All manner of humanity lies tucked and smothered into narrow valleys between five perfectly spaced ridges.  Moms and tennis instructors and drug dealers and old men mowing their lawns and young men flipping their skateboards live and breathe and eat in the squalid air bottled down there.  Glimmering lights begin to wink on, one after another.  Streets begin to ignite slowly with headlamps, perfectly spaced thin grids of headlamps.

The five ridges stand ragged and stark against the soft blanket of incoming ocean fog.  A low breeze rustles the plastic ribbon against the stake at my side.  Click, click clic-k.  Silence reigns.

The valley sweeps away below my feet, a valley of scrub oak and sage and wasteland.  Here and there, if I peer carefully, I can make out a house.  But it is all wild.  Completely empty and wild all the way down the hill till the brown air of the valley begins.  The fence in front of my chest has a yellow tag on it that says "ELECTRIC FENCE".  I want to touch it with something metal and make it spark, but no, there is too much dry sagebrush about and last year the worst fires were all arson.

There is so much room in the world I am surprised that we insist on cramming ourselves into such narrow corners and then complaining that there is not enough room or food for everyone.  I have seen open spaces that have nothing in them, and then tried to ride to the end of the spaces and there is no end, really.  I eventually just find a road that takes me away in another direction and steers me back to another crowded corner of population.

Here there is a quiet crag on a silent mountaintop, an island of silence and sanity in an ocean of crawling, panting humans whoring after happiness according to the laws of technology, economy and sociology.  Anyone who wants to take a minute from all that can come up here and park their car at the gate and walk out into the silence as far as they want.   Answers are tied to noise and solutions and frustration; only in the quiet may one ask questions.  Brown air can't reach up here, the smells of barbecue and cigarettes and the sound of hip-hop can't reach. One may be still and think whether the laws of technology, economy and sociology must rule life, and where those laws might come from.  The quiet is friendly to inquiry within and the beauty keeps curiosity occupied in the meantime.

Beauty also reminds me, and I stuff my hands in my pockets and glare at the sun and wish she were here, and all reflection about sociology and economy becomes irrelevant.  Gravel crunches under my feet as I drag along back toward where I came from.  It is a gorgeous view, to be sure; all these multitude of mini-valleys but here I am all alone like a fool or a homeless person with my hands in my pockets crunching gravel and kicking stones along ahead.

The chair is comfortable, the ceiling filled with demons, and the feeling of peace remains like a buffer between me and them, the peace that covers a multitude of sins. Peace, like a down blanket over the room, is receding slowly out the window. It's following her, I'm sure it's following her back home. I've been graced with this comfort for one day, unasked, uninvited, like a wraith. And now that comfort is gone again, as if it never existed - but it has left me settled, happy again and I smile at the demons. Kill me now, please, while I'm happy.

I could never figure this out: the times in my life when I have been really alone, but unwilling to recognize the fact, there is one person who shows up from nowhere to take the sting away like a healing salve. This is the second time this has happened. I've always been angry with this person. I don't want to be healed. Pain is weakness leaving the soul, so don't heal me. But she comes with sudden comfort and I become soft and pain is not useful anymore but something that is ugly and hurts. She can't make it go away, but she makes it not hurt.

And then I can't get away from her, everywhere I go I keep running into her, like a guardian angel. She lives in the hallways of my daily life. This is the really weird part. I never seek her out but I can't get away from her as long as she chooses to stay. Perhaps she IS my guardian angel. Poor guardian angel. I'm so sorry you have me for a job.

And this guardian angel is of such caliber that when she does leave, she leaves comfort behind for hours. And I am happy until enough time passes and things happen that I forget and assume again the accustomed cold burden and weakness and the demons come back to take up their posts and life is the same as always.

posting about posting

My posts are too long.  I can't seem to fix this.  Whenever I try to recount a serial experience from beginning to end, well, I recount it serially; and motorcycling is of is nature such a firestorm of sense experience that every sensation is labeled clearly in my memory; everything from the nasty butterfly that decorates my windshield five minutes from home, to the Old Dominion freight truck with the words "flash me" scrawled in the diesel crud on the trailer doors.  The slowly rotating boat propeller glistening ahead in the 2-second following distance; the young dentist hanging a pressed white broadcloth arm out the window of the nameless black SUV.

the world isn't big enough to hold it all....

Rim of the World

"Ok, for god's sake, youre going to get up at 5:45 AM in the morning and try to make early Mass in Pasadena so you can be that much further along on this gas-wasting, timewasting entirely unnecessary diversion of yours?  It's just another twisty scenic road, ok, you know the type.  Mountains.  Rocks.  Sagebrush.  Trash, lots of trash.  Graffiti. What exactly again are you looking for here?  What's different about this one?"

Difference? What difference? There isn't any, if your asking me to quantify it in color or temperature or solitude or lack thereof.  But it's a road I haven't seen yet.  Okay I admit, those roads are getting further and further from my radius of operations.  But California Highway 18 is another legend of motorbikers, tourists and (firemen) that I haven't seen yet.

So do I really need to think twice?  It means I nix whatever I'd be doing to Suzi's guts over the weekend, but I've given up the idea of getting her back together by August.  And I only live once and I only have gas money once, so is there really a contest here?

Not really.  And I can get away with early Mass at TAC if I hurry afterwards.

The next morning was cool and foggy.  A bit of surreality that always makes the (hurried) cruise down the 126 a trip through fantasyland.  The breath of the leftover irrigation mists cloud the celery fields; mixing with the upper airs to cloak the mountain shoulders hither and yon.  I glide on along the empty ribbon of asphalt, v-twin in its happy-zone, humming to itself in its peaceful refrigerator hmm.  All manner of smells flow by along my face: the everpresent citrus, blended to the everpresent sage and tumbleweed (yes, tumbleweed smells) and the occasional whiff of plowed dust, ash and diesel smoke.  Nutshells, onions and porta-potties, palm oil and lavender oil, adobe tile and citrus again, citrus and more citrus....

I swear half the scenery is smells.  You, dear reader, unless you ride a motorcycle, have no frickin' clue what I'm talking about.  But trust me, it's good.  (Has a tendency to crowd out all those gremlins that find a clench-hold, you see, in the consciousness over a stressful week.  They can't stand up to the deluge of sensations)

Uahum, freeway.  Out of the zone.  It was nice while it lasted but the onramp levers me gently into the teeth-rattling, turbulent reality of battling for my position in the left lane.  People, people everywhere encased in steel and plastic boxes - Toyota Camrys, Ford F150's, Dodge Cummins Turbodiesels, BMW 750iLs.

Two hours ensue.

I almost miss the offramp.  Then I do miss the offramp, chiding myself for falling asleep at the handlebars.  But the mistake was easy to correct, and underpass and an invigorating merge later I am headed back in the right direction.  The I-15 looms ahead and I arc off, northbound.

Wow.  Boats.  Boats everywhere.  I feel like I'm on the river.  Jeweled dashboards and salty hulls in every direction.....offramp, offramp to the 138, anyone?  Could you move away so I can see the roadsigns?

"It's been a long time."

"You're telling me." The vats of beer look shapely through the swirled bottom of the glass.  Vats of beer.  Vats.

Something settled on the surface of the bar that wasn't paper and wasn't glass.  I tried to focus and missed the paper napkin.

"Well?"

"Hell, I'm not talking.  I'm drinking."  The foam along the sides of the glass shuddered as the bottom hit the wooden board, then slowly began to evaporate.

"Your glass is empty."

"Your hand is empty."

"And?"

"You've got eyes like..."

"Like what?"

"Like the Minnethota sunset."

"Thought you didn't like Minnesota."

"I didn't.  Or I hadn't.  Tho sinth when does it mather. But I do like sunthseth."

"Spare me the bullshit."

"I ain't teasin' ya, dammith!"

The glass slid almost of its own accord toward the bartender.  I like beer, dark beer, light beer, and the wine that's saved for the last....

The tobacco shop huddled darkly next to the glaring red stoplight set off the bright white t-shirt of the teenager pedaling a very familiar bicycle.  It still has those $70 saddlebags I bought four years ago.  With sudden recognition I averted my face as the light changed green and the whole intersection got an immediate earful of angry v-twin.  It's been half a year and it still pisses me off.  I don't have information to prove the machine is mine, so even if I WERE to go all ape and confrontational and shit there would be no way to follow through.  I should have filed a police report.  I should have cared.  This is how I protect my stuff, this is how I defend myself....by convincing myself that at the time that it didn't matter, it's only a 400-dollar bicycle and I'm way to busy to worry about something I hardly ever used....

...only a 400-dollar bicycle....

....so what will it be next, coward? what will it be next? Your mailbox? Your wallet? Your motorcycle? Your girlfriend?

