Bikes: February 2010 Archives

Wow, that was a mess.

For those of you who didn't notice, the blog was down for about 10 days due to a minor catastrophe at the hardware level. It's all fixed now, and there doesn't seem to be anything missing, and anyway, it's just a blog, not somebody's lifeblood or my novel or anything.

But still, I missed it.

Which kind of surprised me since I've been finding it hard to blog, and I've been posting more intermittently than I did for the first - oh - 6 years of this thing. (Yes, I know the archives don't go back that far; Boywich has the early years saved somewhere safe-ish, and one day he'll get around to revamping this place and adding in all those files, but that has to be done manually and it's a big job, and he's a busy boy)

All of which is to say, hey, sorry girlwich was a blank white page for 10 days. I had things I wanted to say, too - things which would not have fit into 140 characters and so did not appear in the twitter stream. And while I don't remember those would-be essays, I have a minor amount of faith that if there were important ideas in there, they will percolate through my consciousness and reappear.

For now, what I will give you is a random series of thoughts (as opposed to the elegant triumph of organization that's the rule in blogland?).

It snowed again. Fuck. 20 inches. The roads are shite, as they say in Ireland, where it rarely snows at all.

I rode my rollers in the hallway tonight, for a scant fifteen minutes. It's hard riding rollers, and it's only about the third or fourth time I've ever done it.

I also walked, clad in waterproof garments and a certain amount goose down (bad vegan!) and several knitted items, to a pal's house to watch Carl Sagan tell me about Mars. I love Carl Sagan. We're on a first-name basis. I call him Carl and try to remind myself that: a) he was married, and b) he's no longer with us (so sad!). Such a dreamboat, that Carl. Shut up, I'm in earnest.

I am knitting the most brilliant sweater ever devised by mankind (forgive me; I've been thinking in hyperbole all day - watching Carl will do that to you), but I have reached a point of confusion. It's a hazard of seat-of-the-pants design. Yes, I'm calling myself a designer. No, I'm not proposing to make a career of it. But almost every successful piece of knitting I've ever done had its origins in a little drawing on an envelope. That's how my brain works. I'm creative and I don't follow directions very well.

During the last big snow (what, like a week ago?) I happened to walk by a mosque during evening prayer, and the chanting was being piped into the street through a loudspeaker. I stood under the streetlight for several minutes looking up at the falling snow and listening to that haunting melody.

This time, I walked past the mosque again but there was no music, and I was sad.

I have recently come to the conclusion that I am funny and rather brilliant and a mostly delightful companion, and I feel that I deserve an equally delightful boyfriend, and I am somewhat perplexed as to why one hasn't materialized yet. Maybe it's the funny hats.

When you ride the rollers and it is going well, you reach this state where you are floating in mid-air, scarcely aware that you're pedaling at all. It's quite remarkable, but I wish my glasses wouldn't fog up just at that moment. It kind of kills the mood.

I tried, I really did. I went to a party last night (small, intimate) and another tonight (big, anonymous). I had two scoops of ice cream.

I rode my bike in dresses (one black and flowy, one purple and tight). I put on makeup.

I flirted with an unsuitable boy I'd never met and pined (against my will) for another I'd already messed around with and discarded.

Last year I hid in the house and watched a succession of terrible, heartache-inducing movies on TV.

This year, I had the opportunity to be out and socialize. I thought it would help. Nope. Still grumpy. Still hate being in the human race.

Just wish I could ride my bike, alone, forever, into the quiet chill blue starlight. It's all I love right now. (that, and the cat)

Someone stuck a paper heart onto my helmet as I was leaving the party and I pulled it right off.

A dear friend of mine said to me last night, after we'd blasted through an intersection to make a light that was turning, "You know, you really ought to be racing."

Every other time that someone has asked me if I race, or why I don't, I've demurred - I'm too old for it, I have knee issues. This time, I didn't. She is herself a racer, and a damned strong rider. She's younger than me; she trains very hard. But she's in a position to know.

She went on with some specific recommendations: sprints, no climbing.

It probably isn't wise.

