March 15, 2001


the poof show?
So, I'm really having one of those weeks which I can really only attribute to my increasing suspicion that my life is like "The Truman Show." I say this because of the alarming number of "thursday?" issues that have been popping up lately. You fellow English lit nerds will recognize the "thursday?" issues as dramatic irony, but let me explain for the rest. The "thursday?" issue is named thusly after an amusing conversation that I had with a hair place once. The abridged version goes something like:

ME: I'd like to make an appointment to get my hair cut.
HAIR PLACE GUY: Ok, when can you come in?
ME: I'd prefer mornings, any day but Thursday.
HPG: Thursday?
ME: No, any day *except* Thursday.
HPG: Ok, I can schedule you in at 9am on Thursday.
ME: No, I can't do Thursday. Can you do 9am on Friday?
HPG: I can do 11am on Thursday.
ME: 11am on Friday?
HPG: in snotty voice, sighing audibly Well, you *said* *Thursday*.

This, then, is the "thursday?" issue.

I'm convinced that no one has as many "thursday?" issues as me. Besides the fact that I'm a delusional paranoic, these sorts of things really happen all the time. This evening's "thursday?" issue (as opposed to this morning's or this afternoon's, both of which have even *less* to do with motorcycles than this evening's) was particularly annoying. All day today, I had daydreams of finally being at home after orchestra rehearsal tonight, reading the bike magazine that came like a week ago that I've been too busy to read, and writing in the bike journal. I had this entry halfway composed by the time I was halfway home from rehearsal.

And then I got off the freeway and noticed that the traffic light was out. And then I got to the next traffic light, and it was out, too. And it was about that time that I realized that it wasn't just the traffic lights. And when I got to my apartment, a mile and a half or so down the road, it was pitch black along with everything else. So, not only was I not going to read my magazine, and not only was I not going to get on the computer, but now I had no way to cook dinner, and all the nearby restaurants were closed due to power outage as well.

Peter, thanks for going to dinner with me 10 miles away from my apartment so that I could eat, even thought I was a big bratty no-electricity snotty face.

But I rode the SVS to the aforementioned dinner, and that made everything OK again.

here's what i'd planned on writing.
If you think *that* had nothing to do with bikes, you're probably not going to be too thrilled with the next part, either. It's going to be all meta and stuff, which is usually an indication that I've either had a really long day, or I'm drinking a beer while writing this, or that no real-world interesting motorcycle stuff has happened. Luckily for you, all three are going on right now. So, if you really want to hear about motorcycles, come back tomorrow. We'll all wait for you.

One of the reasons I'm so worn out is that Peter and I played hooky from our jobs on Tuesday and yesterday, and drove up to Kirkwood to go snowboarding for two days. I therefore now have the Snowboarding Ouch, which, this time, consists of a pulled neck muscle, sore arm muscles, and an extremely bruised, ahem, posterior. I'm really bitter about that last one. Most people go snowboarding, and if they hurt themselves, it's a nice sympathy-getter, like a sprained wrist or a twisted ankle. So far, no one's felt bad for me because I bruised my ass.

But anyway, the point is that I thought about motorcycling a bit while snowboarding, and came to some interesting conclusions. Most of them probably have more to do with the thinner air up there than any actual philosophical breakthrough, but, hey, you're the one still reading this.

So, I've decided that there are actually quite a few similarities between snowboarding and motorcycling (well, for me, at least). For one, they've both taught me how to love learning again. Motorcycling was the first thing in about 10 years that I'd learned to do from scratch, and didn't feel pressured to do it Bigger!Better!Faster! all the time. As you can tell if you've followed this journal through the last 11 months, I took this pretty slowly. I was comfortable just putzing in the parking lots until I was ready for the street, and then I was comfortable putzing in the streets until I was ready for the freeway. I'd move on to the next step when I'd start to get bored and somewhat frustrated with whichever step I was currently on. After I'd gotten to the point in motorcycling that I felt pretty darn comfortable with whatever the Nighthawk threw at me, I realized I could apply this thought process to other areas of my life, too. I switched jobs right around that time, and started Danger with the attitude that I was there to *learn*, not to be the Biggest!Best!Fastest! right away. I taught myself to ask questions *without* prefacing them with "this is probably really stupid, but... ." If motorcycling was the catalyst for this thought process (which I truly believe it was), then learning to snowboard is what's keeping me going with it. Maybe it's because both biking and boarding are *physical* sports. Maybe it's because when you fall in either, there's literally nothing to do but dust yourself off, stand back up, and keep going. But I realized over the past couple of days that it didn't bother me to go back onto the bunny hill instead of trying to prove something on the intermediate slope with big patches of ice (did I mention that I really hurt my butt?). I did really well on Tuesday: S-turns and hockey stops and even turning down an intermediate slope. Wednesday, however, was different. I took a too-hard run on my very first run of the day. I fell on every run I did. I really honestly hurt myself pretty badly, on the bunny hill, no less. But I sent Peter off to board on his own and sat in the lodge with ibuprofen, a book, and some hot chocolate. I waited an hour; then I went back out, got on the weeniest of the weenie lifts, and, ignoring the pain in my hip, spent the rest of the day on that weenie bunny hill. And by the end of the day, I was doing S-turns again.

I honestly think it's because of what biking's taught me that I can see that as a success, instead of a glaring failure.

At one point on Tuesday, I was practicing my turns, and I kept falling over. I'd always try to lean too far over, or not far enough; I just couldn't find my center of gravity. And then, for no real reason whatsoever, halfway down a run, I did a perfect turn and something clicked in my brain. I don't know what, I don't know what connection was made, but I remember thinking, "Aha! This is just like motorcycling!" and after that, I could do perfect turns every time. It must have been something to do with leaning; with trusting your vehicle to be on edge without sliding out from under you. But suddenly, carving an S-curve into that run became just as natural as flicking the SVS around a curve on the freeway.

Which is why it bothered me so much to fall that last time. I knew when I hit the ice that I was in trouble; Peter later told me that he could totally see it coming, too. I slid, the board slid, and when the ice stopped in the slush, so did the board. I was leaning backwards, and slammed my tailbone down onto the ice so hard that the next thing I remember was lying down, looking up at the sky, and thinking, "wow, that sure is a white cloud up there!" It took about 10 minutes before I could stand up and walk the rest of the way down the hill while Peter brought my board down for me. The reason that I bring this up, aside from the outpouring of sympathy that I know awaits from you, my faithful readers, is again a correlation with motorcycling. Let's say I'd been on a motorcycle, zipping down the road. If it had been a spot of gravel, or oil, or any number of other things to make the bike lose traction like the board did....it probably would have taken me longer than 10 minutes to stand back up again. In comparison to Tuesday's "lesson" that S-turns were easy if I thought about biking, Wednesday's "lesson" was pretty harsh and almost seemed callous. Even though this thing feels natural, it said, even though it seems like some weird ballet where the music's perfect and you're just moving the right way, something could always go wrong. Respect your vehicle, respect the conditions, know your limits.

Have a good Friday, kids.


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