I figured I should take one big road trip while I have the car�this may be the last time I get to catsit on this level and get to use the car with no time restrictions-- so I went to Folsom, Cameron Park, and Placerville today.

I planned on going to the spiritual festival at the hippie store in Folsom, as it looked like they had an actual palm reader that goes there, not just someone who �reads your energy.� Alas, that person wasn't there today and I wasn't feeling it to see anyone else there, so I left earlyish and went to a hippie store I'd heard about in Cameron Park. I got a butterfly necklace there with a blue morpho's wing.

And then I went to Placerville and tooled around the main street. I checked out the hippie store, the yarn store, the bead store....the usual. I found a good used bookstore and got a few books, and went to the needlepoint store and bought a �Black Hat Society� Halloween witch hat needlepoint pattern and floss. However, they didn't have the sort of canvas I wanted, so I ended up going out to a Joann's to find that.

Now, I enjoyed myself immensely driving around today....other than the occasional lost moment. BUT. But, but, but. I fear I am becoming TOO accustomed to driving.

Yeah, I know, you're like, umm, what? That's a bad thing? Well, apparently it is. Because I have, for the most part, become comfortable with the road and the cars and the traffic and the freeways. And...that means I have apparently lost some of the paranoia and fear that made me more cautious.
Which is to say: I definitely did some DICEY FUCKING DRIVING TODAY. Like, it is rather amazing that I made it home all right and the car made it home all right, because by rights I probably should have been killed for my own stupidity or something.

Normally when I watch the other cars on the freeway, I find myself thinking things like, �Geez, you don't have to go that fast,� and �Dude, stop tailgating, I can't go any faster when the car in front of me is going slow, why don't you just pass me?� and �Okay, you SERIOUSLY just cut across six lanes of traffic?!� That last one particularly gets to me for sheer wtf-balls-ness.

But I did several goddamned dumb things today, DELIBERATELY. And that's not even counting how I quickly cut across two lanes so I could get back onto the freeway because I wasn't able to see until a giant truck went by that I was supposed to be getting on immediately to my right. At least at that moment the cars had cleared out. But the rest of it was so bad:

(a) Cars were trying to merge into the right hand lane about a mile or so before I was going to get off the freeway. I suddenly did not WANT to let them merge. Oh no. Nooooo, I literally drove next to them, kind of outside of the lane, totally refusing to let them go in front of me. They honked at me, and I fucking deserved it. When I was off the freeway and parked at a light, I seriously slapped myself in the face twice, because I needed to punish myself, preferably before I hit somebody. What the FUCK? Why did I do this? I should know better?! I deserved to be hit for that, didn't I? I could have totally killed myself, other people, and someone else's car, but I was all high on myself and didn't CARE.

(b) I kept wanting to turn left when there were cars wanting to go straight, and one time I just fucking pulled ahead in front of them and turned ANYWAY�they were going too slow!

(c) I have been told that I should not try to pass in front of someone until I can see their headlights in my rear view window. Yup, I kinda cut that one real fucking close trying to get off the freeway one time too.

(d) While coming off yet another freeway, the light was green getting onto the main town road before I was expecting it to be, and I....went into the left hand turn fast enough that I almost kinda skid or something. I didn't lose control of the car or anything, but.....yeah..... I'm glad it wasn't a rainy day here or else death probably would have occurred.

And the thing is? I wasn't fucking scared AT ANY POINT IN TIME while doing any of this shit! My stomach didn't sink to the floor, I wasn't scared, I wasn't paranoid. Nope, I tooled around all day long all full of myself and cheerful and raring to go....too much. It's horrifying to me that I suddenly am now feeling exactly how those people who cut across six lanes of freeway at once no matter what cars are there feel. Confident enough and invincible enough to just not care. �Eh, who cares, man? Nobody died, right?!�

I can't keep driving this way! BAD JEN, BAD JEN, BAD JEN. I'm so lucky I didn't get myself fucking pulverized today. I probably deserved to be. I need to ban myself from cruising around tomorrow and just stay in town so I don't go drunk with car power.

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