Recently in Bikes Category

I was going to take bridge pictures for you today, my darlings, but I just. didn't. want. to. stop.

Yeah, I remembered the camera. It wasn't raining (for once). I was heading for home and could have. But I couldn't.

There's this thing that happens with a fixed-gear bicycle, you see. What happens is that you never want to stop pedaling. It just feels too good. And with the new bottom bracket, well, if I may quote one of the redheads (the really young, really cute one), "Every pedal stroke is like making sweet, sweet love."

He ain't wrong. Not that I would know, at the moment, what the latter is like, but I can dimly remember. Suffice it to say that every time I reach my front door, I am always, but always, reluctant to get off the bike. No matter how long and hard I've already ridden that day (and it was a long, fast, hard day in crazy Manhattan traffic this afternoon), I just wish I could keep pedaling.

So you see, there is a certain difficulty in taking bridge pictures for you. Have no fear, though, I will continue to carry the pocket cam in the bike bag until I have managed to pull over (kicking and screaming) and take some pics for you. Because, well, it is a neat view - Manhattan spread out below you, the Empire State poking like a fist into the sky, the water surprisingly blue, and the East River factories below, smokestacks and that Save Domino Sugar sign looming up on the left as you slide down the bridge in a blur - bump, bump, swoop, and the rattling chain against your left thigh.

"It's good to be the King," says Mel Brooks on TV just now. And he ain't wrong.

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.

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.

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?)

Welcome to the Botanical Gardens. It's very, very pretty there. Lots of flowers and trees. We wandered, we looked up at the blue-blue sky, we took lots of pictures of ourselves playing in among the flowers, we sniffed a metric ton (each) of various roses (mmmm lemony), and we marveled at the giant pitch-black irises.

We knitted on the train both ways. I worked on my First (hopefully Triumphant) Sock. My traveling companion worked on her First (undoubtedly Triumphant) legwarmers. When I got home, I jumped on my bike and rode to Central Park and got a bunch of plant matter in my eyes and tired myself out on those hills and came home all nicely whooped and sweaty.

The next day I had to work (say it with me, ICK!) but then later I got on my bike again and rode to the bowling alley, stopping first at a little park and watching the sun sink low in the sky with about a million hipsters, all picnicking and smoking and trying to outcool one another with their giant 1970s sunglasses and their short little baggy dresses and their long sideburns and their track bikes with curly bars.

But it was nice. And then I went bowling, and bowled really badly until I realized I needed a heavier ball (either that or the second giant 22-ounce beer kicked in), and then I bowled progressively better, finishing up with a STRIKE in the last frame. Yay, me!

And the kids bowling next to us were all sad when we left because we had been cheering for them, too, and they were gonna miss that, because they were too cool to cheer as wholeheartedly as we do. Plus, we had better tattoos.

Do you ever have trouble figuring out what's going on in your very own head? I am having one of those days. One of those weeks, actually. Maybe one of those fortnights.

While I was tie-dyeing some socks today, one of the color combinations got rather out of hand, and I kept trying to get a handle on it, adding darker and darker greens until, well, I have really no idea what I'm going to end up with. I mean, it's tie-dye; it's always a gamble.

But lately, I swear that's a metaphor for my whole life. Or least the current state of it. I really have no fracking idea what I am doing.

I know that I am not quite happy with a lot of it. I know that I am suddenly overwhelmed with loneliness or longing. But then when I imagine what it might be like to have a boyfriend (which is generally the answer to that particular sort of longing), well, the very idea makes me want to wriggle away and go dancing at some giant mythical party with a hundred gorgeous slave-boys.

(Shut up, I know slavery is wrong; this is a fantasy. And no, my fantasies don't generally run to subgugation; it's just that slave boys are often depicted in nice little purple togas, their skin lightly oiled, and equipped with big bunches of grapes in the one hand and nice fat palm fronds in the other, the better to wave at me with.)

Okay, fantasy over. Where was I? Oh yes, wriggling away from the restrictive clutches of having to say yes to just one boy.

The trouble is, I am not being presented with that problem. I am not being presented with any problem having to do with any specific boy.

I am being presented with a singular lack of boy. A few of them were emailing me, and vanished, as the email boys often do, before you ever get a chance to meet them, even when you've taken the bold step of asking them out and they've said sure, and then when you try to arrange a date, nobody has time that week and so you agree to meet next week, but by next week they've either lost interest or found some magical perfect mate with whom they are off on some Hawaiian island, and there you go, now you are back to the slave-boy fantasy.