LIST OF STUFF I need to get:

(I) Head

(a) cam chain

(b) cam chain tensioner

(c) cam chain guide

(d) cam end cap screws (originals chewed :))

(e) get messed bolt hole helicoiled

(II) Cylinders/Bottom End

(a) piston rings

(b) countershaft seal

(c) oil pump rebuilt

(III) Body/Frame/Electrical

(a) regulator/rectifier

(b) new turn sigs.

(c) new plug wires

....seems there might be something I'm missing....

GOOD NIGHT!

THERE IS A F***ING BEE UNDER MY SHIRT!

hazards

pick a shoulder

THIS *******ING ******* ********* ************

******* ***** ******ING******

neutral kickstand switchoff biting tongue wait for oncoming traffic wait PULL SHIRT FLAPPING JACKET

little ******ER ***********

I did my best to disconnect from my accustomed telemetry mode and look up from the tachometer and straighten up from the road every once in a while.  In between turns I snatched glances into the yawning gulfs in the distance.  I wished I was riding passenger and not having to drive; even smog ridden, the emptinesses framed by twisted granite castles were grand.  Images flooded in, from a half forgotten anime movie...sunbursts of colored rock, towering pyramidal fastnesses.  I arced round cliff after cliff, expecting at any turn to find a steam-powered blimp hanging in midair.

The road elevation signs kept reading higher and higher. 6000, then 7000 feet.  The air was cold, the birds twittered in the silence, the asphalt hummed beneath the tires.

California 2, at least the western part, is basically 45 miles of linked sweepers along the crest of the Angeles Forest mountains above LA (Sierra Madres?)  The pavement is smooth and of high quality, so that where there are no rocks on the road, an expert rider can hold sustained speeds of 75-80 mph.  But there are usually rocks on the road, and few of us motorcyclists are truly expert at lines and brake points, myself included.

So I'm usually to be found puttering along somewhere in the vicinity of speed limit in the far right wheel-track, waving people by one group after the next.  (When nobody is looking though I will find a nice low gear and dive into a curve, grinding a little bit more off my boot toe.  Like that group of green fish I got stuck with in a long curve.  I was uncomfortable letting them pass me in that curve, so applied the lash and dug in tight.  I bet there's a visible bootmark all-ll the way through the apex.  It's amazing how much grip a worn-out, leaking Tourance rear tire can muster)

Even cruising along, I'm struck by how different one's impression of the world is at succeeding 30 degree angles of bank.  One may get a GREAT view of the bottom of the canyon because there one is, hanging over the edge of it.  One becomes very intimate with all the little bits of debris along the side of the road and one wonders to oneself what their stories are - discarded camera batteries, childs' tennis shoes.  Redwood trees smell much different from sagebrush and scrub at the lower altitudes; the air smells very different.  And of course on the other side, the sky side, there is the coldly iridiscent mackerel sky, the Face of the Earth sculpted in granite glowering down upon one.  (That's all the stuff one sees before one slows down some more and begins applying imagination and memories from the aforementioned anime-movies to the scenery....)

I read stuff and find great quotes that I say to myself: "I have to post that on my blog sometime" and then I forget and don't.

Which is appropriate because no one reads this blog for quotations from books.

Although its content might be more substantial if quotations from books were its content, as opposed to filler posts like this one.

I'm still trying to figure out a good three-week adventure for a vacation this summer.  It has to be road-trip-ish.  It has to go to places far away.  It has to be fun.  It should make me a better human being and educate me on the great truths of the universe.  And so forth.

Only in California.....

....on Highway 126 may one be half asleep in the car, the pop station wailing in the background, when a good friend breaks the silence to announce that the singer is the goddaughter of his father and that this particular song held #1 on Itunes.com for six weeks straight.....

"Heh. Hehehehehehehehehehhhhh."

"Heh."

"You've lost it."

(silence.  I know.)

"hehh."

When will I realize that I'm really not that funny, and that people only smile and laugh because they care about my feelings and they don't want to see the expression on my face that would result from an honest expression of their feelings. Am I the only one out there who holds this opinion? If so, it doesn't matter.  Why? In the end it's irrelevant.  Experience tells me it's more relaxing to be unfunny and ignore the fact.  Kind of like someone trying to imitate a retard, but with no malicious intent.  But the attempt must remain just that, an attempt; for success would turn me into a comedic character (comedians imitate retards successfully).

Day 3

Day 4

Recovering from Day 3.  Pics of Day 3 later when I have time.

Ironman The Movie is fricking cool.  I have not had so much fun watching a movie in forever,  (or since Batman Begins).

Day 2

Sleep.

"You may think you're headed off on some great adventure.  But I've got news for you."

More sleep.

Day 1

Still without a plan, I pushed the "on" button on the coffeemaker and plopped blearily down in front of the laptop.  Google Maps.  Where haven't I been.

I've been along the coast; I've been up to 's Barbara, I've been down to Santa Monica, and everywhere in between.

There's some stuff by Santa Clarita I haven't seen though, so that's where to head.  I downed my coffee, zipped into the textiles, and trotted off to the carport.

Mm, this feels good.  The half helmet will be an experiment.  I picked this thing up last week so I could put on and take off a helmet without removing glasses.  It works for that purpose; but an unexpected side effect is that I feel I've taken the blindfold off.  I can SEE everywhere, and the little retractable sunshield shades the upper half of my face protecting my eyes from bugs, if not my teeth.

I rolled out onto the freeway, headed east into the wrack of building gray clouds.  I hope it doesn't rain.  I'm NOT interested in experimenting with how heavy drops of water feel on my face at 60 mph.  It's not supposed to rain.  This is California, it won't, can't rain.

...won't rain...

...And it didn't. I was spat upon twice, but it never rained and I broke out into the sunshine at Castaic Lake with nary a welt on my chin.  The chosen route was Lake Hughes Road, a curving highway slicing off into the Angeles Forest.  It winds, winds, long 45 mph sweepers, hither and yon as the canyons deepen and the mountains begin to lose themselves in cloud.  Before long I was slithering along sheer rock faces, striated in strange volcanic patterns broken by stark poles of charcoal where redwoods had once been. "Maintain Defensible Area" signs admonished homeowners to keep a firebreak around their property.  The pavement was rough and shook the V-strom's suspension mercilessly; the road was evidently not well traveled and not a subject of taxpayers' money.  I arrived at Lake Hughes, a small town with a big saloon around which the local Nissan 300ZX racing club had gathered, t-shirts, mohawks and all.

The subsequent three hours were spent exploring a road called Bouquet Canyon road.  This road is a trickster.  You begin at the beginning, become lost in its beauty and at the end it dumps you right out where you started, in my case Lake Elizabeth (yes, Elizabeth, there is a lake named after you.  It's a resort, really, and a pretty posh one at that).  

I returned via the way I came on Lake Hughes Road.  Five hours is a bit much for one day's loop of pure riding with no real destination, eh?

Memorial Day Weekend coming up.  Where to go, where to go.

It is about going. The thought of staying at home is, of course, inadmissible.  Heck even last year I found myself blearily fingering my keys between bites of late breakfast.

In fact, Memorial Day this year marks the first anniversary of First Long-Ass Ride.  The epic crosscountry of a month later was only a gleam in my eye; I had to find out first if I could actually handle twelve hours in the saddle.

So the PCH was the logical proving ground.  Had never been there, was long, and was convenient.  I left at 9 am and flogged north to a little town called, oh what was it called. And then I turned around and came back and all I came out with was numb hands and a sore neck. The experiment was a success, and I decided that I could handle whatever I could be reasonably expected to throw at myself in the way of endurance attempts.

And Highway 1 is of course the most gorgeous highway in my little world and provided ample material for reflection upon the heroics of the veterans of the Second World War, particularly those assigned to the defense of the West Coast and more generally those in the Pacific Theater.  One looks at the big rocks with velvety green grass, the nestled houses, and reflects upon the homes in a beautiful land which perhaps was the only thing keeping some boys marching....to protect this beauty from an evil foe.....

So, where to go, ...... hmm......

Another long surreal stretch of freeway lies behind me, it is late at night, I am back in my hot dry apartment and it is time to sleep.

I wish the dude at the machine shop would call me back and tell me that he hates Japanese four-cylinder, 16-valve motors and that I should have known better than to bring him the piece of shit to fix.  And tell me to take it somewhere else.

As it stands, I'm going to have to draw it out of him.  I give him till Wednesday.  If he does not call me back on Wednesday,  I call him and ask if he can fix it or what, if he doesn't want to fix it, it's all cool JUST LET ME SODDING KNOW!  I DON'T HAVE all summer. Well I do, but that's not something I should think about....

"F--- it, Dude, let's go bowling."

- Walter, "The Big Lebowski"

For sale; baby shoes, used once.

