voodoo bike mechanic

This is how my friend Joe puts a curse on hipsters:

paul newman

in memory of Fast Eddie Felson, Luke, Hud Bannon, Henry Gondorff, Doug Roberts, Larry Flint, Rocky, Brick Pollitt, Ben Quick, Judge Roy Bean, Sidney J. Mussburger, Murphy, Professor Michael Armstrong, ‘Reg’ Dunlop, Michael Colin Gallagher, Frank Galvin, John Rooney, and most of all, Butch Cassidy.

Thank you for the vegan cookies, and the greatest bicycle scenes ever put to film.

Etta: Butch?
Butch: Hmm.
Etta: Do you ever wonder if I’d met you first, we’d be the ones to get involved?
Butch: But we are involved, Etta, don’t you know that? I mean, you are riding on my bicycle – in some Arabian countries that’s the same as being married.

it’s 3pm, it’s wednesday

dear eric,
i was going to try to let july go by
without any anniversaries
without counting the days
was it a tuesday?
did we have a leap year?
without calculations
number of hours
twenty-four plus twelve
and three hundred and sixty-five or six
days but– your mother wrote me today
one year plus twelve
hours on the mark
your mother wrote me today
did i think i could get away
with forgetting
yeah, i did
there were a lot of things
counted on and lost since then
i’ve learned
to ride forgetting like
a favourite bicycle
built to carry me far away
from this ghost town
this town full of ghosts
this ghostly town full of fucking shit
fucking goddammit
this slow motion crash that paralyses and never kills
forgetting, yeah right
who the fuck did i ever think i was
built not for speed but distance
so i can carry unlimited sorrows on my back
for miles and miles, slow days, slow years
and the wheels in motion, they just never stop
turning, and i never stop breathing
mothers never stop grieving
dear friend, don’t forget
dear friend, don’t forget me
dear friend hold onto me
save me
this time, how it rolls along
without us in it
and i just ain’t letting go

to stop or not to stop

that is the debate which itself never stops:

From Carectomy.com: “The city of San Francisco is considering a law that would allow cyclists to breeze through stop signs. Supporters hope that the law, which already passed in Iowa, will encourage people to ride bikes because it ‘makes it easier’ to do so.”

Q: “Should bicyclists be allowed to run red lights?”

[insert here the usual arguments in favour of running red lights: bicycles aren't cars, it makes me feel like a renegade, it's so hard to start again, etc.]

A: This is all very simple. Does stopping at a sign or light when expected to do so cause harm? No. Does not stopping at a sign or light when expected to do so cause harm? Yes, and those harms include confusion and stressed relations between cyclists and motorists, as well as the potential for injury and death.

There are even unexpected side-effects such as police disbelieving the cyclist in favour of a driver in a confrontation they did not personally witness, because our community reputation as flouters of traffic law precedes the individual cyclist, and in that way, justice for cyclists in legitimately deserving situations is often denied. I know this from personal experience. So whose side are you on when you run red lights/stop signs– your own, even if your actions result in greater permissiveness for car drivers, or all cyclists? Because you weren’t on mine when a harassing/menacing/threatening driver was about to be arrested but was suddenly let to go, and the police attention turned around on me, as soon as he invoked how “all of these cyclists are always” maneuvering through traffic unpredictably/illegally. If you choose looking out only for number one, or only for that which is immediately present before you, I have to wonder how that is very much different than the individualistic self-centrism we often claim is one of the worst by-products generated within the confines of the personal automobile.

Losing one’s momentum has to be one of the most minor of life’s myriad inconveniences; further, I would argue that, in a non-racing/non-competitive milieu, irritation with anything that impedes one’s ability to be uninterruptedly on-the-go is a product of a car-driving mentality. I do not ride a bicycle because I value speed above all other things.

