"I think I should start looking for another job."

"What why are you doing all right?"

"The pressure's getting to me. We go around in the afternoon
I get up in the morning and say good morning and snap off the orders
blah blah blah and then, all right LET'S DO IT.

And we go

It is one thing to set the bridge on fire.

It is another thing to stand there and watch it burn.

"What did you do?"

"Why are you doing this? Why?"

because it makes sense

screech

more trip

Under the ten thousand watts of the noontime Nevada sun, I can no longer stand the hardened foam and the 55.2 degree angle of the footpegs. The throttle snaps closed and the chain pulls the motorcycle down from speed and we angle off the freeway, throbbing silence rising, crowding the helmet and throbbing heat sinking into collar and sleeves. The Mobil sign shimmers in the heat, the pump roof projects a massive rectangular black hole in the desert. I roll into the black hole next a pump and sigh inside.

I stand up (both knees crack), I take off my helmet and peel off my gloves, and take a deep breath of hot dust. “t's friggin' hot.”

But things have been this way for black-leather for a while, and he's become used to it. It's a matter, for him, of exploring the good things about the solitary path he's chosen, becoming attached to these, and avoiding the pressure around him to see things according to anyone and everyone else's point of view. It sounds selfish except to the discerning; for to make friends one does not have to be like them, and other points of view are useful only insofar as they help one discharge the requirements of utilitarian friendship or cooperation.

My friend in the black leather had seated himself near the left end of the 20-stool bar. He ordered the house special that night: a pint of india pale, and sat with his elbows on the bar, hunched over the glass. Judging by the position of his head and what I could see of his face in the dead TV screen overhead, he was fixing a stare in either of two directions: straight ahead or straight toward the far edge of the bar. Beasts or gods. There is an unforgivable sin: that of rejection of any currently accepted authorities in the broad field of nonconformity, consequent to the rejection of the authorities over the sheep. It is not only unforgivable, it appears irrational. It does not proceed from weakness; it proceeds from a choice made on premises known to the chooser alone. He is truly alone in his sin; all thinking men shake their heads at him. Black leather props a heel against the steel ring under the stool. Excommunication used to be a penalty that destroyed societal and business ties as well as religious ones, and it has again taken on its old significance. Black-leather has been excommunicated, which rules out the possibility of his being a god. Hence only "beast" remains, and that is the category into which he has been placed. The classification denotes him as sub-rational, and this has inevitable consequences.

Aristotle says that the man who lives outside society is either a beast or a god. This quote was running through my head as I stood the motorcycle on the sidestand and pulled off my helmet. Across the street he was doing the same. He shoved the key deep into his black leather pocket and walked toward the Brew Pub, unconscious that he was being followed at a distance.

I entered the well-lit brewery nearly on his heels and went to my customary table in the corner. The place was nearly empty as it should be on a Wednesday night. It was never very full except during the late night hours of Friday and Saturday. The waitress showed up to take my order, knowing what she would hear before I said anything. She only worked Tuesdays and Wednesdays since she was facially disfigured: she had no nose. I couldn't figure out why a pub in this heavily trafficked part of town would hire a noseless waitress, but here she worked, and my secret nickname for her was Faceless. For some reason I always tipped Faceless half my five or six-dollar bill; maybe I felt sorry for the cruel trick violence had played her, or maybe I wanted her to keep her job here. I liked Faceless even though I rarely spoke a word to her; she was important and symbolic in some way.

She would probably resent being thought of as a symbol; after all she was a human being with her own loves and hatreds. Nonetheless Faceless was one reason I patronized this place - Faceless, the chocolate stouts and awful but fitting bric-a-brac. And the counters and tables were scrubbed clean every night until they shone. This, and the good lighting, lent a cold and impersonal atmosphere to the place.

So post something about my trip.

Yeah.

Well, I have some pictures. I don't know. It's hard to take a picture of desert broiling up into the sun, or of hard speedboat wakes of wind turbulence grasping me my main force and shoving me into the fast lane. Hard to take a picture of a South Dakota accent or even South Dakota much of anything. Or Wyoming, for god's sake. Well, SD has the Badlands, and WY has Yellowstone, so there are redeeming moments.

The main thing was, my once a year ritual of being on the road for an extended period of time and being disattached to everything and everyone was routinely performed and I felt better afterwards as I always do. It's a natural consequence of boring into one's job and one's life and eating it and breathing it for a year. Breaking loose really helps.

Why is the main patron of a smoke shop in St. George Nevada the middle aged woman? And why was the proprietor of said shop maintaining a humidor FULL of empty premium cigar boxes?

Why do RV's set up such an evil vacuum on the freeway?

Why do national parks cost so much? Why does the KOA campground in Cody, WY charge $29.95 for a patch of rough dirt?

Why do small towns still exist with gravel main streets exactly wide enough for a team of oxen to hang a U-turn? And run gas stations out of an abandoned co-op?

Why does Salt Lake City at nine p.m. give me the creeps?

Why isn't there any shade to sit and eat a clif bar and drink SoBe in Southern Wyoming?

Why does Suzuki make such hard friggin' motorcycle seats?

Why don't Wyoming cops pull me over for doing 15 over the speed limit? And why are Wyoming drivers even worse than Minnesota drivers?