 - Ernest Hemingway

Skid marks next to the heavy padlocked chain indicate the slipperiness of the carport floor.  Spatters of wax are scattered along the floor, in a line with the rear wheel.  I meditate upon the motorcycle-chain links running along as I spin the rear wheel around, spraying the chain with an aerosol can, adding to the layers of wax on the floor....Hemingway, Papa Hemingway, the master of the art of concise.  What I wouldn't give to have a bit of directness in MY style...

"Hence the simple assertion that Hegel denies the principle of non contradiction gives a quite inaccurate view of the situation. What Hegel does is give a dynamic interpretation of the principle in place of the static interpretation which is characteristic of the level of understanding.. This principle operates in dialectical thinking but it operates as a principle of movement." A History of Philosophy, Vol. 7 Frederick Copleston, S.J.

why does life have to be so complicated?  But it is said to be simple, it's just life and one lives it.  Existentialists.

(existentialism = the new f-word...)

No more.  I'm going to run away from complexity for about six hours until the sun wakes me up again and god forbid the heat in this stuffy apartment doesn't keep me awake all night thinking about living...

Existentialism and by a more remote coin, phenomenology, end in despair.  It is a sad picture to see, man gazing at himself, shielding himself from the reality that is a damaged and dysfunctional being, searching for hope through himself and finding none for there is none to be found.  For man to seek himself as an object is to contradict the very philosophy he espouses, and for man to seek himself as a subject is nonsense.  Hence existentialism as such can have no end, and without an end it remains an abortion of thought.  The imitation of existentialist thought by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Sam Francis and such expresses this visually.

For this reason the new springtime heralded by the new philosophy of The Person also must end in despair, shortly to be followed by the new theology of the Person.  The roots of this new theology are to be found in phenomenology, whatever heritage the blossoms may claim.

....

it's coming, there's a couple of bits and pieces that fit together...

time does not erode necessity

friendship exists for a purpose

unanswered questions draw answers more powerfully than any force on earth, even the fabled force of love is helpless against x + y = constant

words, containers, perception, mistaken human opinion

where does it all end?  For if questions have answers, it really does all end, there is a real end, a real Thebes.

So, what good is history?

What good is ethics?  What is the real value of these things?  What is the worth of studying human behavior when the grace of God blocks any possible closure?

What is the worth of studying faith?  Why does one fall prey to its mystery?  Why can one not believe that faith may not BE understood?

WHERE do the ends meet, or rather where do the ends exist?  So much fighting, so much war, and it's all about faith, all because of belief, all because of what we say we know when we really don't know it, we just believe it because someone told us we had to....

Unfortunately for my own sanity I believe in the principle of non contradiction.  Contradictions between truths do not exist, for that defeats the very definition OF truth. Where contradictions exist, therefore they must only be apparent.  

"What's all that about?  Come on, what's it about?"

Never mind.  Just never mind.   I tried talking to you years ago and it didn't work, so it won't work now.  Just...go away.

What if everyone rode motorcycles?

The streets would be totally different. Narrower lanes, perhaps six lane roads that now exist as four. Retaining walls to block the wind and noise would be more numerous. Parking lots, vast acreage of asphalt, would fall into disuse and be reclaimed by nature. Instant Pennzoils would have chain-tighten services instead of automatic transmission services. Everyone would know how to drive stick shift. Everyone would pack light: small lawn chairs would sell like hotcakes. Small trailers would be popular for carrying groceries, and side cases would be child seats for the ones who couldn't pilot their own machines. Engine size would be limited to 250 cc for those under 18 and 90 cc for those under 14. Bubble fairings and lightweight roll cages would abound in the aftermarket. Driver training would be far more intensive and regulated. And transportation budgets in thousands of families would be cut by half.

Of course, no one would go anywhere when it rained, the phenomenon of living in cars would disappear, the accident rate would rise and accidents would be gorier and involve more children....

This shopping center goes deserted at dusk, only one or two other customers were hastily finishing up their purchasing. I was alone with my handbasket and two or three items in the back of the store, headed toward the produce section. His face, looking out from the freezer amidst the cut green beans, caught my eye as I walked past. I looked again and recognized him and then recognized his sisters. I hadn't seen this family in years and they live nowhere near here. I greeted them silently and they waved back silently. Or perhaps my hearing was gone due to pressure changes. It was certainly good to see their faces again and to recall the memories of kindness in the brief times I shared with them.

Good to see their faces, yes...but where were the rest of them? I only saw some of them there. They must have split up. Like a small child playing peekaboo I kept my head down, my face averted, hoping to find them before they found me. The freezer ended at a plastic double door, and the next freezer section began beyond it. There a small body was hiding behind a cart, where I would have completely missed her if I hadn't been looking. She lifted her head briefly and I recognized her face. Overcome with joy and relief I ran across the aisle, knelt next to her and embraced her shoulders, whispering "I am so glad to see you, so glad...it's been forever..."

She wiped my hand off her shoulder and moved away, terrified. The black plastic flat she had been filling with carrots slid toward me and she dropped the vegetable she had in her hand. I slid myself back on my heels, frightened, wondering what I had done to scare her. The paper bag in her arm morphed into a woodcut puzzle with incredible detail, a farm scene with buildings and bony trees. The flat of carrots had also transformed into a wooden puzzle, a stained landscape burned onto its face.

I became aware of someone else standing over us. I looked up and her father was there, leaning against the shopping cart, smiling gently down at us.

She turned her face away, watching me intently from the corner of her eye. A drop of blood ran down the side of her face.

I stood up and turned around and walked away, all relief quenched by old familiar agony. Nothing would change, nothing can change...

fun and games day 3

So there's this road I've talked about before.  The Angeles Crest Highway.

It's one of those legends among sportbikers, you know, like Deals Gap in Virginia or the Ortega Highway in San Diego or the Mulholland Highway in Malibu.  Gaggles of brightly colored sportbikes flow along its curves on nice weekends such as this, jinking and gunning and fighting for lines.

Anyway, today being a nice day, I took a detour on the way back from church and followed the signs to Highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway.  My original intention was to have myself a nice lazy scenic cruise for about 20-30 miles, find a good overlook and curl up with Hegel for an hour, turn around and come back.  Sounds idyllic, right?  Right.

The original intention was shot all to hell by a red Ducati 99something whose rider obviously was not intent on exploring the limits of his (her?) bike, nonetheless staying tantalizingly out of range of my increasing lean angles.  After about five minutes of this unintentional hide and seek I gave up, found fourth gear, and began systematically scrubbing sidewalls.  I was steadily catching up, and after a few miles found the pace Ducati was holding and we climbed together to 6000 feet.

Ducati turned around and went back down, but I wasn't quite to my 170-mile point of no return on the fuel gauge.  So I went a few more miles and whallah, the most perfect overlook opened before my eyes.  I had passed a couple of ski slopes and the conformation of the land here allowed for a few wide open views of L.A.  I pulled over, found a fallen tree comfortably balanced on the 45-degree ski slope, sat on it and read for about 10 minutes, then turned myself sideways and fell asleep. (If it weren't for the fact that I was rather precariously lying on a cylindrical shape about 5' off the ground, in the open sunshine getting burned, and with a dinner appointment looming, I would quite happily have not woken up until sunset.)

I struggled myself awake to check my phone messages.  I had a voicemail but service was so bad I couldn't connect.  It was 2:30 anyway, time  to go, time to get someplace where I'd have cell reception.

I held to my plan of lazy cruising till I passed the restaurant place.  Wafting restlessly behind a green Ford Excursion, I noted a growing swarm of sportbikes building behind me.  A yellow Ducati was in the lead followed by a black CBR and a blue SVS and numerous others.

The truck pulled over to let us pass, and like salmon from an open floodgate we rushed headlong through the open gap.  Crap.  Now I'm leading this whole pack of rice racers. I hate this.  I'm not on a sportbike, so either I pull over or I stay in front.  And I can't stay in front long if I choose that option because (1) I don't have big fat tires on a taut little chassis and (2) I don't have a lot of experience running twisties hard.

I resolved to go what was comfortable and if they just had to pass me, well they could go right ahead.  I proceeded to go what was comfortable, slicing my lines as precisely as I could and keeping the v-twin spinning at 5000.  To my surprise the yellow Duc stayed where it was.  Okay, here's another dude not interested in wrapping it out.  Obviously.  Because there's no way a 417-pound, 62-horsepower 2-cylinder dual purpose commuter is going to smoke a Ducati.

And evidently no one behind him weren't interested in pushing the envelope either because no one passed anyone.  I kept doing my thing, wondering if there were more SVS genes in the machine I was riding than I gave it credit for.  The thing is, the V-Strom is so planted and predictable it really is very easy to toss around, notwithstanding its heft, lack of power and skinny tires.  I ground deeper and deeper into each successive curve, watching the pack disappear behind me...slowed up in the straights and they caught up, took off into the curves again and they fell back.  The yellow Duc stubbornly hung on, but he suddenly seemed to feel the need to hang a knee out on some of these curves.  Had I really picked up the pace that much?

