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1. Get a car with a spoiler. It will not add stability or otherwise do anything useful, but if you are in a fender bender, you will look cooler.

2. Learn to drive a stick shift. They might be less common in the States, but you’ll thank me when you’re over in Europe and that’s all you can rent. Plus, once you learn how to listen attentively to your engine to shift gears correctly, you’ll be a much better driver in an automatic as well. Plus, you can look lofty every time you tell someone, “what, you can’t drive a stick?“

3. I suggest a car in a bright color. It’s a safety feature. They don’t make life vests in champagne or burnished silver, do they? When you pull over by the side of the road to hyperventilate over being unable to operate this stick shift you just purchased, you’ll want to be highly visible.

4. Go to a driving school. No, no, no. Not the Carl Q. Barkley’s Safe Driver Clinic. Take a two day rally school or drifting school or racing school at your local track — usually you can find one that lets you use their vehicles. Once you’ve learned how to toss a car around sideways on purpose, you’ll no longer be fazed if it happens to you by accident on the interstate.

5. You don’t get to drive fast until you know what the hell you’re doing.

6. If you’re driving slow because you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, for the love of ponies and Honda Civics and the angels overhead, stay in the right lane.

7. If your mother or father cannot sit quietly in the passenger seat looking like a pool of endless serenity, she or he must not enter your car. Find another licensed driver to be your wingman. Here, I’ll do it. I have no sense of fear.

8. Check your tires. They should be treadful. Check your brakes. They should be stoppingness. Check your phone. It should be in the trunk or someplace where you aren’t even thinking about it. So should that Eminem tape that came in the car when you bought it. And all of your stupid friends that can’t stop giggling over Eminem. People, it stopped being funny, like, five years ago. Eyes on the road, maggot.

9. If you can’t find a driving school that is awesome, find a field and a rental car. Go wild. What you want to do is to feel how the car responds to everything you do. It should feel predictable, by the end. The goal is to be able to control the car as you’re rocketing around hillocks. I know that you’re thinking: what about lines and other cars and laws and stuff! But they’re just details. Once you can control the car, other cars won’t rock you. Nor will bumps, debris in the road, aliens, or Michael Bay movies.

10. Have fun, but always respect other drivers’ safety first. They didn’t get into their cars today just so that you could ruin their day or life. And remember that driving is so much like coloring. In the beginning, it really works best if you stay between the lines.

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Readers kept asking me how to not be afraid of driving. I wrote a little bit about it on Jalopnik.

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Hi Maggie! Unreasonably soon, I'm starting a three month long road trip to interview trans adults in rural areas, towns, and small cities about happiness, hope, and resilience. The trip is taking me from Morehead, KY to Baltimore, MD, and I'm taking two days for the drive because I'll also be working remotely, so driving it straight simply will not do. Western VA is halfway between them, and I've been known to make pop culture pilgrimages. Where should I stay that is most like Henrietta? Thanks!

Dear transresilienceroadtripproject,

There are several Raven Cycle related places that you might poke your head into on the way. 

Lexington/ Goshen, VA

I might suggest first poking your head into Lexington, VA, particularly off the beaten path near Goshen, VA.

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Swoope, VA

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Madison County

Home of great hiking, secret farms, and the all boys boarding school Woodberry Forest, which is far less corrupt than Aglionby.

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Skyline Drive | Shenandoah National Park

Washington, VA

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Luray Caverns

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I hope you find many beautiful things and lots of resilient people.

urs,

Stiefvater

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by Erin Benzakein

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where then?

my twitter is the same as my Tumblr and less PG

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Hey reptiblr, it’s been a while but Boros is back on his bullshit and managed to mess up his eye lids again (they aren’t stuck spectacles, I’ve taken him to the vet for these before and they are part of his eye not stuck shed) does anyone have some advice on how to help him heal up? Last time I had antibiotics but my exotics vet closed, so I need some good home remedies if anyone has some.

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Pink

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trans rights? nonono, i said trans rites. come speak old words in the moonlight and denounce your assigned gender with me

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Um Big Hort, please explain the name of this cultivar.

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I’m not saying he would win, but like….I get it

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Like no offense to my friends and family but if I had the chance to abandon this timeline for a medieval fantasy land I would absolutely do it, goodbye student loans and depression hello cool magic shit and most likely an early death by the sword (as it should be)

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Mike Worrall

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Flower Field by Arielle Vey

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no gender only dirt

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by buselnata

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maybe in supernatural season 15 they’ll finally figure out whether it’s soup or if it’s natural

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IGNORE AT UR OWN RISK………… this is the only April fools that matters