Why do I feel so lightheaded at 9,100 feet? The motorcycle doesn't seem to run much different.

Where is the nerve in my back that I'm convinced will never be the same? I can't reach it...and it hurts...

Monday: Getting back home.
Tuesday: Wondering where everything is. Going out and drinking a lot at a place on Hy.33
Wednesday: Waking up at noon with a headache. Talking my head off about my trip to an interested listener. Ordering pizza for supper. Going to the beach and having a large, expensive collection of high-powered fireworks blow up in my face like a grenade.
Thursday: Everything goes wrong at work.
Friday: Everything goes wrong at work the first half of the day. I buy my roommate an iPod for his birthday present.

Why don't I sit down and properly think about what just happened to me? There's no time for friggin' artistry.

I'm back. It's over. And my butt is sore. And I have new muscles in my left forearm from clutching through six-speeds over and over and over and over.

I noticed this for the first time tonight: The Santa Clarita valley smells like dust and citrus. It's a very distinct smell, but not one I've ever noticed before.

Motorcycle touring freaking rocks.

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest...

It was a 2.5 day whirlwind to Kansas City on a new bike that was being broken-in on the way. I stopped in Flagstaff to get the oil changed at the prescribed 600 miles, and from there on it was hold the fist back below 5000 rpm till I got over 1000 miles. Which meant 50 mph on the freeway and probably curses from the truckers. (66 mpg though...)

Power restriction then eliminated, I was able to cruise above 68 mph and get less than 60 mpg. Joy. The little 650 doesn't launch me around like Suzi does, but it's electric smooth at the higher rpm's and handles unflappably. Solid, planted, all about it...

I wanted to camp on the way out, but time restrictions ruled that out. I pulled eight hours from 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, twelve and a half hours the next day, and then thirteen hours the day after that, arriving at my friend's house in KC at 4 am. Don't do this, by the way. I don't recommend it. I was a pulverized wreck straggling in the door.

I'm camping now, though, on my way back from MN. Tonight in a luxurious KOA campground with WiFi in the lonely badlands of South Dakota. Tomorrow, probably someplace in Utah.

And yeah, I'm enjoying the hell out of this trip. I'm a permanent addict to motorcycle travel. Road trips are good, but motorcycle road trips are awesome.

My new scoot. $6,499 out the door at LA Honda.

I left the dealership Tuesday afternoon with zero miles on the odo; I'm in Kansas City, Kansas right now with 1400 on the ticker.

Runs like a top. 60 mpg at an average cruising speed of 55 mph (5000 rpm break-in limitation)

Very user friendly, seat's a bit hard for long distances though. It likes dirt roads. Lacks power compared to Suzi, but everything lacks power compared to Suzi.

"Suzi, see the driver in that dirty van up ahead? He's hugging the white line and pissing me off."

Chunk-chunk two gears

and the matrix of Saturday beachgoers are standing still, frozen in time, poised with coffeecups to their mouths or with cellphones to their ears or with cigarettes about to be flicked out the window.

6500 rpm. I am in hyperspace. The only sound in the atmosphere is a frenetic 4-cylinder scream. The only sight is an extended blur, four wide gray stripes converging in the distance.

Chunk back one gear

HA TAKE that gridlock or gridpause or whatever the hell you call this slowly moving porridge of cars. CAGERS! So glad I'm not you. This is my road, alright, and I can get exactly where I need to! I can put it there up ahead! Or over in that hole there up ahead! Anywhere!

chunk back another gear

the world is in motion again, the coffeecups reach the lips, the cellphones lie against the heads, the cigarettes are flicked and the freeway is again a blase mash of people in toyotas all trying to get somewhere else.

"Suzi, you're awesome. I don't think I'll ever be able to sell you even when I get a new motorcycle pretty soon. " My pocket rocket, the one-time superbike, the one thing I own that can launch me beyond all reason...No, I don't see how I could sell it. I can see porting and polishing and redoing the pipes and repainting the tank and...holy crap, can you imagine what kind of a hot rod this bike could be, if it were properly hot-rodded?

Where the land stops and the ocean begins: where familiarity stops and mystery begins, where the ground under your feet gives place to empty air....The Santa Monicas' open arms embrace the blue abyss, but strangely, it is a comforting abyss. Not black, but blue, healing rather than destroying...it's strength is felt in the wind when you open your window to feel it, felt in your mind when you relax your worries and do your best not to think.

(1) Shiny new guardrail (2) Sagebrush-coated foothill (3) an aqua blue floor fading away to emptiness for a million miles. I pull over onto the shoulder next to the guardrail, cut the motor, and set the bike up against first gear. I swing my legs over the guardrail, and perch on one of its wooden supports.

There is so little to see here, looking out the mouth of a gigantic funnel, yet so much to see. I'm in a box with three sides: a mountain wall to my right and to my left, the highway bottling up between them to my rear. But ahead, openness...these outstretched arms of the Santa Monica range, yearning after infinity. Infinity as a plain of blue, tainted at its landward by seaweed. Blue. The color of loyalty (solidity, unchangeableness). The color of the everlasting sky and sea. The ocean never changes. The arms of the mountains may crumble and fade away but the ocean will always be the same.

