ugh.. can't swim straight

My suggestion would be to practice sighting. When you are swimming, every so often, look up and sight the buoys. For example, swim and breathe for 10-15 strokes like normal, then look up and sight the buoy. If you swim free, instead of breathing to the side, just lift your head, find the buoy and take a breath, all while you're taking strokes. This also allows you to watch for other swimmers that you might be coming up on. I recommended this to someone who was having the same problem, and it helped her alot.

You can practice this in the pool by putting a water bottle, or a cone or something at the end of the lane...

Good Luck! You'll do great.

Thanks. I've seen that suggestion before about looking up briefly instead of a regular breath, but I can't figure out how to do it without throwing off the strokes altogether and coming to a virtual stop.

It's easier in the pool with the lane lines and ropes.. hehe

well, I don't think many people can accurately swim in a straight line.

Even swimmers who have swam their whole life, drop them in the lake and they'll probably go in circles (no bottom lines!)

Basically you're going to have to look up a little bit to get proper sightings...additionally, unless you're the fastest in the first wave, you're going to have people everywhere around you, it's part of the sport (seen those posters from Ironman? Hundreds of people basically swimming over each other)