June 2008 Archives

1. New bottom bracket. There was indeed something wrong with the old one - namely, that it had gotten bent somehow. A car hit the bike at some point, or I managed to whack it with the lock just so, or something.
2. Yes, I spent the big bucks to get the good kind. Of course I did.
3. It wasn't, shall we say, an entirely smooth operation.

a. They didn't have the right tool and had to borrow it.
b. They very nearly couldn't find cups to fit the bracket.
c. The bracket turned out to be a little too short and had to be offset to one side.
d. The bottom bracket shell turns out to be French-threaded, and the bracket had to be put in backwards.

4. I had a great time hanging around with the shop boys, shooting the shit, making dirty jokes, talking about bike parts, and so forth. Yes, there was a certain amount of flirting with tall cute redheads who are probably about half my age. So sue me. One of them had a very charming slight Southern drawl, too. Sigh.
5. Finally finally saw Sex and the City. Kind of liked it, then hated it, then really liked it (I refer to respective sections of the movie). Annabelle and I had fun talking and drinking a touch of champagne afterwards, as usual.
6. Spent the rest of this evening wrestling with my emotions, which are all over the place right now. Because I was busy and/or nicely distracted by young boys for most of the weekend, I had been able to avoid thinking about it. You know what it is. It's not actually an it; it's a person. Now, though, I am no longer distracted, and I find that it's been in the back of my mind for days. Why is this so hard all of a sudden?

Warning: specific bicycling content ahead. I try, really I try, not to bore you all with this, most of the time. Feel free to come back another day if you must. I will understand. I mean, I won't at all understand, because who doesn't love to talk about bikes and all their obscure bits and their beloved eccentricities?

Those of you who know me well know that the bicycle I caused to be custom built for me earlier this year has become like one of my limbs, and therefore can well imagine the sort of anxiety that comes over me when there's something amiss with it. I haven't been writing about my latest difficulty, perhaps because it's just too painful to be set down on a page, but there have been a series of troublesome noises coming from the general vicinity of the bottom bracket, and I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to diagnose it.

Futzing with one thing and then another, riding with my head down to the side to try and hear just where that nasty croak and click is coming from. First I discovered that I'd thrown a pedal dustcap at one point, months ago, and then when the bike had been out in several thunderstorms (sorry bike!), all manner of muck had gotten inside the pedal and - well - now it creaks.

The mechanic said, "You can spray some lube in there, but it's probably best to just get new pedals."

Yeah. No. Those pedals are French threaded (read: not so easy to find), vintage, and the bike shop owner pulled them off his personal 1950s track bike for me. Yes, I could probably find another pair of French threaded pedals after a month of trolling the used parts market, but I feel somewhat responsible for these pedals. They are special, and I have fallen down in my care of them.

So I am now reading about pedal overhauls. I could, in theory, take them completely apart, replace the bearings, grease the inside bits, repack the bearings in fresh grease, and put them all back together again.

But the thing is, that's not the only thing making noise down there. The messed up pedal is on the left. Half the baaaaad noise is on the right.

I had the shop tighten the chain (which I'd apparently put on too loosely after I'd had to change the third tire in two days - the tube on the rear exploded, with a sound like gunfire, in my ear). Had to get a new pump. Old one was busted, and the gauge stopped working without telling me it had stopped working, and so I pumped about two hundred lbs. of air into it, and then, BOOM. Where was I? Oh yes, chain was loose. That might be the source of the noise, said the shop owner. You could also upgrade the bottom bracket. When we put that cheaper BB on it, we didn't realize you were going to be riding it as much as you are. But try this first. Maybe ride it for a season, then upgrade.

K. I had him switch me over to the smaller rear cog (higher gear - me big strong warrior type now) while I was at it. Rode home. Creak, crack, click. Same damn problem.

I get to my friend's house and almost start crying. Almost. Big strong warrior type, remember?

I call Boywich. "Waaaagh!!! My drivetrain sounds like it's going to explode. Do I need a new BB?"

"What does it sound like?"

"Like somebody's yanking it with a racheting wrench."

"Clicks?"

"Yeah. Creaks and croaks and clicks."

"Well, remember, I had that BB die within a few months of buying that mountain bike... So it is possible to kill a cheap BB in a matter of months."

