Ladders. Lying in the back of pickup trucks, lying across the racks on utility trucks, dangling off the mounts on stake-side trucks. They're the #1 foreign-object threat to motorcyclists in California, statistically, especially on freeways. And so whenever at a stoplight I roll slowly toward the dusty bumper of Miguel's Landscaping 1-ton Ford (with expired registration), I check carefully to see if there any device firmly attaching the deadly six-foot hunk of aluminum to the truck.

If not, I grimace and change lanes as quickly as possible.

If there are tiedowns, I grimace and change lanes when convenient, or keep a loooong following distance (which has the beneficial side-effect of inviting another vehicle to move in front of me, intercepting the threat).

I think the rear tire on my blue motorcycle is almost shot.

oh gosh, it's 11:30 and I should be asleep in bed. Kakashi is a few feet away on the floor, pretending to sleep, and wondering what is so important that his roommate had to jump out of bed, disturb a quiet room by rustling his glasses off the shelf and shuffling his laptop out of his bag and tripping over his shoes and opening the laptop on his bed and filling the room with bright white light from the Apple symbol on the case. Blasted roommate. Ow.

All because said roommate had a thought about the view of the mountains and the sunset he got, up on the freeway across the arroyo. It was a oil-painted desert quiescent through the buffeting visor, and such views should really make one's day, instead of being taken for granted. Why do we take all this simple stuff for granted and then complain that life has no beauty? Do we not condemn ourselves to our own hell of pragmatism and economy?

The Angeles Forest lies along a spiny ridge defending the LA basin like a curled alligator. There is a road that snakes along this ridge, originating from the basin. Hy. 2, the Angeles Crest Highway, is its name. On this road there is a little blue speck crawling, all alone, from the heights of La Canada toward the crest. The speck travels around curve after curve until it becomes lost, with the road, in the trees and canyons.

The speck emerges finally at a junction. The Forest sweeps away and below to the left of it into an enormous valley, walled on the far side by blue mountains speckled with naked rock. Up and to the right, the Crest is only a few thousand feet away. The sign points to the right: Wilson Observatory. The speck dodges right and disappears again into the curves.

We see the speck again, parked and still, at the peak of a ridge with lots of buzzing electronic equipment and sundry domes of an astronomical observatory. There is a 75-foot tower tearing into the belly of the cumulus cloud that looked so fat and white from below.

Mist swirls about the tower and the surrounding trees. There is nothing to see. Below the flat parking area there is a milky abyss. I had hoped to get a view of the city; the air below was clear as a bell. But just my luck to have the mountaintop enveloped in the guts of some cloud. I sit down on a large rock and stare upwards at the roiling cotton fleece curling and boiling upon itself.

It was surreal, sitting there watching ridge turbulence rage just a few feet above my head. It was a sight fit for those Weather Channel fast-frame tornado shots, or for special effects in some movie. Special effects...that was it - I was sitting here in God's own special-effects studio watching the sky tear itself to pieces....crazy, absolutely crazy....

So, is it absolutely, imperatively necessary to live in a place with twisty roads to justify owning a motorcycle?

This question came to mind as I mulled over an old, old message from a very good friend who was contemplating selling his Suzuki SV650 (the first bike I ever drove; he probably has sold it by now; I should give him a call). The reason adduced for this was the flatlands of central Wisconsin don't afford much in the way of tilted pavement. "I don't have all the nice twisty roads you do, and I just don't ride it that much anymore". (Okay, there is more to the story: he's two years married and now has a little one and the greatest nemesis of the Rider is not safety or practicality or weather but marriage)

But I got to thinking: if southern California were all straight roads, would I quit riding?

Not by a long shot. It would be significantly less fun, since I wouldn't have the pleasure of pitting five or six forces of physics against each other simultaneously.

But not having twisty roads wouldn't change the way I see the landscape and smell the air any different. It wouldn't change the way I can bolt past any four-wheeled vehicle that isn't German or Italian, even though I only have 62 hp at command. It wouldn't change the fact that I can park wherever I damn please. And it wouldn't change the fact that I can go all week on twelve US dollars of fuel.

It has something to do with my bike and something to do with me. (Well the bike I have has something to do with me). But the fact that I don't own a hunkered-over crotch rocket but rather something that poises me in a relatively comfortable upright posture doesn't make me subconsciously need to be flicking through curves all the time. I sit on my backside, not on my hands - that makes a difference.

I enjoy the smells in the wind and the dusky mountains in the distance and the general vast openness of a world freed from window frames. I treat the experience like an artist, because that's how I think of it. Riding slow lets me see that stuff more easily than if I'm concentrating with every fiber of my being on lines and apexes and brake points. Not that I don't get a thrill out of such stuff, but most average days on the average ride home from work I'm too tired to push the limits. But not too tired to feel the cold wind evaporating at least 70% of stress from my body....

I swerved into the left lane and bumped up over the entrance ramp in the gloom. The Shell station didn't look much different than it did at night, though it was seven in the morning and I was still in that state of rough drowse that precedes waking. A gray day, a possibly wet day...

I rolled down onto the floodlit pump pad and sat there until I finally got the transmission wiggled into neutral. gah. wet. I found my debit card and slid it into the slot on the wall of shining red and white plastic that was the pump face.

"Hi, it's good to see you!" oh shut up "Welcome to Shell!"

I removed my card.