Stretches of smooth water snake their way across the face of the Pacific, slithering to nowhere. Blue sky, blue sea, unfathomable depth up and down. The erosion and rubble and whispering of the land fades to the background, retreating under the silence of the double blue infinitude crowding into the canyon's open arms...A black Audi convertible hums past, downhill at high rpm. I watch it idly, as it spins and hums away around the smooth gray curves lowering to the ocean. Sunlight sparkles off its chrome. This is California, I think to myself, a place of sand and sage and rubble that we escape from by climbing into our shiny black Audi and humming our way down to the clean blue infinitude and letting that infinitude blow in through our hair and dissolve the mess and grindings we carry in our world.

HA! I found a V-Strom for under MSRP!

There's a dealer in LA that sells them. I sent them an email, they sent me back one, I called them on the phone. They sounded professional and had-it-all-together. Their financing sucks, though, so I'm headed to my bank after lunch.

But the dealers won't sell their V-Strom 650's for anywhere near MSRP which is $6,700. I was quoted, by Eric at Cal Coast Motorsports, $8200 for one. And he said this with a straight face, as if it were nothing unusual, something done every day, something people accept.

Screw him. Screw CalCoast. I'll keep fixing Suzi, thank you very much, because there is no way in hell that an ugly, low-performance 650cc commuter bike is worth that much in today's dollars. I'll buy a used SV650 with 10,000 miles and slap my windshield on it for 3 grand.

Thieves.

I have a job!

I will be a member of the TAC staff, for as long as I want to, starting July 1st. Full benefits including health insurance! I need no longer tempt fate!

I will also be making a bit more money. This has put crazy ideas into my head. I have been surfing motorcycle dealership websites, reading reviews, and generally daydreaming...I feel disloyal to Suzi, but maybe I wouldn't have to sell her. Maybe I could have my cake and eat it too.

Maybe...I could have two motorcycles: a reliable one and a fast one.

Oh, I don't know. We'll see. There is a certain romance to depending on an old undependable bike, but that romance is beginning to wear off. I'm losing the Zen in the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Suzi runs so damn good, but she breaks so damn much. She was a superbike back in the day...but her needs are proportionate to her performance and she's 78,000 miles old. And that's old, for any motorcycle. Even for a monstrous roller-bearinged anvil of a motorcycle.

So, yeah. Those V-Strom 650's that dealers are having a hard time keeping in stock and which you can't find in the classifieds because people like them so much they aren't selling them - if I plunk down a grand and finance for 36 months that would be 190 a month. I might be able to handle that.

We'll see.

(it really stinks they only make them in blue and gray. All my gear is red.)

The gasket kit is ordered. This time next week I should be disassembling a cylinder head.

Thank god for mechanic friends. They are indispensable.

If, in any relationship, I lose sight of the other person, for whatever reason, after a period of time I will begin to worry. Worry and become upset and irrational. Small things begin to take on massive proportions; a neglected mailbox or late arrival at the supper line somehow begin to provoke intense anxiety where none ought to be. And this goes as well for the kind of relationship I have with a hunk of aluminum and steel tubing called Suzi. In the last two weeks, the motorcycle has been sitting in the parking lot, leaking oil and gathering dust. I replace and straighten the cover over her periodically, thumb a drop of oil off the engine, and frown at my thumb. And the ill feeling never goes away. I fiddle with the windshield. I centerstand the motorcycle several different directions and get a different oil level reading each time. I kick the tires. And because none of this fooling around tells me anything at all about the motorcycle, I then kick myself for obsessing and go away and ... continue to worry.

The machines in my life, like the people in my life, are subject to constant breakage and destruction. Nothing is reliable, and there is nothing I hate worse than broken parts I can't see breaking. So I watch everything all the time to ward off impending doom.

So for my own sanity and peace of mind, I have to have a good sit down and communing with whoever or whatever I'm losing track of. I did that today with the motorcycle.

I woke up around 8:00 am (late), and over my dish of oatmeal, trying to plan out my day, I hit upon a crazy idea. Why not, since I have nothing in particular to do, see HOW far I can get north in one day on PCH?

No sooner thought than put into action. By 9:30 I was on 126 West. I kept going and going and going all day, the cliffs in the distance unfolding one after another, luring me on. I stopped at Morro Bay to eat something, and finally turned tail at Lucia. I hadn't quite made Big Sur, I was about 50 miles short.

I arrived back on campus at 9:30 pm. Twelve hours on a motorcycle. My throttle wrist was stone, my shoulders and back were a mass of shooting nerves, and the derriere wasn't feeling much. Nonetheless, tired as I was, I was happy. Because the motorcycle ran so smoothly (while soaking my shinguards with oil) that I almost forgot it was there. hmmmmmmmmm. it was nice. It was reassuring. I can take this thing across the country and it won't break down on me. That thought was very reassuring. There are no clonks or thuds or stiffnesses to mar the flying on the freeway; it's all liquid smooth and it's all good. It's all good. When one concentrates on all the little stuff that's breaking one loses sight of the big picture, which is that this big old bike runs really damn well...

i am dead. tired.