"Yeah? Okay." Shop is on speed dial. Yes, I can bring it in any time tomorrow. Yes, they have some good BBs in stock. Don't worry.

Boywich texts me. "You can get a Phil Wood BB for only about $120." (note: Phil Wood = top-of-line indestructible BB)

Then new-date boy calls. "You know you just want an excuse to buy really nice components. You can't fool me."

Sigh.

One of the surprisingly lovely things that can happen in NYC is sudden camaraderie among strangers.

Usually it's due to being stuck waiting for something (which can dull the pleasure somewhat, since that something generally involves public transportation not behaving as advertised), but occasionally it's something a little more offbeat, and more interesting.

To wit - playing with strangers. I mean "play" here in the strictest sense of simple fun, rather than in the online dating sense of a dumbass euphemism for casual sex.

It doesn't happen terribly often, but once in a while I find myself having a mute conversation with someone I've never met.

Or, as happened with a couple of fellow photographers at the parade, playing a game with them. The guy with the Nikon (which appears to be the double of my own) started it, I swear, but I was right there with him.

The dashing fellow atop the phone booth spied me snapping him at the last moment, but seemed content to play along. I'd love to see some of the photos he got up there; it was a great vantage point.

I'm not sure whether the guy with the great rings knew I was taking his picture, but when Annabelle and I were comparing notes on the train home, it turned out we'd both photographed him.

Anyway, there's always a moment where your eyes meet and the message of the game is telegraphed and understood. It's a kind of magic.

I don't normally go in for advertising slogans, except to notice them in a professional sense (I sometimes have to analyze them for work purposes).

But there's one that's coming to mind today because it slots in neatly with what I wanted to talk about here. It's that USA Today tag: Characters Welcome.

I love people who are odd, unusual, unique, maybe a bit off-kilter - just thoroughly themselves. I mean, I don't love every crazy homeless person who bangs into my knees with a pilfered shopping cart full of their prized bottlecap collections.

But my favorite humans do tend to be those who have their own way of thinking, perceiving, talking, dancing, two-step shuffling down the street. Those who favor rare nerdy-looking bicycles whose frames are constructed like airplane wings.

Those who wear clothes they dyed themselves because they really like the way the fabric takes the color a little unevenly, as if it's been waving about at the bottom of a coral reef for a while.

I like crazy cat ladies and men who paint their fingernails blue, artists who make elaborate virtual pieces in Second Life that cleverly piggyback on the environmental programming that rules the movements of clouds, in order to create slow color changes in their "sculptures."

I like people who talk to themselves, especially when the conversation looks interesting.

I liked the guy with the crab codpiece whose skin was not only painted blue but also precisely stenciled with a ghostly white webbed pattern.

So why, when I'm newly dating somebody, in the phase where I am certain that I like the person but it hasn't yet moved into the boyfriend stage (and may never do so), do I fall prey to the fear that the guy (one of whose proclivities is mentioned above) won't be similarly enchanted with my own unique character?

I mean, there are objective signs that he's down with at least aspects of my particular idiom (to borrow a Pythonism).

He didn't bat an eyelash when I introduced him by name to my bicycle (and vice-versa).

Our conversations typically rank fairly high on the geekometer, and he doesn't seem put off when I do my deep sea diving act.

But I can be really, really earnest, and I suspect there are times when I resemble a large, enthusiastic dog, and, well, that can scare some boys off.

I dunno. It's just nervous-making, that early time. And I don't have much of a strategy for surviving it.

A friend was advising me today to try and just stay in the present, which is funny, because I'm quite spectacular at doing that - in every other area of life.

Sigh. I am trying. Somebody pass me the Zen.

PS. Shut up, Boywich, I know what you're thinking, but I have become spectacular at it in the past couple of years. Really.

PSdeux. Aren't they wonderful, these faces? Click to embiggen, of course.

Here I sit with a cat on one side of me and an upended, rear-tire-less bicycle on the other.

The former is business as usual, but the latter, well, there's a story behind it. It's a pathetic little story involving three blown tubes (the last exploding in an impressively loud boom which caused my right ear to ring for about two minutes afterwards), a pump that seems to be on the fritz (unless I am a lot clumsier than I think I am), and two closed bike shops (drat!).