Apparently I had, because no one was very close behind him anymore.   And it stayed that way till we arrived at the more civilized portion of the road, the one with prominently posted speed limits and more traffic, we all slowed to normal riding mode, said mental goodbyes and arced off to each of our individual destinations.  I kept going straight hoping to find a convenient gas station before I headed home.

That felt good.  Even if the competition wasn't trying, I had to feel a bit of pride in the ol' Strom showing its SV heritage through the daily denim exterior, and at least entertaining a Ducati-led wolfpack for a good half an hour or so.  Eh, she can play hard when she feels like it.

(before anyone asks, Ducati is an Italian marque, v-twin with 1000cc displacement, noted for excellent handling and numerous Superbike championships)

'Lost' is skipping and mistracking on me, and my computer's all dood, yo' only gots thirdy-fi' minutes lef' so give it up already.

Also I found out today that not only is machinery aware of my existence, but Highway 33 which I once took for a very dead, very inanimate strip of asphalt is also conscious of me.  It likes to be ridden hard except where its icy and cooperates nicely as long as I am talking to it (via twistgrip).  But the minute I stop paying attention it will throw me off it and look at me as if I betrayed it.  However if I were to stop paying attention and get thrown off, I would be too dead to care.  So it doesn't matter.

Had convergence today (an experience involved in riding 33 hard).  It went like this:

Tanker truck crawls up hill at 25 mph.

Blue motorcycle buzzes back and forth in tanker truck mirror like an angry hornet.

Tanker truck pulls over half off the road into a turnout without stopping.

Large cleft rock approaches at end of turnout.  Tanker truck begins to pull back into the lane.

Blue motorcycle, riding centerline, comes abreast of truck.

Road curves left between approaching rock cleft.

Blue motorcycle notes approaching rock at end of turnout, notes closing gap between truck, rock and curve.

Blue motorcycle drops a gear or three and launches.  Small rocks cascade down onto the road behind it. Tanker truck pulls back fully into lane just in time to miss blue motorcycle.

Blue motorcycle meditates on mortality for about twenty seconds till the next curve comes up.

"If the life of the Absolute is to be constructed by philosophy, the instrument will be reflection.  Left to itself however, reflection tends to function as understanding (verstand) and thus to posit and perpetuate oppositions. It must therefore be united with transcendental intuition which discovers the interpenetration of the ideal and real, idea and being, subject and object. Reflection is then raised to the level of reason (vernunft) and we have a speculative knowledge which 'must be conceived as identity of reflection and intuition.'"

Why not Hegel, let's replace the Geist with some sodding 'transcendental intuition'.  Drag it all down to the level of the mind, will you.

(I love the word 'sodding'.  It's phonetically related to the word 'sodden')

By the way, props to Kakashi for making me borrow from the library Copleston's history of philosophy from which the above quote was taken.  It really is helpful and goes a lot quicker than mucking through original texts.

I am confused.

"About what?"

If I knew what I was confused about, would I be confused?

Where is the beginning in this pile of knots?  How can a rope have five ends?

"Maybe your problem isn't the pile of knots, [epithet]"

Yeah, [epithet]!

([epithet])

drinking painted lines like water

skiing asphalt holding tight

wave on wave twisting rocks

left and right

crests of surf hit his face

gulping salt monoxide

watching keenly, weighing distance

he runs gap of closing sharks

merging on the offramp

merging huddling flashing right

runs it through crashing behind

tiptoe tipshift up to a stop

a gentle squeeze and settle

toward silence, composure, left look right

Some engineer can surely shave a few seconds off those stoplights on the Boulevard, no?

Time to work without stoplights, 8:07 am: 12 minutes
Time to work with stoplights, 8:15 am: 19 minutes

If only I had the balls to lanesplit, the stoplight problem would be considerably alleviated. But I don't. Lanesplitting is something I only do when desperate (like passing on the centerline inside a blind curve)

Accidentally revved the Weestrom to 11,000 rpm on the way to work today. Redline is 10,500.

I don't think I hurt it...

I really need to get up earlier in the morning. And get to bed earlier on the previous evening. And eat supper earlier, make supper earlier, get home earlier, and leave work on fricking time.

Twenty minutes to go before lunch, hamstrung at the desk until then. My mind travels back to the white, late model 330i that paced me all the way through town this morning and then all the way up the highway at just extralegal speeds when I wanted to be way extralegal. He (middle aged and balding) insisted on taking his own reasonable time completely ignoring the gigantic evil headlights weaving back and forth in his sideview mirror. Most people pull the hell over. He wouldn't budge. I debated doing a disused trick: a quick pass on the inside of a curve, gambling on no oncoming traffic. In the end I didn't.

It's those small things, the small annoyances like this that keep one alive to ride another day.

Staring through bugs on your faceshield is like rubbing earthy fingers together after digging carrots.  Not the most pleasant sensation known to mankind.  Not having time to clean said faceshield is sort of like not having time to wash the hands before wolfing the lunch pbj and returning to business immediately.

counting yarn, counting bits of yarn one after another, laying red bits of yarn in a row touching end to end.  This is what people in psychiatric wards do to waste time, you know.  Red bits of yarn turn to green bits of grass, green slime begins to pour up my arm, and my fingers wrap about the impeller blades like rubber bands in a Dali painting.  May God have mercy on my patience lest it die a gentle death....

Start, damn you, START!  There's fuel, I just cleaned out the air filter, the belts are not broken, it's not overheated anymore there is no reason why this should not be running no reason why none absolutely none it knows me and hates me it knows I exist machines are conscious they know we exist and they have organized to spite us the creature turns against his creator in a fit of impotent juvenile wrath and suffering....laughable in its narrowminded selfishness....mourning the loss of a bird.  We have no sense of our own worth, and let that be a lesson, a reminder to calmly bury pride.

leave the keys in my pocket and the handkerchief in the wind, the glow from the screen lights up the map.  Arteries, networks of veins in blue and green and dotted gray cover the wrinkled old skin.  Grass shows in the holes, the creases have been folded too many times over; young green blades of grass.  An ant crawls across my pants leg.  I like ants.  They work a lot.  Work is good. Very good.  But now the sun has set, and it is time to move inside.

To move, to travel is inherently unnatural to man.  To seek travel is unnatural. To travel for its own sake, that journeying we sing of and speak of with envy and shyness.  No, man was made to work, and from work comes possession, whether of land or of goods.  And land and goods imply stability, staying in one place, living and dying in one place with one's work and one's lands.

Goods, possessions drag man down, anchor him to one spot, prevent him from moving about.

Linear motion and circular motion; both species of motion; circular appeals to the infinite in man; linear to the finite.  Man is both finite and infinite, and is capable of travel both in straight lines and in circles.  To travel for its own sake is to travel in a circle; to travel for the sake of another end is to travel in a line with a beginning, a middle and an end.  Man is incapable of circular motion purely and simply speaking; whether he will or no he is either developing virtues or vices and no life activity is apart from this development.  All actions are moral actions.  All growth is linear motion, rest bounds growth and is circular.

I think that is a live freaking moth up there.  Why is there a moth in my tent.  WHY IS THERE A MOTH IN MY TENT I can't sleep with insects on my face and I take care to insure that there are no bugs in my tent before I go to sleep

this is why I don't camp

cheapass

oh, and you contradicted yourself about circular motion

shut up

The ancient Honda motorcycle puttered past me toward the Mission, the rider all but invisible behind the gigantic blue Tupperware container lashed to the back seat.

"Check out that rig," I said to no one in particular.  "That dude's got it figured.  Hey!  That's me in a couple years," I pointed out the disappearing contraption to my companions.

"Yes, that is you.  I can see you right now riding down the street with a gigantic milk crate strapped to your back".  The Sprit laughed and with a knowing look turned back toward the rows of roses. I hopped up on the low rock wall and began to walk along it.

*****  TWO YEARS LATER *****

I rolled the shopping cart next to the bike and heaved the box onto the back seat.  Honeywell 16" High Velocity Stand Fan the box said.  It was 3" longer than the amount of space on the rear seat, alloted by the tail box.  Damn. I guess I could squeeze in there and still drive.  The box stuck out on either side by a good four inches or so.

I opened the tailbox, pulled out my assortment of bungee cords, and looked up.  There was an old man in the red Mercedes parked across from me, watching me with quiet curiosity.  I went to work, lashing the massive (and heavy) cardboard box to the area available.  The coffeemaker box went on top of that.  (Technically I could have squeezed that one into my tailbox, but this was easier)  

Load lashed securely to the pillion seat, I high-kicked myself into the remaining upside-down wedge of seat.  Aah, this was very uncomfortable.  Start the bike - shift into first - pull away into the street.  Definitely awkward.  But I can shift, I can steer, I can move, I just have to sit up very straight.  Smiles showed on the faces of people waiting to cross the walk zone in front of the Target.  Yeah, I guess I look like a bum.  A very uncomfortable bum. The front of the pelvic saddle was definitely not designed to hold up my whole weight in this fashion on this uncommonly hard front edge of the seat.