"Hey, it's good to see you!" PLEASE! "Welcome to Shell! You can start saving immediately with every purchase you make on the Shell Card! Apply Now!" Yes, yes, I feel welcome. It's that little "hey" at the beginning of the second greeting, otherwise identical to the first. I feel special. I, a valued customer, have a special weakness for CREDIT CARDS at SEVEN IN THE MOTHERFREAKING MORNING!

The voice was echoing from the 14" TV screen mounted above the pump face, up and out of my peripheral view. The unnaturally synthesized voice cackled on through the floodlights. "And today! In Hollywood, the Bionic Woman discusses her thoughts on what it's like to be...the Bionic Woman..."

I can't wait to get out of here. The tank bubbles full, and a drip of fuel evaporates on the edge of the filler hole as I jerk the pump handle out of the tank and jam it back into its slot. I close the cap, flick the switch back on, hit the starter button and rev the v-twin to drown the artificial voice. Just another day in the middle of another week in the middle of another month in the clean, peaceful city of Moorpark in the Republic of California...where the skies are blue every day (except today), every child has Kellogg's for breakfast and every mom has a clean minivan...

I found a few new Kaplansky songs online and am listening to them. Listening to Lucy Kaplansky makes me want to learn to play the guitar and sit out under the stars and sing grimly romantic songs.

Suzi was idling strangely on the way home from work. You know when a friend hollers something up the stairs they would never say: that's what the idle burble sounded like. I thought to myself, peering under the tank at a stoplight about to turn green: crap now what fell apart in there. I revved the motor expecting a clatter.

Got to adjust those valves and sync those carbs, or stop riding the friggin' thing, one of the two.

The burble went away. Maybe dirt in the fuel.

Today was Monday and it should have been a bad day. In fact it was a bad day except I insulated myself from it by playing hooky from the office and getting myselif all green and grimy mowing wet grass. Gosh I don't want to talk to anyone anymore.

And I need to find a permanent pillion. Oh no, wait - girlfriends mean responsibilities and junk like that. I'm not there, simply not there yet. "I never thought I'd end up here - guess all the best things disappear..." I like seeing the world on my own two wheels with nobody to screw up the balance, I hate seeing the word only through my own two eyes, I like seeing the world with nobody to answer to, I hate seeing the world with no one to give it to, I like seeing the world with nobody to whack their faceshield on the backside of my helmet everytiime I shift, I hate seeing the world with no one to take pictures of standing next to it..."I'm falling like a leaf from the family tree / don't need you the way you need me"...."remembering a song from long ago, it's round and round that's the way things go / way things go / way things go..." (guitar lick)

You get what you pay for...reap what you sow...what goes around comes around...we clutch at a home or a job to get us some security but the whirlwhind of consequences grapples and drags us and sweeps us along its hellbent path...

I just got to ride a fast Italian piece of machinery.

It was a Ducati Monster 900 with Staintune duals. My gosh, what a redefinition of "v-twin exhaust note". What a redefinition of v-twin, period! Now I know what a v-twin with character is like, and my Blue Wedgie Thing is not such an one. By comparison it sounds like it's shouting through handkerchief on hard throttle, whereas this Staintuned Duke had a seriously open throated, healthy blatter.

That exhaust note hurt my chest, and was turning heads all the way down the block.

I felt like I had stolen a Ferrari and gotten away with it. It was awesome. Everything about the machine from the dry racing clutch to the spot neutral steering felt exotic.

My apologies to all Ojai denizens who were extremely annoyed by the inconsiderate jerkface crawling down the street at 15 mph blipping the throttle and rattling their superfood drinks. But he was having fun. I don't think any motorcycle has put such a smile on my face since I bought Suzi, which would be about ten months ago.

10,500 miles on the blue wedgie-thing.

yeeaaahhh.....

And it hasn't even been a month.

The trip went well, but as I expected I was wound too tight on smooth driving pay attention whether I was having fun or not (and failed to drive smoothly). There were those " this is really cool" moments, though...

The Rock Store was cool. I enjoyed supper. The food was insanely expensive, but good!

Now I want to get a few more dudes out there with their girls and make it a bigger group. Once a month or so, let's have a Homeschool Distortion gang ride. That would rule.

Sunset on the beach, with two ladies both lovely and brave...

...looking forward to a spin along the Mulholland this weekend...I'll have company in the form of Toque and honey on his XJ600 and I'll have a first-timer with me riding pillion.

My gosh, I'll have to psyche myself for this business of having some fun. Fun is not something I acquire: it's something that is given to me, and not always when I expect it. Just another eccentricity of mine. I work. I can make myself work. Can't in a million years make myself have fun and hey: there's already something awry when it's a question of "making". So, people, if I'm not in the mood to love the world this weekend, I'm going to be one smooth-shifting autopilot with a camera and a plastic smile. (At least pillion will have fun. She has no problems there)

I know how you feel
no secrets to reveal
nobody knows me at all
and very late at night
and in the morning light
nobody knows me at all

- The Weepies

It was spotted with hard water stains, but cleaner than when I brought it in.

The blue Zuk was parked in the shade over next to the building. I walked over, swung into the saddle and sat there staring at the blank LCD instrument panel. As much as I enjoy driving Suzi back and forth to work, the thought of combustion leaking through a broken head gasket and a trail of oil drops along the way makes me squirm.

A switch of the key, thumb of the button and the V-twin is chugging at 1200 rpm. Sounds the same it always has. Let's see, the invoice here says...filter element, 10w40 - good, NGK plugs - good...and three hours of time for a total of 200 bucks. Not great, but acceptable. This is reality, after all. Tapping with the hammer is one thing, but knowing where to tap costs about 80 dollars an hour these days. I should be a motorcycle mechanic.