The new Fray story got me thinking about driving and the road. I used to spend a lot of time driving for fun, taking my Mom's car up into the Saratoga foothills. I still love it, even though the hills have changed.

I spent 3 months of my senior year of high school driving around Silicon Valley every day after school. Mom worked at home then, and I was "looking for a job," which basically meant driving in circles for 3-4 hours every afternoon, hanging out with my friends, and stopping every day at Tower Records to buy something I'd just heard on the radio (The Quake, for any Bay Area folks). It was a great life, and was the first time in my life I really felt a sense of power and control over my own time and space. I knew how to get around somewhere, which is still the first way I try to get my sense of self set up when I'm in a new place.