But last night I dreamed I was with a group of people and we were being chased, and the safest thing to do was to get to the roof and fly away to a distant mountain ledge. I didn't, because I was the only one of our party who had that ability.

My dreaming self is always a flier; it's a basic characteristic, like hair color.

Earlier that evening we'd been talking about our families not understanding the risks we take. That it stems from their own worldview, from their need to feel that life is stable and predictable and safe.

In my case, at least, it's been a challenge for me to believe my own perceptions of what's possible, and to follow my instincts about what to do with my life. It's difficult when what you feel born to do is something that everyone in your family, all your teachers and other authority figures considered completely impossible, not even worth trying. Now I marvel that it never occurred to me to push them on that: Why? Sure, it would be hard and there'd be the possibility of failure, but why isn't it worth trying?

Because I'd get hurt? Oh for gods' sake. I've been hurt so much more by not trying, by denying who I am. Better to take the leap and fall on my face.

I rode over a lot of ice patches last night. When my friend noticed that I seemed to be aiming for them, I explained that I was trying to improve my bike handling skills. I could tell she wasn't criticizing; she said I seemed to know my bike really well.

It occurs to me that I may be trying out strategies on the bike before putting them into larger practice in my life. Taking the risk of falling in order to find my strengths, and to develop them.

Yep, it's one of those weeks where I keep making drafts and more drafts, sitting next to my (you guessed it) drafty window, where the cat bravely offers to keep me company on the adjacent big fluffy pillow.

I guess when you have fur, drafts don't scare you.

And then I get distracted by the fact that my lunch is ready, or my second dinner, or I need another cup of coffee, or this chair hurts my butt, or the outdoors exists, and so on, and I don't post the thing, because really I am not so sure about that draft, and there it languishes next to the three other drafts I wrote this week, and the hundred-and-something other ones I wrote that will never see the light of -er- cathrode ray tubing.

Yes, I know, hardly anyone has CRT monitors anymore. Shut up and let me have my literary devices, willya?

Anyway. At the risk of injecting yet another unpublished draft into my Folder of Oblivion, I am going to set forth a list, in hopes that my beloved list format will put me at ease about publishing the damn thing.

1. They have promised us 8 inches of snow, and so far all we've got are flurries.
2. I rode around with snow tires and a fender all ready like a badass boy scout, and I hardly even got flaked on.
3. I had a little talk with my hairdresser, and we agreed that growing my hair out is an awesome idea. Then he cut it so that the right bits will grow out in (it is hoped) a non-driving-me-crazy sort of way. It was a big step. I've had the same haircut for years.

4. See? I need a whole extra space between paragraphs after that.
5. Lemon ice cream. Lemon ice cream, I tell you!
6. I am 1.5 hats through my 3 hats of gift knitting that must be accomplished before I get to cast on for the Incredibly Cool Sweater Design I drew on an envelope.
7. I deleted my online profile and then when I went to resurrect it, thinking, what if Mr. Fabulous is looking for me there? the site first wouldn't let me log in, telling me I must've typed in the wrong username (I know my own name, you bastards), and then when I finally got in through a backdoor, it chided me for having disabled the account. "You will now not be able to disable your account again for a period of...one week." Whoop-de-fracking-doo.
8. I haven't written about boys in a while, I know. It might be because I haven't met anyone of interest, or anyone who seems interested in me. And there's been less strife in the former-boys department. I seem to be able to be around the ex-lovers without feeling sad or needing to drag them home by the hair.
9. In point of fact, I had dinner with summerboy this evening and had a pretty darn good time, laughing and joking around. I was only slightly annoyed at him for still looking cute. Don't boys know they should immediately go to pot after you cease to be involved with them? Really, it would be just great if he'd get horribly ugly. How about some gooseturd-colored contact lenses? Try, really try, to gain a hundred pounds (he's skinny, so it would take a hundred). Take up smoking! That's an instant turn-off. No? Oh well, it was fun hanging with you anyway, cutie.
10. Squirrel!

* In cycling, drafting means following another cyclist very closely to take advantage of the reduction in wind drag.