Bikes: May 2009 Archives

Fresh ginger tea with lemon and honey.

Watching Chocolat made me feel, for some reason, beautiful, even with my dirty knees and the scarf tied over my hair. Or maybe because of them.

I was an irascible, enraged creature today, with various pieces of my life falling to bits like a snake's used skin, flakeity flake flake.

Everyone wanted to know why, and I hadn't a significant explanation. Which is to say, there were so many possible reasons it was difficult to know which was the true one. If there was a single one.

It's been a year or more since I slept outside the confines of this city.

It's been a fortnight or more since I had a day where I didn't ride in traffic. I only rode tiny errand trips last Saturday, but still the traffic has its effect, I guess.

Spring appears to have brought out the worst side of humanity. Yes, that's right. The nicer the weather gets, the nastier your average human on the street gets. Don't ask me why. It's been two straight days of unfathomable, unending bullshit, and I have lost any patience I ever had, plus all of my reserves of self-control.

I think it might be insufficient peace and quiet (I have a daily quota to maintain sanity levels, and it's been woefully undernourished this week), plus the traffic, plus the random horribleness, plus perhaps a drop in daily endorphin levels because of my shorter rides. That last is going to be hard to address because longer rides entail more time in traffic, and as noted, that's part of my difficulty.

"Yes, actually, I am an invincible secret agent from Mars. How did you guess?"

I'd pledge here and now to install the pocketcam in the bike bag once again so you can have some visual stimulation to go with all these words, but at the moment I don't feel like making promises of any kind to anybody. And at the same time I am wondering if my anti-boyfriend plan might have a small flaw in it.

PS. Yes, I decided to throw you a bone with the crappily fluorescent-lit tea pic.

Movable Type: Hello Lizbon. Your last entry was 5 days ago.
Me: 5 days ago? No way!
MT: Way!

I've been holding off on posting till I had some photos to round it out, but I still don't have any, and I don't have much to say other than a bit of random updating.

(Blog reader: Dude, that's all you ever say!)
(Me: Well that's what a blog mostly is, isn't it?)
(Blog reader: I guess. But once upon a time you wrote us nice essays.)
(Me: I wrote one of those about 5 days ago.)

Right. Anyway.

To the tune of a cat licking herself much too loudly, I will sing you the following song of mundanity.

Some boys are teasing me. Some boys are calling me back after a date I distinctly do not want to repeat. Some boys are, well, giving me to think, or rethink. And the timing of everything is rather dreadful, as usual, and I've made a clumsy ass of myself in about six different ways in the last few days, though not in anything really irretrievable, I don't think. Just sort of ordinary clumsiness. Social clumsiness and the other kind.

Okay then. (The cat has quit washing and fallen asleep in that sudden way they do.)

I am enjoying my proximity to various aspects of my social life. I am closer to several friends. I am closer to farmers' markets. I am better placed for spontaneous fun. All good.

I find that I am a tumbling assortment of things these days, so I will give it to you straight, because that is my wont. (Not a spelling error. Look it up if you don't believe me.)

I am content, I am nervous about money, I am gleeful, I am lonely, I am curious, I am sleepy, I am pining for the beach, I am wearing legwarmers, I am in lust, I am annoyed, I am giving up on that one, he is a pain in the ass, I am suddenly attracted to another one but that may only be because he laid hands on me unexpectedly and in a gentle, appealing way that made my brain spin.

Feeling downright beautiful at the moment. The sun came out, literally and metaphorically (yes, I am aware that there may be a quasi-causal relationship between the two). I unearthed my box of bike tools and lubed my chain - thank god.

I get uneasy when my bikes are ill-cared-for. I feel their pain when their chains are dry, and ashamed when there's visibly crusted dirt in the bends and elbows of their frames.

So I rode my newly sparkly bike into town, and on the way got a text message from crushboy asking if I was coming into town that day (yes, right this minute, sugar), and then we had coffee, and then we went shopping (he's a girly-man and likes these things, and a very pleasant quality that is, if you ask me), and then I had a rather delicious hug and went to get my nose jewelry changed.

On the way home I stopped in to visit a friend who lives near me, and she miraculously produced out of her stash of goodies the perfect curtains to replace the ones I managed to lose in the world's worst move. My curtains got thrown in the trash, I think, which sucks beyond all suckitude, since I adored them, and had made them myself, at considerable expense, from long panels of linen in indigo and turquoise-blue (living room) and aqua-tealish silk Dupioni (bedroom).

Okay, I am getting sad again just writing this. But the friend's replacement curtains are really marvelous and just what I had in mind for this apt, but could not have afforded to buy. So it all works out fabulously - well, I assume it will, once I buy some new rods (the ones I have won't work in my quirkily dimensioned windows) and rings and put them up. I hope they'll be long enough. I think they will.

And then, making the giant vat of soup turned out to be another sort of missing link in making me feel at home.

It also didn't hurt that I had a rather wonderful, social weekend - bike rides with friends, and a party five minutes away from my house, and just general delight in being here.

Ahhhh. It's about time.

PS. Kitwich likes it, too - much better nook-and-cranniage for her to enjoy.

The city is often an object-lesson in hardcore checks-and-balances living. Today was one such day. I offer you exhibit 1:

Plus column: I got a pedicure. Lavender.
Minus column: I got into a bike vs. car accident with an SUV on the way there.
Plus column: Neither I nor the bike appear to be damaged.
Minus column: The damn SUV cut me off so shortly that there was nowhere to go and no time to stop. Smashed into his bumper with a nice "crunch!" Eck.
Plus column: Ran into a friend on the street five minutes later and had a nice little chat. A cute friend. Not that cute friend; a different one. We had gone for a bike ride once, long ago, that might have turned into a date but I kinda thought no. Still cute.
Minus column: A little shook-up for several hours following accident.
Plus column: Another friend made me dinner on my way home. Yum, and relaxing.
Minus column: Somewhere along the way I managed to step in crap and get it all stuck in my bike shoe.
Plus column: It was the kind that comes off relatively easily and doesn't smell super-bad.
Minus column: I think I will be throwing those bike shoes away, anyway. Just in case.
Plus column: Cute young blond boy asked me out on a date. Interesting cute young blond boy.
Minus column: Since it's an Internet date, there might be zilch chemistry.
Plus column: Delightful hot man offered to help me shift some heavy objects around my apt.
Minus column: Delightful hot man might not actually follow through with it.
Plus column: Kindhearted husband of friend also offered and would follow through.
Minus column: Hard to decide whom to take up on offer.
Plus column: Even if doesn't move heavy things for me, delightful hot man might come visit and help me move some, er, other things. Like earth and sky.
Minus column: Delightful hot man also somewhat problematic.
Plus column: So the fuck what? He's adorable. Let him come visit you and admire your pretty toes and help you find new uses for your delightful staircase.

And so forth.

In other news, Kitwich likes her new windows.

I am hungry and in need of chocolate.