Anyway, that has no relation to the photos I've gathered here for your amusement, risking a severe jostling, a bit of overheating, and a tendency to become irate (see item #1) while trying to make my way back to the subway.

Luckily I did make it back without incident, and when I got home and looked at what I'd gotten in the Nikon, well, I felt it was worth a little heat and hassle. The colors really looked like that. I love that camera.

And I did manage to get in a smallish bike ride before the whole tube-explosion incident, and I did have a rather nice date, again before the tube-explosion incident. Life was different before the tube-explosion incident. Okay, it wasn't. I'm making that bit up. But I did get a flat in my apartment while I was about to leave for said date and I did have to make that funniest of phone calls. "Um. I have to fix a flat before I can come see you."

Doesn't strike you as funny? Well, perhaps you are less of a bike geek than either I or my date. I thought it was damn funny. Especially since I didn't (thankfully) get another flat while pedaling over there. Whew.

But of course, that was before the tube-exploding incident.

You know what else was before the tube-exploding incident? The Mermaid Parade. Which, if you ask me, is best enjoyed through photographs rather than in person. But then I am biased. I hate crowds. Shut up, I know that I live in one of the most crowd-filled cities on earth.

I have coping strategies for that. Most of which involve the aforementioned bicycle currently lying on the living room floor flashing his bottom bracket at all and sundry. Sigh. Damned exploding tubes.

PS. Click on any of these to see bigger and in better detail. Oh, do it this time. It's worth it.

PS2. Yes, I know you want more details about the date. I am trying to be circumspect here. I like the guy; he is sort of my type in a way I didn't know I had. So let's allow him a little privacy, ok?

Today's tally. Fits of crying: 3. Shouting matches with strangers: 2. Mysterious bike problems brought on by my own ignorance and/or inattention: 1. Horrible late loud obnoxious outdoor parties given by neighbors who get louder and louder as it approaches midnight: 1. This is your brain. This is your brain on NYC.

Once in a great while I have a day that makes me feel like I just want to float, float far away, up and up into the air and hide in a bank of cloud for about a thousand years.

I don't want to go on any more dates and leave myself open to feeling crappy. I don't want to go the grocery store where some crazy woman will start laying into me for telling her kid to knock it off after she's hit me with the ball she is kicking around the narrow aisles. I don't want to leave the house at all. But of course, the house itself is not peaceful because of the neighbors' party. Who throws a loud party on a Thurs. night, anyway?

My back hurts. My shoulder hurts. I have to (hopefully) locate the dustcap that fell off my pedals months ago and which, had I known what it was and replaced it, would have prevented the now-permanent creak and vibration in my left pedal.

My head feels like someone has beat it with a sledgehammer, again and again. There were a few other people's heads I would've liked to beat with a sledgehammer again and again. My poor, hard-working bike mechanic has several broken ribs after attending an international cycling competition. I mean, it was just a bad day all 'round. Fuck you very much, New York.

I wasn't going to post tonight, but I've had a little bee buzzing around in my bonnet all day, and now I just read two other blog posts that seem to tie into it.

A friend recently turned me on to a severely sarcastic (funny but also disturbing) blog dealing with bikes, and - more accurately - fads surrounding bikes, particularly in this city.

The weird thing about reading a blog devoted to commenting on Bike Culture is that I had been blissfully unaware until very recently that there was such a thing.

That's not to say that I haven't noticed the Central Park roadie fashion show, or the tendency to one-upmanship within cycling clubs throughout the suburbs, or even the fact that track bikes are what the cool Billyburg kids are riding these days. But a Culture, and for that matter, a Couture surrounding bicycling just never entered my radar. And I think I wish it hadn't.

There's nothing that can ruin one's joy in something one loves so quickly as the feeling that one has to dress a certain way, or own the latest version of whatever it is, in order to be cool enough to participate in that love.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of it. Yeah, I'm more immune to this sort of thing than I used to be, but it still sort of makes me want to run screaming from the room and go hang out in a big field alone. Which is pretty much how I always reacted to that stuff when I was in school, once I recognized that I was never going to fool anybody into thinking I was one of the cool kids.

Anyway, posts here and here are very much worth reading, for a similar take on a different hobby. Franklin puts it with his usual eloquence, and in words I swear I've used myself before (though not here) - the idea that because we are unique, we are inherently valuable.

