actually drove myself somewhere here in town without Todd in the passenger seat as my safety net.  This may not seem like a major feat to you, but I had been dreading it.

Columbia is a busier city than I've ever lived in, with two interstates running through it, plus there's this crazytown spot on a main road where you actually have to cross traffic and drive in the left lane... yeah, don't ask me.  I don't know why, I just know it's there.  And as someone who really doesn't like driving even under normal traffic conditions in normal-sized cities, I've been putting off the inevitable and just staying home.

But my sister's wedding is in a month, and I'm as pale as a bug under a rock, so I needed to go tanning.  Which put me in a bit of a pickle: should I do the courageous thing and drive myself to the tanning salon?  Or should I play it safe and stay at home, but end up looking like an albino in all my sister's wedding photos?

Well friends, I braved it.  And I lived to tell you about it!  I did not get lost.  I did not kill anyone.  I made it to my destination and home without a single incident.  I bet any random pedestrian who saw me driving thought, "Wow, I bet she has lived in Columbia a really long time.  She sure looks like she knows what she's doing."

And pretty soon, after enough of these drives to the tanning salon, that same hypothetical pedestrian will be saying, "Wow, she sure looks like she knows what she's doing, and also she looks like she just got back from the Bahamas."

Well, joke's on that pedestrian; it's all a lie.  So yeah, maybe in that regard I would be considered a liar, but at least I'll be tan liar who can drive by herself.  And that's the best kind, really.