It's inexorable. The slow creep of oil back from the #3 exhaust mount. (I can see it in my minds' eye as I twist the throttle down to 4,500 rpms). The flying pistons are cramming oil into the crack in the head gasket, forcing it out past the looming, dirty exhaust collar. The screaming 75mph wind grasps the oozing sludge and slams it back against the cylinder wall, tearing it and pushing it, shoving it by main force along the flat plains of the air-cooling fins. It spreads out there, and slows down, pauses, even comes to a stop as I throttle down to 55 mph. But then speeds increase again, and the creeping flow resumes its march, closer and closer to the cliff at the rear of the motor...closer...closer...peels off in ropes of tiny globules and smack.

One after another, they bury themselves deep into my denim pant leg, piling up, spreading. I know without looking down that I now carry the brand of old motorcycle on yet another pair of jeans.

If and when fortune smiles upon me I will have a garage. I will have a torque wrench. I will have a complete set of sockets and open-ends, internet parts sources, and long, empty weekends with which to properly act the part of Old Motorcycle owner.

But this has not happened. I'm a college student. I live in a room. My motorcycle lives out in the parking lot. I currently possess a screwdriver, a pliers, and a 6mm open-end wrench.

It's been a sticky, gray homogenous porridge of a day.

All my friends are gone. The place is dead.

Suzi has three oil leaks that are getting progressively worse. And they will be very, very expensive to fix unless I take a week and do it myself.

My gut hurts.

I don't want to study for the GRE. I don't want to spend $60 on a landscape architecture magazine subscription. I don't want to research housing options. I don't want to look for a job. I want to lie back and take it easy and rest and take a vacation. Like I did all last week. WAIT, IT'S BEEN ONE WHOLE WEEK OF SUMMER ALREADY!

Four posts in two days.

This indicates that I am bored and sick.

gah.

This has been haunting my imagination for the last two days. I have to admit it is one of the most evocative short bits I've ever seen written by any of my friends:

"It was a still night in winter near the limits of a small town in northern Italy, during the later part of the Second World War. A scrawny adolescent girl was sitting in the snow by herself, leaning casually against a battered brick wall. A sleepy, thoughtful look hung about her half-closed, dark-rimmed eyes. Bundled close about her small body, held in place by obviously chilled fingers was a worn-out wool overcoat, all rumpled and smudged with age. She wore a tired but faintly contented smile and looked rather comfortable despite the harsh night air.

"'S cold," I commented, lighting a Camel. I wondered if she spoke English. She looked vaguely Slavic. She didn't answer right away and I took my first drag.

"Do you have a place to get warm?" I asked. I bent toward her, to hear her reply.

There were holes in her coat. Little tears or rips here and there, filled with rich red-brown syrup, frozen to ice in the bitter night.

Slipping from my fingers, my cigarette went out in the snow beside me as I gently touched her face. She was dead.

Toque (crashboxing.blogspot.com)

Original post may be found here

At the bottom of the grade, I coasted carefully to a stop, so carefully I overshot my intended parking target and we stopped beyond the corner by Boccali's Pizza. I tipped the bike onto its sidestand and cut the motor. She slid down onto the pavement and stood there, flexing one leg and then the next, propping up the smoked visor. Her long brown hair lay tangled down the back of the armored vest. “Oh, you're so lucky. It's so gorgeous, the fields with the horses in them, it's like flying. It's so beautiful. You're so lucky.”

You are lucky, too, you know. Because you weren't afraid of motorcycles you got to be First to Fly. “Oh, I know. It really is like flying, flying along the ground. I really love it, you know.”

And I stare off into the citrus grove. I can't tell you this, but I'm so glad you're with me here so you can know it too. I don't know how to tell you how much I appreciate sharing this with you, to look into your eyes and know the beauty you see is somehow the exact same beauty I see. I'm always alone when I see beauty from my motorcycle, and I hate that. I hate just seeing it alone, for then something's wasted, some facet goes unseen and unappreciated and beauty doesn't deserve that. It's a crime to waste beauty. Maybe when the tree falls in the forest with no one to hear, it doesn't make a sound. But somehow when the horses in the meadow go unseen, it's different. There should be someone to see the horses. It seems a waste of something good.

So I'm very glad you're with me now. I know that I will never see you again. You will go back to your busy life and busy job and two cell phones and boys and online computer games and Florence, Italy, and you will forget about flying on the motorcycle. But even if you forget, I will remember. I will remember the awe and wonder in your brown eyes, your arms trusting me in the curves, your head turned to the side, that we saw the same thing together, and that beauty wasn't wasted that time. I will remember, and who knows, maybe, just maybe, you will remember too.

“Well, it's getting late, I guess. We should probably start getting back to campus now....you ready to head back now?”

“Yes. Oh gosh, my hair is a mess”.

(Yes, your hair is a mess, for God's sake...deal with it)

I twisted the throttle down slowly and carefully, catching a stomach full of 60 mph air. The road lay straight, a ribbon stretched and glistening in the hazy afternoon sun. Fences flew by quietly on either side and serried rows of nut trees unfolded. Her arms and body relaxed and I felt her head turn to one side. We flew along, wind blasting my face under the open visor, flew along for miles until the ribbon showed a twist far ahead.