If getting going again is really that difficult, I would suggest the following: learn to adjust your pacing so that you will with better success make your lights on the green– yes, sometimes that means slowing down if your current speed maintained would otherwise cause you to arrive at an intersection on the red light. I often pass people at intersections who ran the light when they could at a prior intersection, but had to stop at the next because of cross-traffic. What they temporarily gained in speed they eventually lost in momentum; because my momentum is still intact, I get to cruise right by, and I always do so perplexed as to what benefit they thought there was racing to a full-stop situation. Other suggestions: find routes with fewer stop signs, adjust your gear ratio/learn to downshift before stopping, properly adjust your seat height/bike fit to optimise performance, or get a new bike with better stop and go qualities. I should note that my definition of stopping is not necessarily putting a foot on the ground; you can temporarily cease to be in motion on both freewheel and fixed bikes alike, which I consider a different action than “yielding,” or slowing– quite considerably even– but without stopping.

I recognise none of this answers the question of “should bicyclists be allowed to run red lights?”. I’d rather that if given such a freedom it would be exercised with utmost responsibility, so while on the one hand I do not trust this would be the case, on the other I also do not believe it is helpful or necessary to ticket a cyclist for failing to stop at deserted intersections and the like. Retaining the law for instances of out-and-out jackassery is probably wise, but in most cases the common practise of police looking the other way, or perhaps giving a cyclist a gentle reminder on a case-by-case basis, I believe is sufficient.

In all of the above, “you” is directed at no one in specific and is meant in the general sense.

this is definitely happening

two important roles are already being fulfilled by my friends Lydia and Joseph. I am now looking for who wants to take me on my final bicycle ride. When my day comes, you will have to be able to get to South Carolina on short notice (three days). If you could be responsible for finding/making a hitch and trailer, that would be a nice contribution. I would appreciate very much not having to worry about providing that part of it. Justin, I would be honoured if I could draft you.

I just thought of this last night. It’s silent and slow. How beautiful, and appropriate.

Cycling firsts

1) stopped by wind while riding uphill;
2) knocked completely over by wind;
3) serious consideration of riding to nearest bus stop and bussing the rest of my commute.

I should have been alerted by the unfamiliar sound I heard going through my wheels as I rolled my bike to the street this morning. I knew I was going to have a 25+ mph straight-on headwind all the way to work. I could hear it whistling at the window before I even got out of bed. I hate wind, more than any other weather condition, I hate fighting the wind. But it’s just that time of year, I go through this every spring and it sucks but as always I’ll push through it and there will be no harm done. However, as I walked my bike away from the garage, I could hear the wind pushing sidelong through my wheels resulting in a concerning sound I’ve never heard before, as if the spokes were each three inch wide slats of balsawood. “Well, I’m not trying to set any records and I don’t need to impress anyone,” I said to myself, “Just get there.”

Things didn’t seem like they were going to be too bad until I turned the corner heading up the Portland hill south of the Stone Arch Bridge. I had a good, smooth, uninterrupted pace going on from the outset of my ride, even on the bridge itself where the full force of gusting winds usually makes itself apparent, so I took the turn tight yet obliquely and hunkered down into the wind. Halfway up this nothing of a one-block hill, I was getting whipped off my line badly enough that I realised I may not make it. A quarter more up the way, there may as well have been a brick wall suddenly dropped down across my path and I ran into it, resulting in a dead stop. For the first time ever in this very flat town o’ mine, I had to walk a gradient in Minneapolis. Lame! I would have felt silly about this graceless dismount and opportunity for witnesses to say, “Oh look how hard it is to ride a bike!” except that even walking I had to angle myself so severely that there could be no doubt this was obviously the fault of an unusual gale and should not reflect badly on the rider or her means of conveyance.

Because the Washington intersection at Portland has one of those lights that will not change unless a car rolls into range, and I was first in line, I had a good, long, seven minutes to stand there, my bike wobbling underneath me, and think about how the rest of this ride was going to go. I decided it was only the fact that I was on a hill that I got stopped just a moment ago, and began the first of about twenty identical debates in my head that went like this:

“Maybe I should have taken a geared bike today. No, then I would have just been spinning like mad in a low gear, covering just as little ground, and hauling an extra twenty pounds of bicycle besides. The fixed gear was the right choice.”