And don't come writing me asinine comments about Hitler being unique but not valuable. I don't give a good god damn about the logic of the argument; you know exactly what I mean.

PS. At least somebody still thinks knitting is cool.

Yes, it's true, I had another good date. Really, I am afraid to write anything more than that, for fear of invoking the wrath of the aforementioned dreaded Internet dating gods. But I shall risk it, for the entertainment of my few but loyal readers.

So, the bare outlines (which is all you're gettin', loyal or not) are that yes, he is a fellow bike geek, for which I am very grateful, because I just don't think I can date ordinary non-cycling mortals anymore.

He is tall. He is willowy. He is dapper. He has a head full of interesting thoughts. He took me to a very interesting event on Friday night, and then we made up some further interesting events of our own.

'Nuff said? I hope so, 'cause it's all you're gettin' from me.

In other news, I spent the day doing nothing very productive other than bike maintenance. Made tea and promptly fell into a sudden nap while it was steeping, then got up and drank it and looked at the sky and decided it was too much on the edge of thunderstorm to risk a ride in the park, and then realized I am really just kind of tired. I've been riding rather a lot, which is wonderful, but once in a while, whether you want it or not, your body simply must take a rest day.

And maybe that is why I haven't done any of the more work-oriented things on my list today either. Just tired.

PS. No, that is not us in the photo. It just seemed apropos.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

I'll leave y'all to work the rest out for yourselves.

We start this summer off with a bang. The bang, that is, of my broom hitting the floor and whacking a 4-inch cockroach stone cold dead. It took several whacks, mind you. These suckers are tough.

And here we have a photo of the lovely feline princess in her accustomed summer pose. "Willya put that damned Nikon away, already? I'm trying to nap!" Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Cockroaches, on the other hand, are a source of endless fascination, though her only assistance on this one took the form of identifying it before it made its appearance. It was so big, even my puny human ears could hear it fluttering its icky wings. I know, gross.

I steeled myself for the kill as soon as I saw her doing her best bird dog imitation, which consists of meowing and pointing, just like a setter. Apart from the meow, of course.

Anyway, it's dead and gone, and I sprayed. Of course, I'd sprayed last week, too. Sigh. The beauties of awful muggy weather are many.

Anyway...none of that is really on my mind at all right now. What ought to be on my mind is completing the project that's in front of me, due tomorrow. What is, in fact, on my mind is, well...impure thoughts about the date I had a few days ago.

Mind you, I did not have impure thoughts (or actions) at the time. This is how my mind works. I have a first date. If it goes well, I simply have a good time talking to them. Many times, I will have a good time talking to them even if I don't want to see them again. But if I do want to see them again, I end up being so overwhelmed by the intensity of getting instant exposure to a whole new person that I just can't do anything dateish like kiss them.

This is why men who think I'm going to sleep with them on the first date make me laugh.

Anyway, this particular fellow did not make any of those kinds of improper moves; he was nice and well-behaved, and we had a really delightful conversation.

And I thought, hmmn. Maybe.

So then over the next few days my brain does that mysterious thing that it does, whereby it decides that it really liked that guy, and that it's going to distract me from thinking about what I'm paid to think about, and instead I am going to start imagining pleasant scenarios that involve doing all kinds of things I would never have thought of doing on the date itself.

I don't know what this phenomenon is called, or whether anybody else works like this, but this has happened to me once before. (Yes, Shan, with a certain blonde who shall remain nameless.) And really, of course I don't know what will happen with this one. It might follow a very different trajectory (though I hope not), and end with me deciding, Nope. But I would like it if it went the way the other one did - namely, that I conceive a sudden and furious passion for the lad. Because, you know, that is fun.

Shhh. Don't tell anybody - least of all the gods of Internet dating, those feckless hounds of hell.

I had a nice date. A nice first date. And I'm certain it will all go to hell in a handbasket the next time I venture out to see this person - or any other carbon-based lifeform, for that matter - and that really, I should just stick to bowling with my friends, or eating Mexican food and drinking that deadly sangria they make over in Sunnyside, or I should just hang my hat up and settle for the occasional foray into blondie's hot pants, or something.

Whoa, did I actually say that out loud? Ahem.