I slowed down well before the first curve channeling us toward the valley. Her arms tightened around my waist as we banked through the initial curves, back and forth , back and forth. This was the preamble to the famed Dennison Grade, an asphalt snake clinging to the mountainside, easing the passengers on its back down into the sheltered Ojai Valley.

We approached the first wall, and as it slid back to reveal hazy emptiness, I tapped the motorcycle down into second gear and banked into the first curve. Her body slid up against mine. I caught a glimpse of our shadow as it swung by, a pair of shoulders and helmets and long hair blowing back in the wind.

We leaned and shifted, back and forth, back and forth, swallowing curve after curve. I kept it revved in second, nursing the grip to minimize bucking. The big 4-cyl shouted harshly into the wind, holding its cargo back against the incline. Her arms lay lightly around my waist as we swung down low into a hairpin corner.

(you should be grabbing me for dear life, but you like it, don't you)

We swung up and out, then down low into the next. Up and down, up and down. The rhythm is soothing, mesmerizing, we descend like a seagull circling and tacking, back and forth, back and forth...

give me the wind /
and a wide open road /
curves and leather /
three pedals and a shifter /

Blah blah blah.

blah blah.

Blah blah blah blah.

I'm not sure if I missed her or she missed me, or we both missed each other, but in any case I made a choice and it was the wrong choice. I slipped and stumbled yet again. Now there is the same sinking sight of quiet irony in the dark blue hoodie and brown skirt that I remember from so long ago. Yet the pain is diminished somewhat by a layer of acrylic cynicism accumulated over a summer of listening to the silence and a year of listening to even emptier noise. Oh, don't let it be this way, I beg myself, and the cynicism only folds in on itself quenching all rebellion.

In response to the entirely founded but entirely confused rumors blowing about campus at the moment, I am not engaged to be married. I AM NOT ENGAGED!

My namesake the woodworker is. That he has my name is the sole foundation for this pernicious rumor.

If anyone gives me another congratulatory hug, I will...

...never mind. I'll do nothing. Nothing....

Art is an imitation, as Aristotle says in the Poetics, but an imitation of what? One might think that a drawing or a painting is an imitation of what we see.

And that is true, but what we see is not just what registers on our retina. There is an experience connected with seeing, without which "seeing" means nothing to us. The experience of "seeing" is drawn from the collective sense, from smell and touch, from all the senses operating under a certain condition at a certain time.

I can draw a picture of a house, but unless I can hint at the experience of standing there in the pouring rain staring despondently at a locked gate, I have not produced art. The cold wind, the dampness of the air, and the sinking feeling of mistakenness (or of the victim) are all present in the experience and somehow have to be expressed by pencil or brush strokes.

An atmosphere can be created by using emphasis and texture to provoke memories of certain experiences. Bold, contrasting strokes and washed out colors often evoke the feeling of hard light and heat at high noon. Smudges and pastels evoke the feeling of staring down a valley in a drifting mist.

These are the kind of things that go to make art. It's an imitation of what the whole man sees, not just the eye, and sticks in your memory like an experience does.

Art is such a necessary thing for those of us who need to encapsulate the lessons we have learned, for future reference, lessons that for the sake of propriety or privacy cannot be stated in blunt terms. Yet art is only for artists, and is not always at the beck and call of convenience or mood.

(the orange eyes are drilling hotly into my back, I can feel breath panting behind me, it closes the narrow gap one pair of drumming feet desperate to escape and two pairs desperate to capture. One pair vault duck and slide spitting gravel clawing aside two pairs swinging wide and regaining the chase. The only thing keeping them behind is my will, only my will to stay ahead to stay above not to let it take over my life...)

You might like the gypsy life
You judge your progress by the phases of the moon
Get your compass and your sharpest knife
People love you when they know you're leaving soon ...

- John Gorka

I have nothing to say, really. My thoughts run in circles and I watch them run, lazily, knowing that they don't really matter...like children before they grow up...

The graduates that I used to know, who helped me through a rough childhood and mentored my struggles, are here for a visit. I look into their faces and try to see who they used to be, I remember the good times I had with them, the good times that are irrevocably part of my past and whose import I have not yet realized.

I smile and hug them and say hello how are you and listen patiently as they tell me. About their jobs, their homes, their wives or husbands and their lives.

And they look at me curiously, wondering who I am. And we both know that we may as well be strangers now, for what we shared then we share no longer. It's back there in the rearview mirror, a pleasant memory, but no more than that...I am sad, somehow, sad that the feelings I felt about them then can never come back. I'm standing on my own two feet now, I'm independent, and I have my own life in my own two clumsy hands. I now realize what my dad meant when he said not to worry about making friends in college, because I would never keep in touch anyway. There would be no reason to.

I have failed them, those "seniors", those friendly people who took me under their wing, an awkwardly old and ignorantly wise freshman. I have not passed on the gift of friendship they have given me, I have betrayed their kindness. I have not passed on the tradition of caring tacitly intended to be handed down from one class to the next. I did not have it in me. I did not have the moral strength to extend the same welcoming hand to my younger brothers and sisters. And I am ashamed, but unrepentant, for I cannot be other than who or what I am.

"changing it rests" as the fire and love and strife dude used to say, what was his name - Heraclitus? Heraclitus knew how to put it. The sand dunes blow into each other, shift and slide, but the desert stays the same, always changing and forever the same.