In fact, I'd settle for it simply being Celebrate the Bicycle Day again. Every day. Because it's occurred to me not once but several times over the last few days, while I was milling around in my metaphorical mess of color, that I really ought to make it a prerequisite that any theoretical boy with whom I might theoretically become involved at some potential future date should of necessity be a Bike Boy, and preferably, a Bike-Obsessed Boy. And in fact, really it might be best for all concerned if he rode fixed-gear, not because I am a snob about such things (all bikes are good bikes!), but because, well, it's a bit of a spiritual experience, only it's the kind that one likes to be able to rhapsodize about with a like-minded someone.

Oh golly, what a long-assed post this is. See, I told you? Lost in a tie-dye factory, right? I mean, if it were only a fortune-cookie factory, you might be able to send for help via message-in-cookie, or perhaps retrace your steps using that long long strand of cookie-fortune-paper you so cleverly laid out on your way in.

On the other hand, there are good things about messily tie-dyed items. I mean, consider the Icee. I refer, of course, to the rainbow Icee, which amounts to nothing so much as a tie-dyed snowcone. And how can you argue with a dessert that stains your tongue in variegated stripes of blue, lemon, orange, and red. (Rhetorical questions get no question marks, mind you.)

That's all. What, you were hoping for a witty punchline?

Riding home at night is like a haiku. All you hear is wind whispering in the spokes, soft stroke of pedal, and the fact that the chain needs a little lube. The bike sings to me, but it's a song composed largely of motion and breath, rather than actual sound.

Except, of course, for the quick sshhhhh! of brake pads when cars or pedestrians veer out in front of me without warning, as they often do.

I'm wearing Shrodinger's Cat on my arms, which so far smells primarily of melons. Though it's hard to tell, since the apartment also smells of chain lube.

I'd intended to help out with a friend's podcast earlier, but the cigarette smoke in that joint was way too much for my virgin (and I'd like to keep them that way, thank you) lungs.

It meant that I spent some time sitting in the window of a cafe on a chic street in Williamsburg, watching the hipsters march by in insouciant procession.

For a moment I thought I caught sight of the Brown Bike Man, walking unsteadily on bike shoes, but I don't think it could have been him. His shoes were ordinary sneakers, if I recall.

Okay, okay. I got nothin'. So I will try to regale you with selected excerpts.

I still hate my work. But I need the money. What else is new.

My friend Special J has designed an extensive questionnaire that I am to hand out to first dates at the 90-minute mark (assuming they last that long). She apparently roped some geek-date of hers into formatting the thing with proper checkboxes and all. She has magic powers.

I am busily knitting lots of little projects on 2 circs, but I have yet to get some tiny needles for sockmaking. I just keep forgetting to hit a knitting store. That happens to me in spring. I forget they exist. I'll wait while y'all make a grab for the oxygen.

Better? Okay. Too bad one can't install smelling salts as an option in Movable Type.

Current project is a shoulder-strap pad for my bike bag. Yes, yes, it's still all about the bike, and always will be, if I have anything to say about it.

I was trying to explain to a potential date about the bike-love, but I don't think he got it. I mean, he's a fellow cyclist and all, but when I mentioned that I sometimes kiss the top tube after a ride, I could just hear him getting weirded out. Through email.

The only person who's yet gotten it is this guy, whom I met at an event appropriately titled Bicycle Fetish Day. He really got it. I asked him to tell me about his bike, and he started out by saying, somewhat abashedly, that he's become obsessed with it. He can't stop thinking about it. He can't focus on work. He doesn't want to do anything other than ride it, all day every day.

I smiled and nodded, and told him about my bike, and how he has a name, and how every time I am going down the big hill on the bridge, I yell the bike's name as a rallying cry.

The bike-obsessed man appeared to melt and laugh and relax all at once, and we had a nice few moments, and I took his picture* and then I went over and talked to some other bike fiends. I mean, bike friends. Yeah, that's what I mean. Uh-huh.

*I hope Brown Bike Man doesn't mind me posting his picture. I forgot to ask his permission. His bike is brand-new (in a sense; it's a custom build-up from an older frame, I believe), and really nice. Graceful lines, and a lovely shade of brown.

