I'm leaving in a white minivan...

So tomorrow I'm driving up to NJ to bring my parents back their van and pick up my newly-repaired truck.

I'm glad I'm getting the truck back, but I'm not really looking forward to the trip. I'm still not totally comfortable with driving - I'm trying to find a balance between being pretty much scared to do anything and being the kind of careless that ends with me running into a Pontiac.

I also don't like driving in winter - besides the possibility of dangerous snow and ice, I don't like the cold. A drive on a nice spring/summer/fall day is enjoyable - windows open, music on blast. A drive in the winter is a burning-cold steering wheel and a trip spent trying to find a setting on the heat that's somewhere between "freezing cold" and "so warm I want to doze off".

Usually I look forward to seeing the parents, but after seeing them at Thanksgiving and spending a 11 days with them at Christmas, seeing them again is not a big deal. I'm only staying for one night. I'm coming back Sunday, even though I have Monday off for MLK day. That probably makes me a completely awful son, but I have a couple things I want to do around the house, errands I want to run, and a cat who I've barely seen the last month.

This has been a long week - I've put in 16 hours of overtime, had a bunch of projects that I'm drowning in, and have a bunch of work politics that are complicating things. I'd much rather be at my house doing nothing that spending 8 hours or more on the road.

It will be nice to have my truck back, though. It's funny how much I identified myself with it. I guess I'm one of those shallow materialist types like that.