I sat my restricted driver licence test yesterday, at the grand old age of 28. The timing though not deliberate, seems apt.
Young guys in their cars statistically die more often between 16 and 25, and I’m past that. Rock stars die at 27, so I’m free of that obstacle too. In more ways than age.
I was always convinced when younger I’d die in a car accident - my suspicion was it wouldn’t be whilst I was in a car, but cycling or jaywalking, but I figured with accident rates as they are for young guys, my rock star ambitions and the fact I grew up in a car-less family in a flat city, I’d be better off not getting behind the wheel too soon.
Still, there was never any conscious decision to wait this long - I began learning in 2003, with lessons from Rob - as a part of my post-freakout/Aropax, get in line phase - which never got beyond practise drives around Flagstaff. The theory was if we (I) hit anyone, the family would either be nice and rich enough to handle it, or evil and rich enough for us to be doing the universe a favour. Then again, getting to speed where injury was even a possibility was a problem, with my inept gear-changing skills.
I barely touched a steering wheel again till late last year, when Parker’s impending arrival, the realisation I had a real job, being past 27 and Tariqa’s … encouragement, got my motivation back up.
I ran out of money a couple of times, and had to cancel what I thought would have been my last lesson - driving on busy motorways, lane changes and parallel parking - because Parker decided to arrive a few days earlier than we expected. That night was my first time driving by myself, which despite the disaster of getting completely lost, gave me the confidence I could actually make a car go forwards in the direction I wanted it to, etc.
Now, after spending a couple of months sometimes bussing, sometimes driving to work with the well-rehearsed (in my mind) ‘But officer, I’m 28 - I have a family - I’m not some 15-year-old hoon, I’m just trying to get to work,’ spiel ready to go, I have my restricted licence. The testing guy was a dick (’For the love of god, look out!’ when I was travelling 30km/h down an empty road towards a deserted pedestrian crossing), but gave me a pass, despite not saying a single nice thing about my driving skills from the time we met till the time we parted (where he took care to lock his door, but left the window wide open).
I was driving home today in heavy lunchtime traffic, and realised, holy shit - I’m an Auckland commuter, in my own car, driving home from work to my family, listening to the Rolling Stones and Floyd on a Friday afternoon with the window down.
In my defence there are no buses at 4.30am for my morning commute, and even if there were, I’m sure they’d still find a way to take 45 minutes to get to Eden Terrace. And I was listening to Bis and the Talking Heads, which are still cool. Aren’t they?
Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.
Picked up the new Manics album on the weekend, and have been listening to it almost non-stop since. I’m not sure how much any of you care, but it’s good hearing James singing Richey’s words again, even knowing it’ll never happen again. It’s a grower of a record, only the first couple of songs (Peeled Apples and Jackie Collins Existential Question Time) really stand out on first listen, but the rest soon show themselves - I’d have to say apart from those two, This Joke Sport Severed, All Is Vanity and Marlon JD would be my favourites. Steve Albini’s production is nice and heavy, but it’s been given a proper shiny mix so it’s not unlistenable. Rating at 
I’m reading a book at the moment (Shock! Horror! But I’ll have you know I used to read like… some kind of reading… machine…), Alex James’ autobiography, Bit of a Blur. It’s entertaining, but worthless if you want any kind of insight into Blur’s songwriting and recording processes.
So that's pretty boring to anyone but us online people I suppose. I suppose I've also been a bit reluctant to write recently because we've had a few baby-related headaches, which is nothing any of you need to know about in any specific detail. We're pretty confident it's all worry and stress over nothing, but it's been a reminder having a baby certainly isn't the easiest thing in the world. It's the kind of thing that would never have been noticed before ultrasound was around, and the docs don't really know too much about, but reading about it on the net it seems the overriding vast majority of experiences end in completely normal babies, so yeah. Don't stress, cause we don't need anymore of that.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}