PS. I see in this picture now that Brown Bike Man was rather handsome, and that perhaps I should have asked him out.

Often when spring hits I lose all desire to knit. But this time - perhaps because the weather continues to be intermittently cool, especially after the sun drops down - I am experiencing a late-season surge in knitting.

In a small way, of course. I haven't been working on my sweaters-in-progress or anything, but the legwarmers are done, and I am already working on another small project.

I am digging the two-circs method, and as soon as I get around to buying some size 1s or 0s I can start those momentous First Sox. (Already have plenty of sock yarn, natch.)

I had a big, long, rather fraught day, the details of which I will not go into, except to say that I tried and failed to fix part of my bike using a bolt and a can of Guinness. Just the can; the Guinness I drank last night in preparation.

I'd planned a triumphant and hilarious play-by-play of my amazing McGyverlike powers, but alas, 'twas not to be. That's okay. It would have pegged the sillyometer right off scale (not that that is a bad thing).

So now I am enduring the horrible ads for those egregious videos of college girls disrobing in assorted drunken stupors, which is pretty much what the Spike channel advertises at this hour, again and again. Geez. What a girl has to do to watch a little Star Trek.

In other news, I was totally suckered into ordering some "Imps" from here, and I am excitedly awaiting their arrival. It will be a while; apparently they have a backlog. Probably Juno's fault; she writes so eloquently about perfume that I can't imagine anyone not being drawn under her spell.

Then again, the names of their scents are enough to lure anyone with half an imagination. Carnal. Cheshire Cat. Forbidden Fruit. Libertine. Dragon's Blood. Venice. Lightning. Delirium. Ophelia. I mean, c'mon!

The cat keeps climbing into my lap the very instant that I sit down at this computer. I think it's because she knows I am a quivering, frantic, furious, stressed-out mess, and she is trying to help.

Of course, when I am a q,f,f,s-o mess I really do not want anybody touching me. Not her. Not the horrid guy I had a date with last week (ugh, I get the creeps just mentioning it). Not nobody, not no-how. (Points to anyone who can identify the source of that line.)

Thankfully, I had a better, less bizarro date on Sunday night, so I am no longer quite as repulsed by the idea of the entire human race, but not by much, because a client is driving me so crazy I cannot even express it to you. And when words fail me, my friends, you know it is serious.

Anyway, that would and will account for any dearth in verbiage you have encountered or may encounter in the near future. If I come out of this project with my bloody triumphant sword over my head, life here at girlwich may resume some form of normalcy (that being a relative rather than an absolute state, of course).

In the meantime, I leave you with these here random assorted news items.

1. I am knitting legwarmers again. I'm about a third of the way through the 2nd one.

2. I rode my bike all weekend. Huzzah!

3. I have laundry in the dryer. Huzzah!

4. There is a cat paw on my arm. Her way of saying, "Yo! Pet me!"

5. I am giving the men my age a try lately, but I honestly think I prefer the younger ones, so I can't say that any of them have that great a shot. I just thought I'd see.

6. All these dates have made me realize that I am infinitely more entertaining, scintillating, and visually pleasing company than any of the guys in this city (or at least the ones who ask me out) seem to be. Which is a) an ego boost, and b) a problem.

7. It is raining.

8. These pics were taken by a friend to whom I loaned the Nikon. Aren't they nice?

I am in something of a state. Work has gone to some next level of stressful that I didn't know existed, which is funny (strange, not ha-ha) because this very same client sent me to what I had thought was my maximum level of stress a few months ago. And here we are again, except that we are farther onto the plane of insanity.

If I had any hair, I'd tear it out.

Yesterday was so bad that after my horrible meeting there was nothing that could possibly save my life except to get on my bike and go have dinner with friends. Which I did. Of course, the fact that my rare and precious cranks could break at any moment because they are not properly equipped with pedal washers* does not make for the completely carefree biking that I would like to have.

But I had no choice. I hope the bicycle gods will be merciful.

Anyway...that's a whole other story. All of that. I mean, not just the bike stuff, but the whole horrible shebang of shit. Pardon my french, this is not a G-rated blog. Don't like it? On your bike, as the British so charmingly say.

Anyway...again.

One thing the gods seem to be suddenly providing me with is men to go on dates with, all of whom have Biblical names. We started with the old testament last week, and now we are moving on to the new.

If I end up getting a date with the Bodhisattva, though, I am gonna really laugh.