Entering the wind-tunnels of downtown, other elements conspired together to make it pretty clear to me that this ride was going to be the height of suck-o-rama: car doors hanging open in the bike lane, plastic bags and bits of cardboard flying about and threatening to affix themselves to my wheel (“Maybe I should have taken the geared bike today, etc”), cops running red lights, my right pant leg coming unrolled, flirting with my chainring with every downstroke (“Maybe I should have…”), clouds of dirt and grit finding their way under my sunglasses and into my eyes, leaves whipping up around my head and copping a free ride in my hair, and my speed being so impacted that I couldn’t get more than two blocks before getting stuck at another red light; and forget creeping up to the intersection, ready to roll as soon as the light turns green: today it had to be two feet flat on the ground to avoid being blown over, and the really good time of starting up again from dead zero in the face of 35mph gusts, front-wheel going zig-zag, only to have to repeat the effort every other block. At least I had time to fix my pants at one of those red lights.

Things were looking good for a bit and I was almost out of downtown without incident, until Portland turns more directly into the wind right between a couple of new high-rise condos. I believe there is an exhibit at the Children’s Science Museum that would precisely explain the vector created in such a situation, but suffice to say I had to make a quick decision: either get whipped into parked vehicles to my left, or get whipped into the trajectory of traffic coming from behind to my right. I saw a driveway up ahead to the left, so I decided I’d pull over and a) walk to the end of the block, past the condos, and b) wait for traffic to pass before wobbling back out into the road. Sneaky driveway! I’d just gotten past the last parked car before the driveway, totally positioned and prepared to stop properly, when I discover that this driveway leads down into an underground parking garage, sucking the wind in just right so that I get whacked sideways like someone had just hauled a sack of potatoes at my right side. I bail, landing on my feet somehow, and my bike clatters over in the street. Here I mutter a mild profanity.

When I pick up my bike and raise it over the curb, the wind is so strong it takes the bike itself up like a sail and swings it out in my hands parallel to the ground. Oh-kayy, that’s a new one to me. I walk my bike up and down the block a little to make sure everything is still aligned and rolling like it should, and that is when I find myself actually considering taking the bus though in possession of a functioning bicycle on a sunny day! It seemed like a reasonable, if not necessary, idea for half a second, until I imagined the reality of setting my bicycle on a bus rack– no, ew, icky. I looked down the street from whence I had just come, running all the way to the river, and considered simply going home. I wasn’t even halfway to work yet in twice the usual time. But I turned, and readied to keep on; despite the cruel phenomenon that wind from the south in the morning turns into a wind from the north by the time I leave work, giving me a headwind both ways, the report before I left promised me a 27mph tailwind at least until nightfall. Hell yeah I’m going to partake of that, so I kept on my way, and arrived at work ten minutes delayed by wind and wipeouts. My abs were so tight it made me want to throw up when I stopped, so I figure that’s a fair enough reward for pushing through.

Outside in the sky, the birds are being pushed back in their efforts to travel against the wind; I notice they can’t land where they want to, against the wind because they can’t get there, or with the wind because they’re flying too fast. I am crossing fingers that this doesn’t necessarily indicate I am going to zoom off into the river at 35mph going down the Portland hill this evening… oh heck, maybe I should have taken a geared bike today…

away msg

Not many people know this, but a year ago I became a godparent to a Gitane that lives in Austin, Texas. I am finally going to go meet him. Internet access will be sproradic during this time, but if you look below this post I will do my best to keep this site interesting for y’all. In the meantime, I am going to be riding this bicycle along the Colorado River, writing poetry and letters by hand, reading Gregory Peck’s favourite book in 80-degrees and sunshine, and I will be very happy.

1970 Gitane Gran Sport in criterium violet

One Missed Call

Yesterday Eric and I had our birthdays. I had a party with a nice group of friends at a place in my neighbourhood in which there is a penny farthing hanging from the ceiling over the door. It is blue and has stars painted on it. A couple of years ago, because Tim did not want to come along, Eric filled in as my partner on a group bike ride that made a stop there. He and I plotted and schemed ways to get the bicycle down and out the door without anyone noticing. Yesterday I stood under it and told some of my friends about that, and how much Eric loved Patsy Cline. This year, I got a year older, and Eric didn’t. I sent a text message to his number, happy birthday, hoping it would go out into the universe and arrive wherever he may be. Like maybe he might still be alive, the number immediately called me back. I startled. We are erased and transferred so quickly, others take our places like it’s nothing and want to know who the hell we think we are trying not to be forgotten, trying not to forget.  I could not answer, and his ghost did not leave a message.

