*grumble* Motorcycles are supposed to cost LESS than cars in maintenance, not more. *grumble*

In the process of arranging for sprocket and chain replacement. There goes all my dreams of a fun semester off-campus spending money. Why, oh for crying out loud why did I not catch this before I bought the bike in November?

(because I was in a hurry)

Do I really want to go to architecture school?

Do I want to go to theology class this afternoon?

Do I want to wake up tomorrow? (Don't answer that.)

There is snow on the surrounding peaks; I ought to get my bike back this afternoon (fingers crossed) and if I do, I fully intend to make tracks for someplace where I can at least touch some ice...

EXISTENTIALism! rain fog sparks and crackles.

the child staggers
the sword is heavy
he cannot wield it
the point drags across the ground
the child begs for help to sharpen it
laughter echoes around him
he lifts the sword before him
despair lightens the sword
and further dulls the edge

(someone was whistling Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
very loudly and flatly as she pushed a broom. I wanted to strangle her)

Suzi blew an oil seal on the freeway this morning and spit fork oil all over my shinguards. Oh how I hate it when my machines break, it's like betrayal. I bought a motorcycle hoping it wouldn't require as much maintenance as my car did, and so far it's needed just as much: a faulty front brake switch, oil leaks, and now this....

ye gods...

Well, it's going back to Howdy, because I don't have time, tools or space to disassemble the whole damned front fork. I'd love to do it, but I don't have the time and I don't have the special Suzuki tools.

I sat on one of these this morning. Oh my gosh.

It's taller, lighter, and fits better than my current ride, and my current ride fits pretty damn well. It's significantly uglier than my current ride, though.

Nonetheless, I want one.

30 mph, wind spilling over the windshield into my face (I didn't realize there were so many hacienda style houses along Foothill Road above the bustle and clatter of urban Ventura) a full-size Dodge truck crosses the street ahead of me (I bet those houses are expensive. They sure are pretty.) a manhole cover slaps my suspension briefly (I will have to bring my sketchpad up here some time.) the sun glitters off the ocean in the distance and large black chevrons point me around a sweeping curve (Funny, I'm accumulating a mental roster of places to bring my sketchpad to, without ever actually getting any drawing done). Clouds are building on the faraway mountains (is it going to rain tomorrow?)

The world is a beautiful place, seen from astride a motorcycle. It's only when I stop and park and leave it and go away to submerge again in daily strains and insoluble problems that the world becomes ugly and twisted...

Previously, uncut:

Sold

this kid in line and matrix
he does what he's told, he's locked in grid
commands and obedience, obedience
but still he thinks outside the ranks
he won't be a slave to the ranks

he's marching, marching down this wet muddy road
in the rain and the dark and the cold
there is a young woman
strength beyond weakness
dragging an old man
weakened beyond strength
drags him off the road into the weeds
the trudging column bears down upon them
the woman holds the man up, emaciated, scarred
the column marches by
heavy lockstep, unseeing, unknowing
black, belted tower after tower after tower
there is only pain for the two of them
the kid soldier sees them in the weeds, sees
their pain and hunger
wishes he could help
he doesn't know why, he doesn't know
why he should care, it's only a pair of dead animals
excommunicated for crimes against the matrix
but he's just a kid he does what he is told
his neighbor's rifle slaps him back to lockstep
the kid looks back

Vivere et cogito.

Let there be a dimension of existence transcending the mind. Didn't I ever get that feeling looking deeply into a person's eyes that there were some realities incapable of speech? Incapable of communication in any other way? Thus perhaps incapable of being understood in any way?

Nietzsche wants to point out the possible existence of another sphere unfettered by intellectual prejudice...

(raises hand) I posit that there is a place in the world for anti-Chestertonians . Not that I am one, but common sense only goes so far. Granted that it goes far enough for common life, but I assert that common sense does not go far enough to be satisfactory to me. I mean, why the hell should it?

"So, when do you want to ride my motorcycle?"

"Wait, how big is your motorcycle?"

"It's an 1100."

"Isn't that really huge? Like I was thinking, I start out on the little 400's and 500's.

"Yes, it's really huge. It's a musclebike."

"And you think I can handle it."

"And I think you can handle it." She handles like a kitten, really, just don't tip her over, and I'm sorry I didn't trust you with heavy machinery all these years. I can't tell you, but it's really just a leftover instinct that keeps me from trusting small women with quick reactions to the controls of powerful machinery. I'm sorry.

"It's okay, it's manageable...if you keep her below 4000 rpm. If you rev her up to 5000 rpm then she gets scary. After 6000 rpm she turns into an animal, and I revved her to 7500 I think once on the freeway. I dreamt last night that I ran her up to 8000, but the memory was disjointed and I can't remember if it was accompanied by any burning rubber or spewing oil. Oh yes oil. Don't be surprised if she spits on you. There are numerous (grumble) oil leaks."

I think the subject is closed, and she won't bring it up again. She's busy, and she'll forget. On the other hand, depending on how thoroughly her imagination was captured by the MSF course, she just might take me up on this one...