I maneuvered out to the main road.  So this is how it is when one can't borrow a car.  I watched my rearview mirrors for the expressions on the faces in the car behind me.  I'm being far too self conscious about this....

...ha, suck it ya'll who say motorcycles are impractical!  I've got a freaking floor fan lashed to the back of my bike, and it'll stay there till I get home!.....

(It did stay there, up to and including about 85 mph. I'm still sore, but I now have a floor fan AND an automatic coffeemaker and I think of the Sprit and her serious look and I smile)

"Hey um, do you know how this thing works?"

The two of them were standing, silhouetted in the brown streetlight.  I couldn't see their faces.  Traffic was rushing through the green light, battering the side of the old Accord in its wake, blowing tags off the trunklid.  A teenage boy and his girlfriend, fussing over a brand new plastic carry-can full of gasoline.  He was examining the nozzle trying to understand how this all went together. She had noticed my puzzled passing glance, saw her opportunity, and flagged me down.

(Why me?  Why does the world interested in me all of a sudden?  First there was that bunch of forlorn looking kids sitting on a pickup tailgate out of the trailhead up by the school, trying to wave me in.  They got a curt nod for their pains; I had to get someplace.  Then when I got home I stumbled into the acquaintance of my vertical-kittycorner neighbor whilst standing out on the street wiping bug flakes off my windshield.  Talked to him for a good five minutes. I tell you, I have had more social interaction in the last 24 hours than I normally have in a month.)

"I might.  Lets take a look."  It's cold, it's dark, I want to go home and go to bed.  This better be simple.  I set my helmet on the trunk lid of her car, swung the backpack with my drafting materials down into the street, and picked up the instructional label.

I wasted about 30 seconds trying to decipher the illustration.  The various nozzles, gaskets and plugs that came with this amazingly complex marine auxiliary gas-can assembly made no sense to me whatsoever.  Either some part was missing or it was a flawed design.  "Wow, this is a problem.  I have no idea what this is about, man.  Let's try this instead:"

I picked up the brimmingly full plastic jug and set one of the spouts into the fuel nozzle of the car.  I began to pour the can into the nozzle.

"We tried that but it's kinda overfull so it was spilling all over the place." she volunteered.

"Yeah, well this is going to be the best way for you guys to get out of here.  This should work.  It's going to make a mess, ok?"  Fuel began to splash down onto the street, bathing my hands and shoes.

No comment from either.  "I'm hungry..." she murmured to her friend with a stifled giggle.  I had judged correctly.  They were more interested in getting out and getting dinner than washing the back fender of the car with gas, or watching a stranger wash his shoes with it.  I continued to pour, carefully.  The splashing lessened.   I estimated that about a gallon and a half found its way into the car's fuel tank, and set the empty can on the trunk lid.  "Good luck guys, have a good night."

I collected my stuff and walked off.  Crap, now my hands smell like gasoline.  Now the hand holding  my helmet is going to make my helmet smell like gasoline.  I shifted my helmet under my left arm and tried not to touch anything.

The Accord's motor cranked and cranked as I walked away.  It was still cranking as I stood on the corner pushing the pedestrian-walk button.   They're Californians, I said to myself, they won't crank the car long enough to suck fuel back up into the engine; they'll try for five seconds, run out of patience and give it up for lost for no reason at all. 

Strangely, the starter whr-whr-whr continued, clearly audible over the traffic. Keep cranking it, that's right girl, keep cranking it.  There's no fuel in the carb floats, that's why its not starting, but if you keep cranking it it will start.  Not that you could possibly know what carbs or floats are. The cranking stopped.  I looked back down the street.  Don't give up, you silly girl.  It will start if you try one more time.  Try one more time....

The old car fired into life and pulled away, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.  Now I can go home and go to bed instead of mothering some nameless teenager home.  Lord knows my big brother instincts would have me putting those poor kids on a bus before I realized it was not my problem.

Those poor kids who couldn't get their hands dirty (whose mothers probably used to yell at them for getting their hands dirty)...who would have spent all night trying to figure out how to put a gas-can together instead of making a mess but getting themselves out of the situation....

....(pats self on back. Good big brother.  Good)....

The credits for 3:10 TO YUMA fade into silence, then the file stops and the screen glares white at me, filling the room with ghostly light.  It's about 11:20.

As if in echo from the last shootout, a deep male voice cries out help me from somewhere in the direction of the dumpsters.  Or maybe across the alley.  Or maybe from the freeway.  Or maybe...fragments of shouting float across the carport roof.  Man, I can't tell how far away that is.  Should I call the cops?

Should I?

I look out the window.  I see the motion sensor light over on the carport blink on.  There is silence.  What would I say if I did call 911?

.....

Ten minutes later sirens wail distantly from the street across the drain canal.

Yeah, Friday night in a small California town too close to the city for anyone's comfort.

The forks chuddered and rattled with their characteristic cheap-hardware clunking over the scattered array of cobblestones.  Green light hah green green green revving up banking her hard HARD right yellow silver SUV stay the hell put and let me finish this maneuver... and through.... and past the corner.....

(why is the pavement so close to my right knee?  Why is the longitudinal axis of the motorcycle not following the front wheel?  It's not supposed to do that.)

(why do I feel like I am water skiing?)

(oh yeeeeah.  'Member last night how you went in and did the tire sidewalls all up pretty in that shiny silicone stuff?  And then like an idiot you shined up all the outer tread blocks thinking that would complete the picture?)

(I remember that.  Gosh this is weird.  It's so smooth and peaceful, just like gliding it is, gliding along athwart the centerline)

(I wonder if the lady in that silver SUV is watching me.  I wonder if her kids are watching me.  I wonder if her kids are going WOW! Look at that motorcycle SLIDING! and she is going Now this is why you should NEVER think of riding motorcycles!)

(Glad I put those crashbars on when the wind blew this thing over.  I hope they protect the engine.  And I'm glad I'm wearing my kevlar-lined pants.  I hope they protect my legs.)

(Okay, it's been long enough.  It's been one and a half seconds and one and a half seconds is way more than enough time. WHY AM I NOT SPRAWLED ALL OVER THE STREET???)

Like a fisherman reeling a fish in on the line, the motorcycle has reeled is back end into its proper longitudinal place (slthrrrpppp - just like that!) and there! is standing upright and humming along toward the stop sign at 20 mph as if nothing had ever happened.  I giggled inside my helmet.  My motorcycle drives itself. It freaking drives itself! And this is not the first time! Suzuki I LOVE you, you have designed the DAMNDEST machine for beginning riders EVER!   I swear it goes on self stabilizing autopilot when it senses the rider is no longer in control.  I giggle inside my helmet again as I brake at the stop sign, peek into the rearview mirror and there is soccer mom in the SUV, stopped dead, with her hand over her face.

The trembling does not begin until I am well on my journey, off onto the freeway and giving thanks that I am undamaged, that it is undamaged, and it is just another sunny Sunday of another sunny week....

I missed the exit and suddenly there was no more ground.  Brown pillars soared into the mist, carrying my narrow freeway up into the clouds.  The syncopated wail of electric guitars, in rhythm with the expansion joints, filled the ear pockets in the helmet as I flew along, white lines channeling me, railroading me ahead.  I had no clue where this was going. I was along for the ride, clenched to the handlebars searching desperately for a cross street, an exit to somewhere, someway to escape this madness carried in the current of cars and trucks.  No, please no, don't dump me into West L.A.!  Anything but west L.A.!  I'll take 10, I'll take Century, I'll take little surface streets I promise I'll never miss an exit again just don't leave me in West L.A.!  They say no one returns from there alive!

LAX, spread out for miles beneath me, whirled around slowly as the freeway climbed and arced through the sky.  The yin-yang symbol of Korean Air shone softly through the fog over the cargo building.  I can't be too far from something I know.

The exit for Sepulveda suddenly appeared from nowhere and I exhaled, relaxing on the throttle and clutch, humming down, gliding down from the heights to the ground again.  Normality resumes, taxis and Jettas and black clad Lincolns.  A 767 fills the sky, thundering into the air, trailing mist from the wings.

The freeway in the city is a funny thing.   It's like a river, it can carry you to strange places and you are only in control of where it takes you about half the time.  The other half is left to the vagaries of traffic and the vagaries of your own sense of direction and distance.  It may dump you anywhere and leave you stranded on any chevron island as you search for a way to escape your plight.  It ebbs and flows with the time of year and road construction, with the forces of bureaucratic physics.  It has sand bars and wicked snags, overhanging bridges and burnt-out exit lights.  It is covered in trash and graffiti, the scum of the earth take refuge in the concrete nooks of overpasses.  Unlike a river and unlike freeways in open country, it knows no peace and no beauty but only the ugly.  And the dark and hellish determination and intensity of drivers bent on their own destination, their own exit, their own speed and schedule.   Drivers like me.  I watch a handkerchief flop lazily along the centerline.  A pickup truck mashes it flat into the pavement and it lies there plastered as I race by.  No roadkill, not even the dignity of dead birds or tumbleweeds.  Just trash...styrofoam boxes....recycle(1)....ASK....