Two Guinni, ladies and gentlemen, just two, and already she loses her taillights which are, in fact, strung about her fingers, and half-drops the precious bike while trying to give the nice cool/nerdy guy a little tiny kiss, and then, well, she rides like a bat outta hell home in about 20 seconds flat. Okay, 20 minutes, but who's counting?

Here, look at this nice purple iris. Ain't it pretty? (So I trekked out to the border planets, learned to say "ain't...")

Really, I'm not that drunk, honest I'm not. Claudia, does this count as a BAT trip?

Oof. Hot. Spent all day on bicycle in near-triple-digit heat. Didn't really affect me too much (or so I thought) until I was riding home and wondering why I was so strangely exhausted and why my head kind of hurt, and then looked at temperature gauge on handy-dandy bank time & temp sign, and saw that it was 87 degrees at 11pm. Oy.

I know, I'm crazy, right? Riding in that mess.

But while I was pedaling and moving, there was a breeze, so I thought, oh this is fine. And it was. Until it was all dark and felt somehow hotter than it had all day. I think maybe I need to drink more Gatorade before collapsing onto bed in hot (unairconditioned) bedroom.

Ha. And the blonde wanted to go for a (bike) ride tomorrow. Oy.

(Shut up. Don't nobody say nothin'. I can play with naughty little blondes if I want to. Plus, this other boy emailed me.) (Not that that means anything these days, since they just email and then disappear.) (Poof!) (Anyway, where did I put that Gatorade? Hey cat! What are you doing with my Gatorade?)

Well, I don't know what to tell ya. I was looking at Shannon's excellent review of a mediocre (-sounding) book, and she casually drops a Deep Thought into the fray and moves along with her review, leaving me standing there with my mouth open, going "Hunh. That completely ties into the weird swirl that's been growling around in my gut the last few days."

I am not sure how to describe the full swirl. Let's start with Shan's insight. The question of whether everyone (or anyone) has a soulmate.

Which led me to wonder whether anyone would have the idea that there ought to be "somebody out there who's perfect for me" (to quote or near-quote an actual online dating ad that came on TV while I was working this evening), if we hadn't been brainwashed to think in these terms from early childhood.

I recently added some language to my online profile that makes it patently clear that I don't particularly want to or expect to get married, and that I certainly don't want to procreate.

I don't think that's why I haven't been getting any dates in the last month or two, and I hope that's not why there seems to be a longer-than-usual delay in my profile being approved (it's been days - what is their fucking problem?), but again, it gives me to think.

Specifically:

1. Do I really mean that?
2. Do people see that as some kind of sign of pessimism?
3. Is there anything wrong with thinking that I might be really quite happy if I just date or even have a boyfriend, without attaching some kind of lifelong, earth-shattering significance to it?
4. I need a haircut.

Dag! That was a long pause in blogging (for me, anyway). I use the middle-school idiom here because I was off visiting my sister, who'd had recently been to a reunion (something I myself have never done and never will do), and well, I suppose it calls to mind the slang of my not-nearly-sufficiently-misspent youth.

Anyway....

She said it was just like having about twenty blind speed-dates in a row. Yuck.

You drift from person you vaguely recognize to person who vaguely recognizes you, and you do painful chit-chat about your jobs and families for five minutes, and then drift on to the next round. I'll say it again: Yuck!

Whoops, got pulled away to IM with Boywich about the terror of writing. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

I am addressing my own dealio by having decided to set myself a schedule for meeting grad school deadlines, which is analogous to deciding to decide to try to decide. But you know, I kinda feel better about the whole thing for some reason. Maybe it was watching my sister at work, doing a job she really likes, which gives her what she needs from it, and lets her wangle in all the other things she needs to do, too (like be with her young daughter most days). I dunno. It kind of cheered me up about the whole thing.

Or maybe it was just hanging around her. I really like her. Which is a nice thing to be able to say about someone you love. Does that make sense? Well, it does to me. I had a good time. Pretty sure she did, too. Damn sure my niece did. We had a blast together, laughing over eggwhites. (Yes, you had to be there, but really, it was a private joke between me and my niece, so I'm glad you weren't there.) (How cool is that, having a private joke with a preschooler?)

Gotta go. Bike beckons.