(wow. This was a long post, for a bitchy one.)

(Oh, and vacations really suck. I hate vacations. I intend to avoid vacations in the future. I simply don't know what to do with myself. Half of my two life activities, reading and working, are gone. It's awful!)

Suzi was undamaged except cosmetically. A long strip of road-rash on the right pipe, and a slightly abraded crankcase cover. No levers, fins or anything else was bent or broken. I was lucky.

I still feel like crap, like incompetent, like stupid, and the second helmet and dreams of riding friends places is now pushed far into the background. At least until my knee heals up and I forget the vertical horizon and the cliff gaping under the rear wheel. Never ever ever take a street bike on a dirt road. They ain't like cars. Maybe you can offroad in a Crown Vic but you sure as hell can't offroad in a Suzuki GS1100.

The Air Force Thunderbirds are flying out at Point Mugu this afternoon; I'm going to try and make the show after Linux class (if there is Linux class)

I dumped Suzi into the gravel yesterday. Braked into a turn on a gravel road, hit a bump, the throttle jiggled, and suddenly the back tire was in front of the front tire and the horizon was vertical instead of horizontal and gas was spilling out of the tank and my knees hurt. Prodigious swearing and rapid examination of all body and motorcycle parts ensued while I tried to think what to do.

I don't have time right now to tell the rest of the story.

I'm sitting here in Jobu's apartment listening to the cheery patter of old friends known for four years. The newly-24 is chortling over her beer at the half-intentional antics of our gracious host.

Iron and Wine slides coolly along in the background; wafts of cinnamon float from the oven. Jelen is busy over the apple slices.

It's been a long, long time since I've been to such a chill party.

I love my friends, all of them, but especially the ones right here with me....

I have mixed feelings about motorcycle maintenance. I'm probably not really the person who ought to own a tired old motorcycle with lots of, well, needs. I own a screwdriver, a small vice-grips, a 10mm wrench and a 12mm wrench. While it is amazing how much mileage I can get out of these four tools, it is also amazing how fragile 25-year-old bits of metal are, and how easily their threads are stripped. I have to retrain my automobile-clumsy 15-lb-foot hands to a kinder, gentler, 5-lb-foot touch. I have to think, -Japanese- , and act accordingly.

25-year-old bits of metal are one thing, but 25-year-old bits of WIRE and PLASTIC are an entirely different thing. One can easily replace a nut by a trip to the hardware store; one does not so easily replace a crumbled lightbulb socket. Or disassemble said lightbulb socket without crumbling everything else in the vicinity.

The only reason I survive is the fact that I have access to a tolerably-well-equipped maintenance shop with a good array of tools, place for disposing oil, and availability of D whom I can ask annoying questions.

So, till August, I should be set, but before I leave I better think about investing in some tools...

Why does function follow form whenever I'm trying to figure out the function?

(there's got to be a basis function to start from; why-ever can't I get rid of the importunacy of the form. it blots out the function like a mercury-vapor light.)

the disorganism of which statement demonstrates my point. Disorganism is not a word, which further demonstrates my point.

clearly. Anyway.

Today, I finish organizing literature for my research project, named Anthony. Named after the Wonder-Worker of Padua in hopes that I find what I'm looking for....heh, real simple.

I am convinced that there are some unclear things that ought not to be unclear, and the teachings of the Catholic Church on its own teaching "magisterium" ought not to be unclear. But they are. I love Germans. They invent new languages and hence new heresies.

So it's back to the last point at which they were clear, which I'm judging was probably about 1870 or so, or whenever the first Vatican Council was paused (indefinitely). Here's to hoping I can actually arrive at clarity, and that I will finally conquer form in favor of function.

minutes slide by like years
magnetic fields stretch and grate
intertwining kissing folds
tapping a beer bottle against my knee
staccato touch of toe to toe
minutes buzzing by like insects
chair frames creak in patterned silence
drawling voices merging braking
red light green light changing lanes
shifting dripping steaming cold
minutes dripping on the pavement

It's a lazy spring day and I'm wondering what the clover looks like in the field at home. Probably a lot like the bush mallow looks like in the wastewater disposal field here at school. I feel the sun blanket me in warmth. It's a lot colder at home. But at home there's a smell in the air, a smell of spring - here spring doesn't smell...

Dr. McLean shouts to be heard over the roar of the mill. "Attention please!"
Silence settles over the packed room.

"All theses of the class of 2007 have been turned in to the Dean!"

YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

"Whatever happened to that Tasik dude? He used to publish on this thing every other day. Has he found something better to do, or what?"

"No way man. He's just not the kind of guy to find something better to do. Chances are there just isn't anything bloggable happening in his life, you know, and he's said before that he really hates publishing filler posts."

"Yeah, I don't know, dude. Seems weird."

"Seems weird. Hey did you hear Lonnie bowled a 200 last night?"

I was speaking to a graduate of Notre Dame Architecture program last night and he claimed that "architecture is an art, not a science".

I think he might be right. The principles upon which the "science" of architecture are based are inherently practical. Will it stand up? How much will it cost? How long will it last? How will it fit my lifestyle? What kind of Place for Me will it be? All the rules of proportion are aimed to fulfill the answers to these questions.

