Biking

Man, I am so out of shape. I’ve known I’ve been out of shape, but getting out on my bike is really driving the point home. Andrew and I went out on the bikes yesterday morning, and our little 3.5 mile trip just killed my legs. I’m a little embarrassed riding with him, since I know that he could 1) go much faster and 2) go much further without me.

He seems happy, though, to go out with me. He’s proud of me for just getting out there. Plus, I’ve been prodding him to get out on his bike. The past couple summers, he kept saying that he wanted to get out on his bike Saturday and Sunday mornings, but he rarely did. My goal is for us to get out every Saturday and Sunday that it isn’t raining (or scary-wet from a night rain). We started last weekend (May 3), and have met the goal so far (Saturday, 5/10, it was raining, so we didn’t get out).

Besides being out of shape, I’ve found that I’m completely terrified of riding over anything remotely sandy or gravelly. I’m also white-knuckle scared of riding on wet roads/sidewalks. My sand/gravel fear comes from two accidents I had long ago.

When I was a kid, sometime before I was 12 (because I got a 10-speed bike at 12, and this incident happened on my “Desert Rose” bike), I rode through a large sandy patch just to see what would happen. Well, a big, huge boo-boo on my right knee is what happened. Fortunately I was just a couple driveways away from home; unfortunately my parents had just left for the evening, leaving me in the care of my brothers. Now, they actually did a good job of getting my boo-boo cleaned up, and lovingly tried to get me to stop crying, but it would have been nice to have Mommy or Daddy there — they are just better with boo-boos. Lest you think the boo-boo was small, I actually had a scar from it for years — until my second bad accident on sand overwrote the scar.

The second accident happened sometime between August and December 1995, while I was living in the dorms at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM. Since my car was still in Minnesota with a broken clutch, I spent my summer earnings on a scooter (named Skippy) to get me around town. While making a turn onto the main street through town at one of the four traffic lights, I accidently went through a sandy patch, which was no match for the thin tires on Skippy. Of course everyone at the traffic light stopped to make sure I was okay — please, people, just let me die in peace. When I got back to the dorm, I found a big cut on my right knee (erasing my earlier scar, but later replacing it with a new one) and some scratches on both of my arms. I remember that I was wearing one of my favorite sweatshirts at the time — a brightly colored, vaguely tie-dyed thing. I was able to keep wearing the sweatshirt for a few more years, but there were several small holes from the scooter accident to serve as a constant reminder.

I’m scared of the wet roads because the two times I’ve had my car out of control have been in the rain — once the first time I took my parents’ car out by myself (no damage to the car or me, but I did do a 180 in it), and the second time in Albuquerque.

I’m going to try to overcome these fears slowly. Afterall, my tires are much, much better than those on my old Desert Rose bike and Skippy.

Starbuck’s and Bikes and my special Magnet

It was beautiful weather this afternoon, so I decided to get on my bike with my PhD thesis proposal and stacks of AGN variability papers and head up to Starbuck’s. I know it’s a yuppie kind of place, but they have a very yummy frozen chai drink that I just can’t resist. Plus it’s the closest place that has outside seating (besides Famous Dave’s, but as a vegetarian, that just doesn’t work for me).

The ploy worked — I went through the first several pages of crap I’ve pieced together from other proposals and papers, and made it sound more coherent. This may not sound like much, but I’ve been trying to work on this proposal for three weeks now, without much success.

However, after I’d been working for about half an hour, a smiling young man (early 20s, I’d guess) dressed in black pants and a white button-down shirt came over to my table and struck up a conversation. I already knew that he was a Mormon (is that the same as Seventh Day Adventist?, which I think is what his shirt said), because I’d heard him and his friend talking with another man at a nearby table. I’ll admit that I wasn’t very polite at first (though I am from the midwest, so my idea of “not too polite” is still fairly polite by East Coast standards). I don’t want someone coming up to me, and witnessing to me cold. It’s different if I was an acquaintance who showed some interest in their religion, but to just come up to me on the street? Or knock on my door? No.

Anyway, we discussed my thesis a little, and his friend came over. They asked if I knew what they were, and I said yes, in fact I know a mormon at work. So they asked if I’d talked about their religion much with this friend at work, and I said no, since he knew that I just wasn’t interested. I must give them some credit at this point. They didn’t pursue that line any further. Instead they asked if they could sing me a song, and then be on their way. Why the hell not? So they sang “Children of God” to me, and they did a nice job of it, too.

Okay, so they weren’t too bad. The thing I hate most, though, is their fake smile. I know it’s fake. I know that they want me to think that they smile all the time because they are living in the love of God, but I know that it’s just an act. This friend I have at work also has that fake smile. I’ve seen him genuinely smile, and it blows the fake one away. These two young men who accosted me at Starbuck’s had the fake smile down. But I knew better.

But the thing I’m going to remember most from the encounter, is that the first young man had a spot of white in the corner of his mouth. I found it absolutely captivating. I know this is not what they want me to remember, but I can’t help it. I wonder if it was toothpaste that he just didn’t wipe off his face. Or maybe it was a bit of spit that had dried there. Maybe he was rabid…