That close

Current mood: unsure

This is the first entry I write directly into wordpress. By the time it is read, it will likely be irrelevant.

10.00pm: I leave work for the Triple Rock on my bicycle. I am highly motivated to not make it home alive, somehow. In total darkness, I unlock the shed where my bike is kept, everything is still. Three people were murdered within three blocks in the last few days, including a bicyclist out for a ride before bedtime. Married guy on his way to bid his best friend good evening, kids, the whole loving friends and family who will miss him thing. I hear a rustle in the corner, behind the shed. No luck, it was just the wind. Perhaps I will be hit by a car on the way.

10.15pm: I arrive at the Triple Rock, foiled again despite taking an unlit, unfamiliar route with therefore unexpected potholes, unusually hostile, aggressive drivers, and the coincidence of having worn all dark clothing today.

10.20pm-1am: Nepstien, the bartender on duty, is particularly chatty and friendly tonight. He correctly identifies without any prompting a psycho-stalker of mine, and guards my drink behind the bar while I take a cigarette break now and then from the short story I’m reading about two toddlers, a wife, her parents and the family dog, who are murdered in cold blood by the husband on Christmas Eve, 1985– I am clearly in a safe, intuitively protective space. A friend who has been in his boy-cave for the last 12 months reappears by text message and keeps me company in this way all night between paragraphs. He rode 135 miles today, and wants me to ride with him on Saturday. I commit to a future invitation.

1.10am: I set my bike in my garage, and numbly turn out my lights. I have to sit down on the dusty, leafy floor of the garage and have the breakdown I’d meant to have before leaving work tonight at 8pm, the unfulfillment of which left me sitting at my desk in psychic, physical and emotional paralysis for two hours before the idea to get hit coming home drunk from the Triple Rock tonight inspired me to finally leave. I guess I don’t know how to become that drunk, or perhaps I was too drunk to remember my great idea; and though all the other elements were begging the universe to have mercy upon me, out of habit I used my lights, dammit, and caused traffic to be too aware of my presence. So I am alive (“I should have left at 2″), and this is what it’s like to be alive (“more drunk drivers on the street”), weeping on the floor of a dark, dirty, leafy garage, utterly alone and thinking about the innocence in rabbits’ eyes and God, begging to know what to do anymore. “Please, tell me what to do,” I mutter to the sky, but, “Oh, I suppose too much of that is heard every night. I am selfish, unoriginal…” and no doubt a little girl crying out for love while sitting in the dark amongst ten bicycles in Minneapolis is too silly for the big guy to consider. Something scuttles by within inches of my crossed legs. Too large to be a mouse, too small to be a rat (“so what about this mousy rat I know who walks about pretending to be a man?”). In ten years here I have not seen any rodent that was not a squirrel– not in my house, not in this garage, not in the yard. But this life is not significant, this life has no meaning; it is just the first time in ten years there happened to be a crying person here to disturb such a creature at 1am. I compose myself, I have to compose myself before going inside.

1.20am: One friendly bartender in the face of things, one lonely friend resurrecting himself from his own heartaches, thirty slowly passing pages, two cigarettes, two drinks, six to nine murders and three slippery hours later, I am writing. I am not dead, I did not die. Tomorrow, like every day, I shall begin life anew. Free of an old chimera, but without guidance– pure, innocent, perhaps even divine– if only I’d met the eye of a warm, brown, four-footed creature, whose heart raced as he ran because he was in an unusual situation, at an unusual time, for unusual reasons.

1.18am: I step out of the garage into the parking lot, and take a look around in full moonlight. Everything is still, I am totally alone. I cover my mouth with my hand.

You were born today

You were born today
You had ten fingers and ten toes
A strained expression
Helplessly flailing limbs;
You cried sometimes
But mostly you were a quiet boy.
And you grew
Learned to walk, run
Read, write, ride a bicycle

Like everyone else
Once in awhile
You had the freedom
To be
Just a kid.
You were born today

You have ten fingers and ten toes
A strained expression
Helplessly flailing limbs;
You cry sometimes
But mostly you’re a quiet boy,
A precious little thing
Who reads, writes, rides a bicycle.