Every once in a while pandora will find something worth listening to.  Through the weltered new-age mush that composes much of my Loreena McKennitt radio station (I haven't bothered to weed it out) one number shines like a piece of ice.  They're called Blackmore's Night.  It's good stuff.  I kinda like it.

What a weird night.  I suppose most normal people don't spend their Friday evenings reading Anna Karenina.  I knocked off a few tens of pages like a few shots of vodka, but without the vodka.  It was easy to do because one of the main characters rediscovered an old love and another one began to go mad; this provoked a deal of drama within the story and made it go quicker.  

So like a pilgrim on a dusty road, the drink of water and nap under the tree has improved life for the next few miles.  I fully expect things to slow back down and go back to slogging by tomorrow.  I mean, I'm sorry Tolstoy, but I'm a 21st century American and I don't have the attention span for this.  At least in War and Peace you had some social conflict going on; this introverted high-society bullshit is really getting on my nerves.  Although the account of Vronsky trying to commit suicide and failing miserably was kind of entertaining.  (I mean, how do you stuff a revolver into your left side and pull the trigger and miss?! I mean, what a loser. Not only was he a bad lover, a bad horseback rider and a bad money manager, he couldn't even commit suicide if he tried.  At least he ought to have punctured a lung or damaged the spinal cord or something. And to just lie there bleeding everywhere without doing anything proactive to finish the job? Till the servant comes in to clean up the mess!  The man deserved to live.  Or maybe the Russian army issue sidearms of the period really sucked.  I don't know)

The freight train headlight suddenly swung around a corner, probing its beam into the salt fog.  It was followed by a deep flash from dual chrome pipes and a rumbling growl of exhaust.  As it disappeared down the boulevard I thought to myself, some things will never go out of style...

White paint on offramps can be deadly slippery with condensation in the fog and thus is to be avoided at all costs.  With knackered rear shocks and a recently rebuilt fork complete with Progressive springs, the chassis is all off kilter, stiff in the front end and squashy in the rear.  So that when I nudge it up to 2nd gear I have to be damn careful not to drop the clutch or the whole thing goes like a bouncy horse.  Doesn't help that one has to love that throttle to make things move smooth.  It takes less than 1/8 of a turn into that liter motor to get you up to speed, maybe 1/3 on acceleration to freeway speed.  Just a nudge.  And if you go past that bitty nudge there better not be anybody or anything in the way. 

Another thing will never go out of style and that is clinging in the dark, reaching far out over the tank to the handle bars, the wind controlled by the right hand. A 70 mph wind hitting me in the stomach.  Directly in the stomach.  No fairing, no nothing to deflect the wind, gravel, sticks, leaves, cigarette butts, birds, bird poop and whatever else the freeway has to dish up.  The classy dual-pod speedo/tacho nacelle frames the headlight beam stretching far ahead of me, lighting down the divergent raingrooves.  There ought to be a silk scarf flapping about my neck and the static from a navigation radio echoing in my headset and sparkles from antiaircraft units glaring in the distance.  The square mirrors slash upwards like antennae on the right and on the left, showing headlights rapidly disappearing on my six.  Turbulence shudders through the frame as I bank left into a cloud of fog...

(I'm trying to run the fuel out of the tank in preparation for Suzi's surgery starting this week-end, and I forget how much class this machine exudes)

There was only one way to solve my question. It was to humble my pride, be very direct and very quick and ask this old man smoking a cigarette and wearing an ancient baseball cap whether or not thunderstorms tend to hang over the 15 or not.

"So that storm up there, that's where I'm headed. Hey do you have any idea what the weather's like up at the junction of 70 and 15? I know it's not a town or anything, but that's where I'm going."

"Well son, the only thing I can say is that they move fast. Build up quick in the afternoon, don't usually stay in one place. And it's late a'ready, they should be settling down. See if the weather's on and what they're sayin'. Should tell you somethin'.

The TV was showing some reality show through the graffiti scratched windows of the truck stop. I went inside and asked the cashier for his opinion. "The weather program should be on in a couple minutes now."

"You got a restroom?"

Five minutes later the "weather" was still not on. Some blond was swaying over a microphone in the noisy TV broadcast. This is useless. I'm wasting time. I should get out of here.

But I was sore and tired. I was strongly tempted, though I don't smoke, to buy a pack of cigarettes and join the laconic local in the baseball cap and bring up the price of milk and corn and forget about being on the road for a while.

Instead I unraveled my rain pants from my gigantic pack and began to struggle them on. The local eyed my preparations. "Watch out for them highway patrol, they hide on those overpasses. Was ridin' a Harley down through here back in the day, got nailed pretty quick right out here. Keep an eye out."

I really could care less about the Utah highway patrol. I wanted to know something about those lightning flashes arcing across the sky, far to the north. The darkness was warm and oppressive, a feeling I knew well and dreaded. I looked around. The TV was still blaring some music show. The truck stop was dead. The old timer puffed on his cigarette. There was nothing to do but leave and face the imminent unknown of what it was like to be on interstate 15 in the middle of the night in the middle of a thunderstorm...

I yawned as I stumbled, half-awake, out of the Days Inn into the morning sunshine.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Not one. The rain last night had washed the mountain air to a painful polish.  I could see for miles, or at least felt I'd be able to once I woke up.

I dumped my bags next to the bike and worked the cords and straps mechanically, slowly reassembling the gigantic mule pack I'd torn apart in haste and impatience in the dark and wet last night.  I dropped a cord and stooped to pick it up.  

My watch said 10:30 am. It was going to be a long day, and I was getting started late.  I hate getting started late.  But I need the sleep.   Not taking breaks on a long trip piles up on you till your body commits mutiny.  I needed that extra two hours, didn't want it but took it.

I walked through the double door into the lobby.  The receptionist took my key card and asked how was my night.  Good, I said.  My nights in motels are always good.  By the time 2 am rolls around and I face the fact that if I don't pull over and go to sleep I will crash, I am far too gone to notice whether the bathroom is clean, or rather too far gone to make a fuss about it.  Yeah, my night was good.

I stride back through God's morning sunshine to the bike, plug in the key and swing a leg over.  The ignition sequence rolls through the panel like a speed racer initializing.  The speedometer and tachometer needles wave good morning and the fuel and temperature gauges come up in their central-command LCD.  Well, sort of come up.  Two bars on the fuel gauge.  Two bars out of five, standing against 180 miles.  I always get bad mileage on the freeway.  Wringing out the little half-liter engine loaded down with 220 pounds takes its toll.

I should get gas.  Should.  But I have two bars left and that ought to be more than ample to get me to the next major city.  The fuel gauge is inaccurate.  I know this.  But two big fat bars and I'm not awake yet so it's more than enough.

Pack stowed, last minute mental checks complete. I blearily trundle out of the shiny black parking lot toward the onramp.  Rain has left the pavement slick and wet and I am easy with the throttle as I approach the onramp back onto Interstate 70.  Aah, it's bright up here.

I accelerate to Highway Mode and settle into watching Colorado fly along beneath my feet.   begin to look lazily for a gas station.  I had flipped my map around last night but I was already off the chart to the east.  

An AmocoBP slips by, glistening in its rainwashed green and yellow glory.  A gas station.  I should get gas, but  I don't feel like stopping.

Minutes became miles and miles became  nearly an hour.  The sun was now past the zenith and I-70 had become a vast sweeping river of asphalt careering around rockface after rockface.  My throttle hand had sunk deeply into the power and I was flying fast, now, entranced by the beauty of it all, unable to think or move.  Big fish fell away on either hand, Cadillacs and Ford duallies and Tauruses pulling trailers, swimming lazily in the sunshine, content with their sublegal speeds.

What was that on the LCD?  SOMETHING'S MISSING. Oh yes.  I guess the the gas gauge just dropped by a bar.  One left.  Uh, that was fast.  That was only 30 miles.

I tore on through the early afternoon.  Clouds began again to dapple the sky and the asphalt river became mottled with shadow.  I had left civilization for sure, but gas stations are everywhere along an Interstate.

Only minutes later the last bar began to blink.  Ok, this is not funny.  My minds eye recalled the green and yellow sign soaring above the trees, mocking my arrogance. Oh god please don't let me run out of gas in this waterless place.  Time to get tucked and get serious.  The little gas-pump icon began to flash.  I sped up to 80, took the motorcycle out of gear, and turned off the key.  The motor fell quiescent.  I shuddered.  This is what it will be like if I don't find a gas station pretty damn quick.  "When the fuel-injected 650 runs out of gas, boom, it's done, that's it.  Your pushing."  The words from Motorcycle Daily News writeup on my motorcycle flashed briefly through my head.

