Baby's First Steps

I have a HUGE announcement to make! This probably seems ridiculous to non-New Yorkers, but today...

I drove on the highway!!!!!

This picture is not the highway.

I am also concentrating relatively hard.

I got my driver's license sophomore year (of college), but in New York City it's not necessary to learn how to drive on the highway in order to get your license. So I didn't. And I passed anyway!

I always imagined my first time on the highway to be like the movie Clueless when Cher's BBF Dionne goes completely banshee on her boyfriend... and in some way it was, because I ended up on the Cross-Island Parkway totally by accident. My dad was letting me drive his beat-up 14 year old Geo Prism through Bayside to Fort Totten, when he told me to make a right. What he failed to let me know was the immediate right was an entry to the highway, so as we merged into the incoming 60mph traffic I was thinking, "Ohhhhh.... fck yea!". There's no way that my dad would have let me practice the highway on purpose, but the gods deemed that it was time. :) It was super easy though, so now that I've made this public announcement can I finally gain some highway cred? (Haha get it? o_o)

A notable (not confidence-building) conversation with my dad about diamond-shaped car window signs.

"People need to know that you drive carefully. You should get one of those signs, maybe 'Baby on Board' or 'Student Driver'... or even better you should get one that says 'Baby Driver'."

"...Baby Driver?!!"

"Yes, I think that would be best."

"Dad, I don't think they make those... people are going to be so confused."

"Baby behind the wheel."

This is my dad. We're at Fort Totten's man-made boulder pier, with the Throgs Neck Bridge in the background. Almost each rock is graffiti'd with a strange, almost unintelligible pseudo-love story. Case in point: Aight n*gga I be writing you a story aight? So I love Melanie. She be my bizzle fo shizzle and she lahv me too :) We wrote on almost every rock lalala my marker's going to die 4.21.10! okay *heart* :) BYE A big high five to the New York public education system.

Also after taking these pictures, I didn't drink any more soda.