Minneapolis 09.06.07  llh:trl 

foundthings, pt 4: and then eric died

07.24.07

Context from Caring Bridge: “Eric was in a one vehicle accident on July 7, 2007 somewhere between Spokane and Seattle Washington. He was on his way to Portland, OR to see his cousin Kendall. Still unsure of what exactly happened, we do know that he over corrected his driving and rolled the vehicle. Eric is in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit at this time. He severely injured his spine, at this time he is paralyzed from the chest down. He is able to move his arms, but not able to move his hands or fingers. He is having some respiratory problems so they have a tube in him to help him with his breathing. They also now have him sedated to help his lungs heal.” More about Eric…

Eric’s poor kitty was in the car with him and died in the crash. Eric died from his injuries 23, July at 3am. The following was my immediate reaction:

I just found out about Eric’s passing about 10 minutes before I begin to write this. I am not sure what to say.

Eric and I used to be friends. For a while he even used this photo I took as his myspace picture:

4th Annual Upper NE Bike/Bar Tour, Sept 2005

It may have been about a month before the Sept tour that he joined me for the second Dinkytown Erik’s one of the summer. We spent the whole night as a team. We went dancing at the Front after the tour. That was the best part. We antagonised all the regulars, pretending to want to dance with their dates. We annoyed lots of people by dancing like there was no tomorrow, knocking into them with our bags. If we were anything but sweating and completely out of breath, we danced harder. Outside he tried to explain how to identify if a bike was fixed or single speed just by looking at it. I didn’t understand. We moved on, if anyone can believe it, to White Castle [Eric and I were both vegan]. He was protecting me from someone who was hanging around with us and who kept trying to hit on me. We closed the evening in the park by Marcy School. He rode his red, white, and blue Schwinn then.

That guy loved to sing. I tried on several occasions to get him to do karaoke. He was too shy. The best I ever got out of him was singing Blondie at the table at Grumpy’s downtown. His hair stood straight on end while he did it. I am reminded of someone else there who probably doesn’t know what has happened to Eric, and that when I finish writing this, I should call her and let her know. I have never made such a phone call before.

Eric made me feel good about buying a photograph at the first Altered Aesthetics bike art show. It looked like this:

Morning Commute, Phillip Barron

I felt nervous about spending so much money on something like that. But he said to me, “No, you should feel awesome, you totally just made that artist’s day!” That made me feel better, as if I’d just done a good deed. Before we left the gallery that night, he lent me his hand pump so I could harden my tires, which weren’t actually even flat at the time. I was just being picky about my tire pressure. As a result of cranking on the faulty pump, we tore the valve from the tube, and then I really had a flat. We went out to a few neighbourhood bars after the art show. I had to walk my bike. It started raining. [see also: Bicycling, why hast thou forsaken me?]

The photograph was to be a birthday gift for someone who meant a lot to me. And in fact, I met that person because of Eric as well. Earlier in the year Eric told me about The Fixed Gear Enthusiass website, that he submitted photos modeling with his bike. I checked it out. I met another of the local men who had submitted a photo to that website, after sending him an invitation to join my bike group on myspace. This person became someone very important to me, and I believe I would have never crossed paths with him if it weren’t for the coincidence of Eric.

I introduced someone to Eric that was new to town and needed to make friends. I thought they had things in common and might get along. I did not know it at the time, but that person turned out to be the kind of person who bad-mouths others in order to have something “interesting” to talk about. Eric never really did talk to me again after becoming friends with that one. No reason between Eric and I at all. He just stopped saying hello or even looking me in the eye. I wasn’t too concerned. I figured if that’s the kind of character he is going to be, then so be it.

The last time I saw Eric was at the Triple Rock not too long ago. I didn’t notice him there next to the only other empty stool at the bar when I approached. I sat down and took a look at my neighbours. Oh, it’s Eric, how awkward. He nodded, I said, “Hey.” I buried my nose in a book and tried not to feel weird. My friends came, or his friends came, I don’t remember. Something separated us from our uncomfortable situation. But I did wonder if that acknowledgement that we used to know each other– a nod, a single word– was going to be the beginning of us being able to smile and say hello to each other like we always used to. My relationship with Eric is now frozen in this unspoken, uncomfortable, unknowable and unconfirmed moment; a potential beginning that begins again, and begins again, and begins again, without end.