The buzzing gone, I fell like a glider on a descent through thermals.  A rather rapid and decelerating descent.  I crouched behind the windshield to eke any last bit of aerodynamics from my manifestly un-aerodynamic profile.  And the big fish began to pass me.  Cadillacs and Ford duallies and a Taurus pulling a trailer, happily cruising at a warm and fuel-rich 55 mph.  Little kids pointed out the window at the strange visored alien crouched over the wedge-shaped motorcycle in a comical contortion.

I started the motor again just as I dipped below the minimum speed limit.  Sweat began to start under the helmet.  I have no idea how much fuel is left in my tank.  No idea whatsoever. Could be a gallon, could be next to fumes.  The first two bars invariably mark about 4 gallons out of my 5.8 gallon tank, the last three bars are far more vague in signification.  

Don't die don't die dont die....please.

I crested a ridge, puttering along at minimum rpm, and shut down again for another glide into a valley.  It's really a great thing for negligent motorcyclists that West Colorado is higher than Central Colorado.

The blinking became more insistent.  Gas station, where's a freaking gas station! (Realistically: let's be realistic: how far could I push before I'd have to stop and rest?  A mile?  A mile and a half?  Half a mile uphill?  More like quarter of a mile I'd think.  And I have no water, just energy drink.  I'd be screwed.  So we are not thinking about pushing.  We are thinking about motion, about moving forward and cresting the next hill so I can shut it off again.  Yes, the next hill.  I twisted the throttle with trepidation expecting sputters.  The 650 chugged bravely on.

Well, we crested that hill, glided, thought about eternity, crested another, glided again and one more hill revealed salvation in the shape of a yellow and red shell poked up above some rocks.  Far off still, but I could see it approach.  I would make it.  I would make it just fine.  I will live, I will not have to push my motorcycle fully loaded on the freeway for miles, I will not die of dehydration or be run over by dozing driver in a semi-truck.

And I did make it. Parked, then in the cool shade of the roof over the pumps,  I sat and meditated upon my foolishness as the tank hungrily sucked at the pump.  The meter read only 5.3 gallons when it shut off.  I had a half gallon, a whole 25 miles, left in that tank.  I could have driven on normally and still would have made it quite handily without making a complete fool of myself in front of numerous five-year-olds....

Tomato soup.

It is wonderful.

The extent to which a fever and a headache can curdle one's brain is quite interesting.  I successfully restrained myself up until now from running to my computer and tapping out a blog post about some disconnected imagination I'd have been sure to forget halfway through imagining it; but here I am blogging about disconnectedness anyway.

*Here's to filler posts* (clink) - that was the empty teacup falling off the desk.  Thank goodness it was empty.  I'm not in the mood to clean up spilled tea.

I think people, especially Californians, should get sick more often. (Young people who have full powers of recovery of course) as it is a potent reminder of one's own mortality and one's helplessness in the face of an angry God.  Not to mention a desperately needed opportunity to sit and think.  Who is gonna sit and think for a day and a half unless one is (a) taped to a chair or (b) sick with fever?  I mean, seriously.  Spiritual reflection, willed or otherwise, is only truly possible in quiet, and if one has a pounding headache, the room better be quiet.

There isn't much else to do.

Much else including for me Tolstoy's epic work "Anna Karenina".  It's not as good as Brothers K.  Tolstoy shouldv'e stuck to war stories.

Kakashi has left for his home valley, to await the coming of summer and the next phase of life.

Will miss the ol' roomie, though he'll be down for a drink and a talk frequently enough.  This place is going to be boring as hell.  I don't know what I'm gonna do with all the empty space.  Clean it, I suppose.

New favorite phrase: "yucca garden".

Nothing evokes California to me like that phrase.

I didn't mention that on that journey through candyland I did find the neatest ol' road I ever did see.  This road kicks Mulholland's ass up and down the street.  It's called, uh, what was it called?  Anyway it goes up the mountains that castle Santa Barbara.  It has twists and turns that defy gravity, as the old Hot Wheels advertisements used to say.  It also has one or two overlooks, littered with enough broken CD's, Tecate cans, stuffed animals and ragged lingerie to indicate that this was somebody's juvenile fun place.  Averting one's eyes from the ground, however, one is treated to one of the best views of Santa Barbara there is.  A sweeping panorama takes in the entire pocket of coastline, tens of miles in either direction.

The onset of springtime and summer makes me antsy. I'm coming out of the hibernation mentality that descends on me around November, the air begins to warm up and smell like wildflowers and dust, and the sun is clearly climbing the ecliptic to its intense spotlight position for the summer.

I went for a ride on Sunday. I laughed inside to think I was going nowhere for fun, doing what people normally do with motorcycles. A strange and unusual concept indeed, after the gray wintry grind of nine-miles-one-way-nine-miles-back, dirty water splashed across the blue bodywork and scuffed windshield. Now the mud has dried to dust, and the same blue tank and same scuffed plastic windshield are out there pointed into a dappled-shadow fairyland straight from a Honda TV commercial. Highway 192 winds and stops and turns and winds again through some of the ritziest country residentia in the nation. Palm trees, boxwood hedges, yucca gardens line the highway. Low brickwork walls with ornate wrought iron gates shield great majestic hacienda dwellings from public eye. Mostly.

So this is where all the high powered film directors and movie actors and lawyers and computer programmers and retired Caltrans superintendents live. Who needs Beverly Hills, seriously. In fact, I've DRIVEN Rodeo Drive and they've got NOTHIN' on these folks. Nothing.

So the sunshine and shadow flits along, the motorcycle patters and putters along and I ask myself, as I always do, why I don't do this more often on weekends. People come from far and wide, go on vacation, spend lots of money just to be here, to do what I'm doing on a whim on a random weekend. As far as I'm concerned, it's free and a common fact of existence. I can come up to Montecito whenever I want and all it is going to cost me is ten dollars in gas. (Not even that.)

So in a way I'm not in the best position to appreciate the legend. But I don't really care about the legend as much as the sunshine and curves.....

The Fieldsheer pants arrived last night.  They are longer than my regular jeans, and provide as much coverage as I can reasonably ask of non-tailored pants.  Very, very sturdy nylon construction.  I feel like I got my $189 worth.

Speaking of cash outlay for gear, it is said that one spends $2000 on one's first motorcycle and at LEAST $1000 on gear.

So far:

$99 jacket (cheap due to polyester construction; I love it, but now that I've wised up to this polyester/nylon thing replacement is imminent.  When I have the money.)

$160 helmet.

$29.99 gloves.

$79.99 gloves.

$49.99 gloves.

$160 boots.

$100 torso armor

$50 elbow armor

$50 knee armor

$90 riding jeans with kevlar knees

$90 .....

Aforementioned Fieldsheers.

Another helmet for passenger doesn't count cause I don't wear it.

Grand total: $1,147.97

And I just bought another pair of riding jeans because I'm unhappy with one of the two I have. Both pairs are slightly short in the inseam, but one of them has this odd anomaly I only noticed today.  One leg is shorter than the other. I mean, how do you make pants with one leg shorter than the other??  It's like half an inch short on the left leg!  I also had to have them modified beyond belief since they only came in Long in some gigantic waist size.  So I can't return them. Not a happy investment overall.  (But they're better than Levis)

So that's gonna add 90 bucks.

I have to buy a mesh jacket for the summer.  $150-200.  Suffering through last year incased in a waterproof suit of plastic that is my current cheapo jacket was not pleasant.

Then eventually a leather jacket, the ultimate status symbol of motorcycling.  The final initiation into serious ridership.  That's gonna set me back 500 green ones.

So yeah.  Two thousand bucks.

But how much does human skin, blood and artificial titanium bones cost, at the hospital, eh?

(Answer: about $100,000.00 by some reports, with associated complications)

When we left each other the first time it was like the world was coming to an end.  Now we're all grown up, full of our own goals and our own worries, and the departure is met with just a half smile and words about the next destination in life.  I tell myself it doesn't hurt nearly as bad because I'm old enough not to care.  But its a lie.  One is never old enough not to care, never stoic enough not to cry inside as the little car rolls off forever with those familiar faces 

now you dream only in peaceful blue /

the morning doesn't even scare you /

anymore /

you are phoenix with your feathers just a little wet /

baby the ashes just look pretty on your eyes /

dry your wings in the sun /

you've only begun to understand /

when its time to move on /

there is no one to hold your hand /

so let go /

let go /

let go /

Deb Talan, Ashes on Your Eyes

The first thought and question every morning in February is answered by a quick glance out the window above my head. Is it raining or not?

This question will become irrelevant in a month. I slide out of bed and dress deliberately, mentally picking through 6:30 am pre-caffeine wool to determine whether there is Anything I Am Forgetting.

