Brian took me to an empty parking lot in his truck and gave me my first lesson in driving stick.

(That is not a euphemism for something else. Dirty!!)

Here's how it started:

karel: why are there three pedals?
brian: are you joking?
karel: no.
brian: really?
karel: yes! *pout* i have driven an automatic my whole life.
brian: you've never seen a manual transmission?
karel: NO.
brian: oh. that's the clutch.
karel: wtf is a clutch?

He then proceeded to explain, in the mechanic-speak that I love and that secretly sort of turns me on, how the engine and transmission are connected by the clutch, and why different gears are necessary. He even drew me a diagram of how bike gears work in an attempt to help me understand what he was talking about, since even though I get all gooey when he talks like a mechanic, I rarely put the words together to garner any actual meaning. (I hope he doesn't read this.) I sort of got it.

And thus I drove endless circles around the parking lot, learning how to start, stop, and shift gears. I only stalled a couple times near the end when I got panicky because - shamefully enough - I don't like being bad at things and when I don't do things right the first time my mind tends to shut down. Oh well.

Brian is a great teacher for me - he's blunt, but patient, and responds to me really well. He's already seen my aforementioned shutting down process from when he taught me to play pool, and to be perfectly honest he's taught me a lot about humility. As someone who's always been good at everything (or just doesn't do things she's not good at... ha) I've needed someone to push me through those initial stages of learning new and difficult things.

Also someone is going to have to help him drive across the country when we move to Portland this summer... so I've got a little less than six months to master it.

Oh, and did I mention how kickass it would feel to drive a freaking pickup truck?!