So what do I do with all this bounty? Why, I go and acquire an instant liking for one of my friend's roommates, of course. Yeah, uh-huh. What is it with me and the men in unexpected places? Last time it was a bicycle mechanic. Didn't work. He likes 20-year-olds.

This time, well, who the hell knows, but he is awfully cute, and (based on the impression of 10 minutes) just my type of boy. Anyway....

I know, I know, this post seems to be ratcheting around like a ball bearing set loose in a rubber room, but, well, that's what the inside of my head probably looks like right now. Okay, the inside of my head looks like a soft pink glob of neurons, but you know what I mean.

"Don't want no pork chops and greens. Just give me gin instead!" - Nina Simone, and I agree wholeheartedly.

*Worry not; I have ordered the washers and they will be here tomorrow, and either I or my bike mechanic (not the one I had the crush on) will install them, and all will hopefully be well, at least in that area of life.

Well, well, welly well well. Still here. Kind of blah. Took a couple of days off (yes, that's called a weekend to regular humans), which was a good idea, but only now, after having done so, do I begin to realize the depths of my tiredness.

I had a date today, which had that effect that first dates sometimes have on me. It's not when they go drastically wrong that it gets me. It's when they're quite nice, but I'm not interested. I find that very depressing for some reason. "Close but no cigar" is what my dad would call it.

It's depressing both because I somehow end up feeling lonelier than I did beforehand, and (I suspect this is the bigger reason) because I then have to tell the person that I liked them but didn't like them. And I hate doing that, because I know just what it feels like to be on the receiving end, and there's just no good way to reject or be rejected. It all stinks.

So, I'm rather down. Also, I didn't get to ride my bike today because I woke up with one of my many injuries bothering me - and bothering me to the point where it was clear that I should not do anything to exacerbate it. So I didn't, and it doesn't hurt quite as much now, and that is good.

So here we are, the little feline and me, and we had a nice little super-snuggle moment on the couch (rare these days because I am so busy that I'm a neglectful cat owner), and that made both of us feel better, I think. But still.

I am coming to the conclusion that online dating is much like online shoe buying; nice in theory, but it would really be better if you could try them on in person first.

Well, I'm workin' and I'm crazy, and yet somehow I keep having these moments where I just love everybody and everything. There are several potential explanations for this (yes, I feel a list coming on!):

1. The Bike Is Back. It (he, actually, and he has a name, which I am keeping secret because he is my lover) is on the wall now, but when I first brought him in, I had to roll him into the living room so I could just stare at him lovingly, and gloat over his beauteous and rare vintage French cranks, which match his bad-ass French self. Oh he is so hot.

2. The Boys Are Out. It is spring, and in spring, this city has a habit of rewarding its long-suffering overwintered single girls by unveiling lovely sleek little geek boys for them, in little fits and starts. One here, a few more there, one at the cafe where you'd least expect him to be, flirting as he hands you a menu and ponders whether or not he has any Guinness available, and then screws up your check and promises you a free dinner if the credit card turns out to have been charged twice. Uh-huh, sure cutie. Lemme see those tattoos on your arms again. As he walked away, I turned to my friend B. and said, "Do you suppose he'd fit on my bike?"

3. I am perhaps just a trifle overcaffeinated.

4. I got to sneak in a tiny little bit of girltime tonight, right smack in the middle of my horrid deadlines, and that cheered me up. We were very silly, and we laughed, and that is healthy for me. I like laughing. It feels so damned good.

5. I am going to have a picnic on my birthday, in Brooklyn. It will be fab. I will toss a frisbee with my good shoulder and eat angel food cake. Yay, picnic!

6. If my knees hold up (please hold up, guys!) I can stop riding the subway. Yay!

7. My exotic French cranks have exotic French threading, which means I couldn't use my spanking new (and very nice) English-threaded pedals. A minor bump in the road which ended, entertainingly, with my bike builder taking a very fine antique pair of pedals off one of his own personal bikes and selling them to me, at about half what they're worth. I love him and he loves me (platonically, in both directions).

8. When I got home, I realized that my bike had given me a hickey (from the messenger bag strap). The funny thing is, so did the Nikon when I first got it. See? I love everyone, and everyone loves me.

