Here are a couple more excerpts from BAND GEEK:
Josh offers to drive home Melinda for the first time and she's surprised by his car. FYI, my mother-in-law, Sharon, is an avid Star Trek fan, so his car decor is in her honor:
Josh led me across the parking lot to his car, which turned out to be an old, beat-up station wagon. Several bumper stickers were plastered onto the pea-green vehicle, including ones that said, "Honk if you love Tribbles!" and "I break for Spock."
"What?" Josh said, when he caught me chuckling. "This belonged to my Aunt Sharon. She really loves Star Trek."
"I'm sorry," I said. "This just isn't the type of car I expected you, of all people, to be driving. I thought you'd have something cooler, like a motorcycle." I tried to open the door to the passenger side but it wouldn't budge. He crawled across the driver's seat and pushed it open for me.
"It only opens from the inside," he explained. "But really," he went on, as he cleared a bunch of soda cans off my seat (none were Coke, I noticed). "What did you expect me to drive? I mean, I'm 16 and have hardly any money. I'm just glad my aunt was getting rid of this old thing."
"Well, you're lucky you have your license at all. My parents don't seem too anxious to teach me how to drive when I get my permit." Actually, they haven't wanted to discuss it at all. Whenever I bring up the idea of getting my permit, my mom will be like, "You don't need to drive. There are a lot of crazy people out there." I think she's so reluctant for me to get my license because she hardly drives herself, only on Long Island, but never in the city. But I love the idea of being able to get in a car and go wherever I want. I love the thought of being able to escape when I need to.
Josh turned on the engine and the car made a few choking sounds. "Get someone else to teach you to drive," he said. "It's not like your parents can make you do what they say forever."
"You don't know my parents," I sighed.
In this excerpt, Mel talks about her paintings. Fun fact: In college, I had several Dali posters in my room. I then invited over this guy I liked ... and he was horrified by the paintings. He thought that I was "sweet and nice" and was appalled that I liked Dali's out-there work. Needless to say, he and I didn't end up dating...:
For my last birthday, Lana gave me a professional painting kit, mainly because she thought I needed a hobby other than playing the flute. "It's perfect for you," she said as I opened her gift. "It's artsy and it's the type of thing you can do for hours without having to talk to anyone."
At the time, I'd jokingly told her to shut up, that I'm not that much of a shut-in, but she is right about me loving the arts. Before my dad started working such long hours and my mom began to take care of my grandfather, they'd take me to the city to see concerts and visit the museums. My favorite was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met is huge; it took us all day to go through about a quarter of it, but I loved how every time we entered a different wing, it felt as if we were going into a new world.
As for my own paintings, I've been on a Salvador Dali kick lately. After Lana gave me her present, I purchased a bunch of art books so I could see what various painters' styles are like. I really like Dali's. His stuff is really strange; for instance, he has this one painting called "The Persistence Of Memory" that has all of these melted clocks in it. I love how his stuff looks like one thing at first and if you keep looking at it, you see something else.
So I've been trying to do some Dali-like paintings myself. Right now, I'm working on one where I'm making everything in my room appear melt-y. I was in the middle of painting a melted version of my bed (which is harder than it looks because the cover is floral and I had to make all the flowers look distorted) when I heard someone come home. I looked at my clock (which isn't melted, by the way); it was 9 p.m.
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