What am I forgetting?

Keys. Have keys. Have phone. Have wallet. Have helmet. Have gloves. Computer is off. I unlock the door and step outside into a cloud of my own breath. I exhale again, testing the air temperature. Cold. Probably 40 degrees. The weather is severe-clear, the neighbors' dogs are barking tinnily in the cold.

The carport is dark and even colder. I swing a leg over and push the motorcycle outside, fumbling in thick ski gloves. The fuel-injected motor doesn't care what temperature it is. I touch the starter, and with its usual quiet composure the v-twin shakes itself awake. The pattering lope echoes from the adjacent apartment walls. Now three dogs are barking across the canal.

I drop it into gear and ease off into the back alley. Round the corner, round the street. Bleary faces wrapped in scarves peer around opened car doors. The headlights of Dial-A-Ride fill the opposing lane and old ladies with canes, mummified in shawls, stump deliberately down the sidewalk. The neighborhood is still really asleep at 7:00 in the morning.

At the corner stopsign, I balance the motorcycle without moving my foot off the peg. I have to keep rolling; haven't acquired the skill to do this while motionless. Children bundled with pink backpacks and earmuffs, swinging water bottles, huddle around the steel lamppost.

Green, swing out into the far lane, clicking up at each 4500 rpm. Frosted, sleepy cars roll out into the broad, crumbled frosty street, white clouds of vapor obscuring the left taillight on each. The suicide lane is filled with left-blinking SUV's and donut trucks. I wing quickly by, unseen, poised to swerve.

The cold breeze accelerates to a wind as I reach a clear stretch of the Boulevard. The steam is blown from the inside of my helmet and the sun flashes blindingly above the neighboring overpass, bathing brick in the intense industrial orange of early morning. The wool is beginning to clear somewhat, but I'm still bleary and in need of coffee and breakfast.

Watch traffic, watch the soccer moms, watch the delivery trucks out of the corner of my eye. A beautiful day, just another beautiful cold freezing day on a cold freezing seat in a cold freezing town in February.

(and the bank thermometer says 41 degrees)

"Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

- forum poster on Pashnit.com

Real problem, cheaper solution

Well, I lost patience over the last rainy weekend having to change pants twice a day. When the sky broke open one saturday I skipped down to Cycle Gear in Oxnard and ordered up some FG Air overpants. They were too short, and I discovered a company called Fieldsheer that actually makes a tall size with a claimed inseam of 37" !!!!!

I'm a fan. Forward thinking, these people. I ordered a pair and am waiting on the call to pick them up.

Yeah yeah, they're $80 cheaper than the custom Cycleport ones I was going to have tailored to me, and they won't fit as well, but ... I'm not ordering them online either, so I can work with the dealer if they don't fit or I don't like them.

Oh yea, and apparently not all 600 denier fabrics are created equal. It is bruited about that polyester weave has little tensile strength compared to nylon, which worries me riding around in my 99 dollar Carbolex jacket (100% poly says the tag). It looks like Suzi is gonna have to sit in the garage a few months longer till I get my gear issues sorted.

$300 for a jacket vs. $10,000 for skin grafts: that's what we're looking at here. Problem is, I'm reluctant to admit I made a bad investment in cheap gear in the beginning (ignorance is bliss, truly) and don't want to have it laying 'round unused taking up space...

At least the pants have a 1000 denier (thicker) nylon shell, it ought to hold up. What I need to do is find a mesh jacket with leather panels on the back and shoulder for this summer (Cortech GX Air? 200 bucks) and then next fall I'll just have to buy another better jacket to replace my beloved Tourmaster Jett. Or maybe someone will further inform me about exactly what the hell Carbolex fabric IS, and it will be fine, and I won't have to worry.....

Anybody know anything about plastic fabric? I purposely avoid leather because it's hot, heavy, not waterproof, can't be thrown in the wash machine and is hella expensive (although not nearly as much as aforementioned skin grafting)

Ahh, Sunday.

A time to relax from busi-ness and getting-things-done and goals and the horse whip.

A time to take a break, ideally take a break, from it all.

At least, I should be able to realize this ideal given that I have no responsibilities, etc.  Of course, since I'm not really settled in yet, that's not entirely true; I'm not yet past the stage of budgeting a few hundred dollars each month for household improvements.  I'm trying to transition, with varying levels of success, from "poor college student status" to "low-income but independent from food stamps and social security" status.

What are Sundays for such a one?  Well, to date, all the housework I neglect during the weekend in which I go out and about to supply myself for my needs in goods and gear.  And if I have time left over from that, to peer up at some vast intellectual mountain with its jagged peaks covered in mist, shift my feet, and wonder which of those trails leads to the top.

I decided not to continue Hegel; I think I've gone as far as I'm going to get with him.  The book open in front of me now is Wojtyla's "The Acting Person". Yays: more phenomenologies!"*

It's raining peacefully, the wind is tearing through it like a three-year-old through TP and messing it all up.  Thomas Tallis is radiating equally peacefully from the pandorabox.** 

*"Glutton for punishment", the library gnomes snicker as they disappear round the corner of the stacks.

** When am I going to get off this filler kick?  It's not that things haven't been happening, it's just that my Muse seems to be gagging on something....

Real problem, real solution

I found pants.

They are custom made, according to measurements you send Cycleport in the mail. Cycleport is a UK based company making gear for bikers in Northern Europe, and by all accounts pretty good stuff.

As it ought to be; these retail for $289.99, approximately three times what I paid for my freaking JACKET and twice what I paid for my helmet.

Now all I have to do is convince myself that this is money I should spend right now instead of buying a second pair of $49.99 rainpants from Sport Chalet and living with the wet crotch problem.

Earlier this afternoon I set off from work wondering if I'd still be dry when I got home.  According to my experience the more complicated and patchwork any solution is, the more likely it is to fail.  And my solution to how to stay dry on a motorcycle in the pouring rain is patchwork indeed.

First, there's my helmet and jacket and gloves.  

The full-face helmet design keeps out the water.   It works.  Nuff said.

The jacket is waterproof.  It works too.  I just have to remember not to put anything in its pockets because the outer carbolex layer to which the pockets are attached gets soaked through instantly.

My $50 Alpinestars waterproof gloves are not waterproof.  They keep my hands dry for about an hour and then some pinhole leak on the throttle glove begins to soak the goretex lining.  Then I have one gooey cold hand and one dry warm hand.

The pants are superlight and superthin rain pants by Sierra Designs.  They are designed to literally pack into the hip pocket of your jeans.  Quite a feat if you ask me, but they're not durable, they're only 33 inches on the inseam and they slowly leak at the crotch.

To address the fact that the pants aren't nearly long enough, I have gaiters.  These things sit down around my ankles and have stirrups that hold them firmly atop my waterproof hiking boots.

The assembly keeps me surprisingly warm and dry.  For the most part.  But I am in a perpetual quest for some decent 36" inseam rain pants so I can dispense with the clumsy gaiters.  If any of you know where such a thing may be found please let me know.

Filler

filler.

annoyed.frustrated.com

Such a thick barrier of polyester, smoke and cheese between my mind and the blue winter wind. When will summer come again? Will I still be free when the summer comes or will I be held prisoner by $5 gas?

Word of the Week

"Whooptefriggindoo." - interjection; a slang term used as an intensifer of "whoopdedoo", normally in the context of extraordinarily overdone statements of fact or observation of excessive and unnecessary means.

I just discovered yesterday that Suzi has a cross-flow cylinder head design just like the old sixties Chrysler Hemi's and some BMW engines.

The deeper I dig into the background of this particular model of motorcycle, the more fascinating it gets.

The Metzeler Curse

Yesterday I found the THIRD nail in my rear tire I've had since buying new tires less than 1000 miles ago.  THIRD NAIL.  This begins to disturb me greatly.  Either I'm riding on the wrong roads, the tread pattern is such as to embed rather than reject bits of metal, or The Elephant just has taken a dislike to me.

Whatever it is, I'm losing patience. 

www.metzeler.com

Milestone

The Blue Wedgie Thing ticked over 15,000 miles today. The digital display blinked over in the gray light and water drops of a rainstorm over the 210 Freeway.

15,000 miles on a motorcycle is like, oh, 40,000 miles on a car, or whatever magic number it is in the automotive world when a vehicle goes from "new" to "used". Whatever mileage it is that's right after the first major service. So now I own a used bike. Another used bike.

Well, that's ok, because it has scratches on the side from being blown over in the wind, it has a couple of modifications that I have no intention of reverting and I intend to make more when I have money. And besides it's just a good kind of bike to own because it can do everything. It's gone across the country, it's scrabbled up horseback riding trails, it's forded streams and I ride it back and forth to work every day, rain and shine. It shields me from the pains of having to spend money on gas and insurance, and it's pretty to look at.

And it's still almost new.