Adulting for the win

This past weekend I managed something I had done for at least a decade: I parallel parked my car in one (fairly) smooth move. Yes, you are saying, everyone can do that. What's your point? My point is that I have lived in Sunnyvale, California for a half my life, and Sunnyvale is full of parking lots. Stores have room for cars to park in nice even parking spaces. We have very few apartment buildings, and our downtown streets have large parking structures right there. Parking is simple and ample. I haven't needed to parallel park in Sunnyvale ever.

I have terrible depth perception. This, with the lack of practice, has made me scared of even trying to parallel park. I'd almost completely given up. But, this last weekend, Chaz was out of town at WorldCon, so I decided I needed to revert to someone who could live alone and be powerful and capable and all that. I went to a friend's party on Saturday, and he lives in a condo complex that only has street parking. I pulled up next to a car that was parked ahead of the space I wanted, and told myself, "Self, you know the geometry involved. You know how to angle your car in the right way to make this an easy task." So I did. Just like all the big people do. I'm a big kid now.