9. Okay, okay, I will cut back on the caffeine.

10. But you do see why I love the Nikon so much, don't you? Claudia, these are again taken on auto exposure, sans flash.

I keep trying to post, really I do. I get one half-written, and then it's the middle of the morning (as in, 4 am), and I am too tired to go on, and I leave it for the next day.

And the next day comes, and I am too much like a hummingbird, only less joyous than that sounds, and I have no time to breathe, much less fix or finish a half-posted post, and then it's the next night, and I no longer feel like what I said, or no longer want to share it.

And then four days go by, and it is spring, in the sense that the birds are singing and the sun is shining, and I can go out without anything more than a jean jacket.

But not in the sense that I can enjoy it in any fashion.

My arm hurts. My shoulder hurts. My ass hurts. My knees hurt. My head hurts. I am tired. I am busy in a way that cannot be measured or even effectively described with current technology.

My cat is insane because it is spring and she wants to kill all those singing birds. And she, too, is cooped up and unhappy about it. I love her for that.

I hate every single person who glides by me on a bicycle. Hate them.

I hate the people who talk about riding their bikes. "Oh, I had the nicest bike ride today," said one of my friends. "I hate you," said I.

I like the Nikon. I like the legwarmer (#2) I am knitting. I liked the doctor I saw yesterday. He told me I wasn't old enough to be needing a doctor like him. I told him how old I am. He said, "Okay, you are old enough. But you look younger."

Well, doc, today I do not. I look every minute of my age, believe me. If this whole mess keeps up much longer, I am gonna look every minute of my age, plus every minute of the doctor's age. Plus my cat's, for good measure.

See, I meant to write you a nicer post. A happy post, or a contemplative post. Something to make you go "ahhhh," after you read it. One of those. A post with life and color in it.

The trouble is, I am depleted of life and color at the moment. I am angry, and I am frustrated, and I am petulant.

And there you have it. Spring seems like a slap in the face to me, administered on the wheels of so many bicycles. Fuck it all.

Here, look at these nice roses.

Gak! I have written and rewritten this post three times already. Sometimes nothing seems good enough for the outside world. All my efforts seem to fall flat, like those banners in Soho that have holes cut in them to let the wind come through so they don't topple the poles to which they are attached and fall on unsuspecting pedestrians below.

But really, that's not what happened today. What happened today was:

1. I got the cranks I desperately - oh so desperately - needed. I won't actually have them in hand for probably another week, but I am guessing that even if my knees agreed to let me bicycle, my shoulder would have something to say about it. So to wait another week is probably a good thing. In theory. In reality, I am like a racehorse that's not getting taken out to run. Ever see one of them? No? Okay. Ever see one being put into the starting box and freaking out and trying to leap vertically up and out of it so it can run free? Yeah. That's me, all right.

Anyway.

2. I got the deadline extension I so desperately needed. Not as long an extension as I had hoped, but I think it will be enough. And she was pretty nice about it. (Thank you, oh client lady. A blessing on both your publishing houses. And so on.)

3. I went for a walk in the park, and there were daffodils. Daffodils are just excellent.

4. My long-dreaded tax bill, while it is higher than I can actually pay at the moment, is so much lower than I was afraid of that I practically did a jig when I got the package from my accountant. (Note: I did not quite actually jig, because of all my various injured bits, but under normal circumstances I damned well would have. I like jigs.)

5. The new season of BSG starts tonight, and I have much geekery goodness to look forward to in a mere 3 hours and 50 minutes. And BSG has been getting me through my long work sessions all week, because the beloved Sci-Fi channel has been playing reruns from last season from like 1 am to 3 am, which is perfect for my work-till-1-am schedule.

6. If you made me blonde and changed my facial structure a bit, I think I'd look just like Starbuck. Well, okay, my tattoos are different than hers, but you get the idea. She's a swimmer, you see. And she rocks so hard. So...well, I am just saying. I pretty much am Starbuck, minus the drinking problem and extreme self-destructiveness. Okay then, I'll be getting into my Viper now. See y'all later.

PS. Look-look! I finished my first legwarmer yesterday. It fits, sorta.

PS2. I spoke to my bike builder on the phone, which just cheered me up by proxy somehow. He was all excited about the cranks, too. See? GEEKERY.

PS3. A big thank you shout-out to Boywich, who handled the cranks transaction for me as partial repayment of a debt. It was fun to get text messages about cranks that were made before cell phones were even a twinkle in Alexander Graham Bell's ghostly eye.