===
post script, 01.14.07:

Later that day, I got this message from someone I do not know:

Brixton,
I know this is unsolicited, and hopefully not too weird as I think I only met you once. Anyhow, Eric and I became friends at the track in Blaine back in 2005. I have a picture of the two of you from the Northeast Bar Tour. It’s at Elsie’s, and you are both standing by the foosball table [...].

He and I saw a lot of each other while training at the track that fall, and I remember your name coming up in conversation [...] It sounded like he’d found a kindred spirit in you. He was always really excited about having hung out with you or when talking about plans to see you again. I saw less and less of him as I got more serious about training, but I never heard him say anything but the most flattering things about you.

All the best,

===
That message hit me pretty hard. It is now six months since Eric died. I have found many personal items of his scattered amongst things in my room, so many slips of paper, little drawings of his, a map to his house for a birthday no one showed up to, not even me (it was too far, it was too cold, I remember thinking that year), teaching him to write his name in Russian, the program from the art show, other reminders that we were involved in each other’s lives far more than I remembered… it used to be really bad at first, I’d see someone ride by and I couldn’t shake the expectation that it was him. This still happens sometimes, but not as much. It has affected me more deeply than anyone knows. I haven’t been dealing with it, I know, I don’t let on, I have no one to talk to about it.

foundthings, pt 3: blackout

07.21.07

this is the fourth day of possessing a face, half of which could be described as chipmunk-like. I guess when I crashed last year, I bumped a molar just so. It didn’t want to live anymore. It first started to let me know this sometime during the winter, and then it would seem to change its mind. The internet tells me that this is the end, the final assertion of its existence, a long extended moaning turned to screaming into the darkness as it is being eaten alive. A coworker scolds me for not doing anything about it, for shunning all of western medical practice for the last fifteen years. I’ve never been healthier. “I know you like to live on the edge, but you really need to do something about this.” “I don’t live on the edge,” I say, “I live in the United States of America, the richest country in the world, and I don’t have medical insurance.” This is the fourth night. I wake exactly every one and a half hours, then spend an equal amount of time mentally assessing my collection of household tools and whether there is anything that would allow me to take matters into my own hands. it hurts, god it fucking hurts, and the brain never gets a break from thinking about it. I’m exhausted and finally broke down crying out of sheer fatigue about an hour ago. It’s after 4am, who’s up? No one. I was getting toxic, the Cedar Riverside People’s Center took me in this afternoon as fast as I could ride my bicycle there. Everywhere else was willing to let me die. Die? I have a heart murmur and arrhythmia. When I say my heart skips a beat, it does. Sometimes it doesn’t beat at all, for a little while anyways. It’s an interesting sensation, I suppose. We’re not expected to live or die any differently than people whose hearts are normal, so I can reflect on this phenomenon, when it occurs, as just another little thing that reminds me I’m alive. After the initial recognition, the habitual shiver of panic, I just have to think, “ok now, get going” and it obeys. The murmur is an entirely different issue. A little whisper that indicates there’s a bit of blood my heart isn’t willing to give up. One single bacterium gets down in there and I will die of a poisoned heart. How appropriate. It’s after 4am, I could write [him] while I wait for exhaustion to send me back to sleep? Yeah, but he doesn’t really care, not like that. Twenty minutes and I can take another pill. I’m afraid of pills and have successfully avoided all of them, even post-crash, for over a decade. But these ones will keep me from dying of a poisoned heart, that is, if they don’t cause “sudden cardiac death,” the small print tells me. I can never win.

My corner of Minneapolis experienced a total blackout tonight, at least as far as to Dinkytown. Humans wandering about the streets in that kind of darkness are spooky, and not a single bicyclist seemed to have lights. I was very afraid for them in the road, and none of them seemed to be on the correct side or even going to correct direction. Is it safer to ride facing traffic in a blackout? I read by candlelight. That was very nice.

It’s 5 now. I can take my next pill. My hour and a half of wakefulness is at an end.