Yet from principles there ought to be demonstration. Is there no demonstration in architecture? Is it not to be demonstrated that objectively the most pleasing configuration of a wall is one with an odd number of windows and an even number of buttresses, according to the configuration of the human who has an odd number of openings and an even number of supports?

People are weird. And stupid.

I'm going to go work on my th...

oww.

I liken my thesis to a large, half-carven oaken stump. With claw marks.

I'm going to be a good boy and go work on my thesis....

Writing something poetic would feel really good right now. *shifts keyboard on desk*

Reminds me of when I sit down with a blank piece of paper and a pencil with a subject in front of me waiting to be drawn. And I sit there with pencil poised over the paper. And I look at the pencil, and I look at the paper, and I remember that I have no time to draw right now.

I'm going to go work on my thesis.

It's Saturday!

I'm going to be a good boy and work on my thesis, so I can....

It's Friday!

I'm going to be a good boy and work on my thesis, and get my seminar readings done, so I can get to ride my bike this weekend! (in the rain?)

I love the new chain and sprockets, btw. Tis like getting a new transmission, or shaft drive, or something. I'm enjoying it while it lasts, or 600 miles till the new chain stretches and needs a tighten.

oh, this summer is going to be hell. I can see it coming from five miles away. I think I should find another job that I love better and other people that I love worse.

oh, never mind.

Really.

Shit.

(my profound apologies to all of you who have to put up with my dirty mouthfingers; I try to keep it to a minimum, but it won't go away, and I'm not enough of a poet to work around it. Sorry. Deal with it.)

someone grabs and squeezes the brake on the windlass and I slide

resurrection

the rope soaks in layers of skin

blood is running down my forearms over my shoulders

but I'm saved from the mossy stones

no longer falling no longer moving

now

if only the shreds can begin to climb

slimy hand over slimy hand

Yes, ordinarily I come back from a ride feeling like I'm on top of the world, but today I come back feeling like the world is on top of me.

I can't think. I did something stupid. I don't know exactly what it was. Maybe nothing.

I'm so screwed. What did I do?

what did i do what did you do what do you think you did orange eyes and a growl in the trees run dammit run, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide yes you are going to face consequences this time run run run faster i opened an old wound not far enough i didn't run far enough orange eyes and a growl and i forgot she hunts with the wolf RUN RUN dammit RUN FAST

there is not enough alcohol left in the closet

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

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

(because I was in a hurry)

Do I really want to go to architecture school?

Do I want to go to theology class this afternoon?

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

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

EXISTENTIALism! rain fog sparks and crackles.

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

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

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

ye gods...

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

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

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

Nonetheless, I want one.

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

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

Previously, uncut:

Sold

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

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

Vivere et cogito.

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

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

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

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

"Wait, how big is your motorcycle?"

"It's an 1100."

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

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

"And you think I can handle it."

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

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

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

Suzi's got glasses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...blogging. (ehem)

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

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

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

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

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

My head hurts.

There are too many people on campus.

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

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

I tell you, it's a subculture.

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

39 degrees O.A.T minus 70 mph wind chill. Anybody got numbers on that? (My stiff fingers tell me about 15 degrees).

All I can say is, a turtleneck, polyester fleece, lined cordura jacket, and a plastic armor vest are NOT NEARLY enough to keep core body temperatures from dropping to the convulsive-shiver point. (Adeomata, maybe you have some interesting analytical observations to make on the human body's response to windblast? or are you that far yet?)

An hour afterwards I was still shivering, though somewhat less convulsively.

(See, I had a courier run to make today at an inconvenient time making it necessary for me to alter my travel plans ahead a few hours. It was FREAKING COLD! (something in the nature of the human response to cold makes it necessary for me to state that in capital letters)

So, now I have an empty motorcycle, and a seriously overdrawn checking account. I tried at the gas station but they refused my debit card.

Looks like I'm holding still for a while. And given that it's still very cold outside, perhaps that is a good thing - I won't catch pneumonia.

A chilly winter morning, half a tank of gas in my motorcycle, and a seriously overdrawn checking account.

Ack. It's a Saturday! I wanted to do as much town stuff today as possible, and now I'm pinned on campus. And I'll have to call Dean and ask him to drive me to church tomorrow. Ack.

(College bookstore screwed up and finally debited my "lost" check at the worst possible time).

Time to mobilize the mercy resources. Thanks be to God I have a number of them.

I guess we all have to go through this at some point in our college lives.

I've decided it's a cross in disguise, that I brought it on myself, and no, don't ask because I won't explain. (I'm being cryptic. I'm sorry.)

Three people currently populate campus: myself, Saki, and the Sashinator. Soon to be joined by Isabella circa midnight.

I don't understand all the noises going on around here. I was walking down the campus road this evening after dark past the Bernards lot and heard, through the dead silence, an odd clicking noise coming from Sean's car. Sounded like automatic locks cycling on and off. I didn't go closer to investigate but continued my walk. Conversation with him later revealed that his car does in fact like to cycle its own locks, apparently from sheer boredom (or a short in the wiring)

Then there were these odd "thunking" sounds coming out of the empty kitchen. I was told that it was the ice machine, but gosh, that ice machine is noisy.

