As a newbie who just heard about bitcoins on a pod cast ( Buzz out loud ), I too want to get into them but @ $18+ makes me cautious. I personally think there is a lot of hype going around and the short attention span of the internet will cause prices to stabilise sooner rather than later.
A number doesn't mean anything. It could be 1800$ per BTC as well, and all that would mean would be that you'd shift some decimal places.
1 = 1 (parity) is nothing more than a psychological waypoint. The value itself does not say anything, the change of the value over time does.