So we rode, pt 2

Current mood: cynical 

Thursday Lydia and I rode our bikes to Stillwater. While having lunch at a local establishment, and curiously just after I began to remark that if the middle class devoted as much energy toward the anti-war movement as they do toward passing smoking bans…, four upper-middle class women sat down at the table next to ours, immediately declared their outrage at the existence of cigarettes, and rejoiced at the promise of better lives on Smoking Ban Day. They each verbally patted each other on the backs for being such educated, intelligent producers of common opinion.

Later in their conversation, one of the women began a long, passionate confession of her sadness at the expected rise in the cost of popcorn, because she simply cannot live without it. Her friend asked her what kind she eats, which elicited from the speaker a complex explanation of her reasons for alternating between butter-flavoured and kettle corn. During this lengthy divulgence, I became quite alarmed: all three of her listeners were sincerely and unshakably captivated by the subject of this woman’s choice of microwavable snack food.

When the server came, these champions of good health (see wrinkled noses and loud disapproval of smoking, above) ordered four different appetisers– all variations of fried cheese bits– and bacon sandwiches. With the order placed, conversation resumed. While one of the friends touched her hair, the 47-year old bleach blond woman stated without a touch of irony that her haircolour was indeed quite natural.

This is what is out there. These are the people who run the show. These are the things that are of utmost importance to them.

My friend and I exchanged glances: it was time to get away from these women. We proceeded to the Sawmill antique warehouse at the end of Main Street, and looked at iron stoves, tin dish sets, coffee grinders and manual toasters: discarded curiosities or collectible shelf-adornments to the likes of our lunchtime neighbours; to me, things that will be useful when the era of cheap oil comes to a final, grinding halt. Our bicycles brought us home, and I slept well and in good conscience.

Currently watching :
An Enemy of the People (1966)

thursdays with lydia

This week has been quite marvellous. In addition to the beautiful weather, or perhaps precisely because of it, this is my first week that I have biked 100 miles since I crashed. I feel accomplished. Lydia and I went 50 miles on Thursday, and even with 40 miles behind me, I still gave chase to a roadie who I thought deserved it for sneaking up behind me on his silent, feather-light bicycle and spooking me by not announcing himself. He only got away from me and my 37-pound hybrid by running a red light, at which point I claimed victory as he was jeered by onlookers. And guess what else was at this very same intersection! A guy pulling a kayak with his bike!! I was thrilled and we did not hide from him our vote that he was the most awesome thing we’d seen all day. He made out of wood and carpet a kind of Y-shaped contraption with a wheel on it. Toward the end, we were scolded by a grumpy older man for not maintaining our pace. He informed Lydia that when he rides he is very strict to go a constant 14mph, and we were confusing him by dropping down to (t)his speed every now and then so that we could take a longer look at the beautiful weeping willows hanging over Minnehaha Creek. He was certainly given many opportunities to pass in a proper fashion, but he didn’t actually do so until he could make a statement about it by weaving around our right, hopping a curb, and almost running over a child struggling with a small dog entangled in its leash. We apologised to the child’s father for the rudeness of the cyclist ahead of us, and headed off to Cedar Lake, which is very pretty.

Horizon and shore, my friend

You know that the rain acts as a conducer, a filler of spaces between you and your bicycle and the road upon which you travel; it lubricates your pressing, forward movement and carries every vibration and mmm (listen) directly to your body. Close your eyes and breathe deep with every pitter-pat that falls upon your cheeks and eyelashes; sometimes it stings but sometimes it feels like kisses, yet even if it makes you cry, no one will know. You can ride like a child and yell out loud when thunder breaks overhead, starting a chain reaction of excitement and joy in everyone who hears you—if they don’t call back, certainly they smile and think, “If only I too were on a bicycle right now, kicking puddles and swinging my legs—really living my life.” Take off your silly synthetic things and hike up your pants, feel the rain tip-tapping on your forearms and tongue-tip-tickling your knees. The streets begin to clear of traffic, close your eyes and breathe deep, turn the face God gave you toward the sky and thank heaven for this beautiful world. It can leave you a mess, it can leave you shaking, but only when you immerse yourself fully in the experience do you truly know the wonderfulness of that big, soft, fluffy towel at home wrapped around your bare and enlivened skin. Oh yes, there is something to be learned from a rainstorm.