Suzi's got glasses.

I catch a bit of turbulence, but the shield keeps the wind off my chest and upper arms, which was the design.

And Suzi's got a stripped crankcase bolt, which is responsible for one of the two oil leaks. Only solution to that is put a bigger bolt into the case - and torque it right. I hate it when that happens, a constant reminder of my beloved machine's mortality...

A shower of leaves from a brittle tree cascades down on my visor and I squeeze my eyes closed for a split second. I really don't need to be going 60 mph down this road. Really. And the police cruiser arrives around the bend up ahead, and I pat Suzi down to a straight-laced 45 mph, slide into the next curve, and say hi to my shadow again.

I don't have company, and shadows are company. I don't have to be alone as long as the sun is shining. The shadow flies along, rippling over the dips in the pavement, shredding along the gravel on the shoulder, durable trustworthy little thing that it is. It's happy just running away with me. I like my shadow.

My shadow is useful, too. It tells me if I have some velcro strap flying in some direction it oughtn't. It tells me if anything looks like it's about to fall off the underside of the motorcycle. (I still don't know what parts are independent in potency) It tells me if the saddlebags are sitting as they ought to sit.

I said once that I can draw better when I'm sick. Somehow the dulling of senses enables me to pick up on certain common sensibles better. Or it's the mental distraction of being miserable that pulls my mind from its wonted preoccupations and sets it free to wander about the present as it will.

So for a moment there coming around the curve from the little Mupu Elementary School where crossing guards flash their stop signs on normal days of the week, I left it in 4th longer than I had to and dipped way in to that curve. The shadow of the handlebars and instruments and headlight came up to meet me, bending forward behind the turning sun, and I was on a desert road in the winter. Ash and brittle broken weeds all around, flicking by. I am miles from any civilization, dressed far too slightly for the bitter cold, short black gloves out in front of me, a rifle strapped to my back and my survival gear packed in the saddlebags. An antelope keeps pace briefly then breaks away to the east. The road goes on and on, a ribbon of white in a world of white, a world in which I don't know why the hell I didn't wear my vest. Santa Paula's not that far away but it's FREAKING COLD (mandatory capitals, again).

I look back on the last few posts I have made and am appalled at how closely they are spaced in time. Am I really this bored? Do I have to be this bored?

I promised my boss that I would be good and stay put and man the office while he was gone, and not be seduced into manual labor projects into which I am normally plunged, by my midwestern bluecollar pride that whispers "people who sit on their butts and give orders aren't for real". So far my conscientious attempts to sit still have involved reading issues of Architectural Digest, researching New Urbanism online and...

...blogging. (ehem)

I ordered Suzi's full-dress windshield yesterday. I'll try to remember to post a pic when I get it installed. My hardcore, naked street machine image is slowly melting into dressed-up freeway cruiser. Practicality takes its toll.

I guess I was born to cruise, but I've never been a fan of the cushy blatting electraglides. On the other end of the spectrum there's the molded plastic 14,000 rpm Gixxers and Chibbers, and that's not me, either. Give me a bike that's minimalist and functional. Bare cylinders, a couple of fenders, a big round headlight, windshield for the cold, luggage for my stuff, and a comfortable upright perch that lets me maneuver the thing and see where the canyon road is going, and style be damned.

(I see a BMW in my future. I don't see a pay raise corresponding to that BMW, but oh well, we all can dream.)

I have no intention of ever being without a motorcycle again. I've discovered a whole new world to explore, one that I used to know only through GM's living room. A new world of freezing cold, pause-and-go fill-ups without ever dismounting the motorcycle, bystander kids asking me "what year is that?" bystander old guys telling me "That's a good bike, buddy, wish I had one...you'll never wear it out" bystander young women telling me "you ought to get a Harley".

A new world of tumbleweeds and rabbits and gravel in corners, of velcro and backfires and oil leaking on my boots. A little taste of the elements again, something I have missed since leaving the midwest.

My head hurts.

There are too many people on campus.

And Suzi is backfiring at 2500 rpm in third. I talked to the people at Howdy's, and the dude who cleaned her up said that it's normal for a bike with pods on the carbs to idle like crap. (Pods = when you take out the stock airbox and put an individual filter on each carburetor for better top-end breathing) He said pods don't allow as much fine tuning of the lower rpm range. I was reassured. Then he told me my chain was bone-dry and sold me a can of light oil and told me to make SURE I oiled the chain every 400 miles or I would ruin it.

Ran into this guy at the bank the other day who wanted to know what kind of saddlebags I was carrying. Turns out he drives a delivery van, is married and has kids, and rides an Suzuki M50 to get back and forth to work. We must have spent ten minutes talking bikes, after our respective transactions.

I tell you, it's a subculture.

I have money again, and have acquired proper boots and gloves. Now, for that down vest...oh wait, I never had a spare key made, that definitely takes priority. Priority. Let's see, the locksmith I was told to go to is in Ventura...do I have to make another trip into town? Damn it, Dmitri!