And right now there is a rumbling noise emanating from the ping-pong room. Like faraway thunder but not.

And now my monitor backlight is making a screaming noise. I'm signing off. Some spirits must be trying to get my attention....

I had a lovely Christmas with my San Diego family; my sleep deprivation melted away (or at least settled to the far background) in the topsyturvy bustle of a large household in which everyone including the (barely familiar) visitor is expected to make dinner. Chaos insued; but due to the apparently bottomless patience of these amazing people, it was pulled off (uh, searching for correct adjective; coming up short for correct adjective) ...well. And the food was good.

After supper we went to view the local Christmas light extravaganza, on foot, me with little girl on my shoulders and her scarf wrapped around my neck - it made an awfully effective rein...

Friends swelled the numbers after we got back home, and we made it a night of Irish music and dance. It's odd, there is so much talent buried in these little gatherings, so much talent that won't see the light of day except in the living room, and perhaps it is best that way.

Once we wore our feet out, we settled down to the Christmas tradition in this household: a 500-piece puzzle carefully sorted into three sections.

I finally left at eleven after trying for an hour. Oh, there's more I have to say and can't say it. I'm unsure how to take this blessing: I can never tell the difference between a blessing or a cross in disguise....

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

I hope you all get more sleep than I will tonight. I'm leaving at 7pm to drive JoBu to the airport, after which I am heading back to OLA for midnight mass, after which I set out for a small town north of San Diego called Poway. I ought to arrive around 6 am.

Somewhere between airport and church, I ought to grab an hour of sleep, in the drivers seat of the Nighthawk. We meet again after a long parting. I'm afraid of what I'll find wrong - will it be more than the flaky cruise control tonight? (Is JoBu taking care of her?) (Really?)

They are all insane. 1/4 of the way through, I conclude that all the characters are simply insane. The women are hysterical, the men have lost their wits, the children are monsters.

I like Tolstoy better. At least I can relate to his characters. I can't relate to Dostoevsky's people at all except on a blurred and passing level. My own moments of insanity are just that: moments.

Page 246. I like Ivan Karamazov. He asks difficult questions.

I need sleep. I can't read anymore. good lord, I need sleep...and I have to do lock up at 2 am. Thank goodness I'm not a prefect all the time...

"and if today I heard she was in trouble or needed me or if there was anything I could do I would do everything I could to help her. She doesn't even know me." Straight brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, the clearest hazel eyes in a sharp German face. Quiet, so quiet. An animal inside those eyes, patiently awaiting independence and and the patience is wearing thin. And when it breaks out no one will stop it. This house of cards will crumble before it.

I listen to the footsteps of the wolf. I can't get up, I don't want to get up. I am welded to her eyes and the goodness I want to be there. Her beautiful hazel eyes. It's a complete...

"Enough! Enough with the hazel eyes shit already! You gonna fight, or you gonna sit there and let me drink your blood?!"

...complete construct. It isn't real. The eyes aren't real. I made it all up. I'm in love with a fake. The hell with the hazel eyes. But they will never go away, they always circle back and haunt me, with the wolf. She goes hunting with the wolf.

But the wolf is real.

snarl

I roll over with my fists clamped to my ears. "There isn't...won't be any blood left for you to feed on, you cursed. Do you know where I am? Do you know where I'm going to be? I'm going so far away you'll never be able to find me. I'm going to go so fast, you'll never be able to catch me..."

The wolf crouches slowly, sheer contempt in its orange eyes. It knows, as I know, that I will never go so far, never go so fast, never hide so well that it and she, both of them, will never circle round to find me and hold my face to a broken memory like broken glass. If I heard she was in trouble I would do everything to help her...

Blogger is finally running as fast as it ought to be.

I just made a discovery: I can transport a week or more worth of groceries without even filling up the saddlebags. Motorcycles are fun AND useful!! 3.69 gallons of unleaded premium moves me 140 miles and costs $11. Motorcycles are fun and cheap, too!

Brothers K. is NOT reading as fast as I want it to, yet I feel like I'm flying through the book. I'm about to break 200 pages already. But I have 600 more to go...I'll never get to my thesis. Damn you TAC seminar schedule...

I'm tired and cranky. Steve invited the five or eight of us down to his house to watch movies. Heck, I say, I've already blown the evening grocery-shopping, why not blow the rest of it.

The bike is still warm, so I'm going to gocart down to the gatehouse. Save a few minutes that way, and after the movie maybe I can build a fire and make some small dent in the mountain of pages in BK. I wonder what movie Steve has lined up for tonight...last night it was Lady in the Lake, definitely not M.Night's best work, but it had its comic moments - good acting...

Alone, in the dark, but with a means of escape: a blazing fire, fake cocoa, and Brothers Karamazov.

I love Russian writers. And musicians.

I'm going to go wander back down to my dorm and call my parents before it gets too late. "Mom, Dad, I got through finals week and I'm ok. Sitting by myself down here. Work starts tomorrow. Yeah, I'll be busy. Maybe going to San Diego for Christmas. How cold is it? Really? Brrrrr. I'm going to go drink hot water with cocoa-flavored sugar mixed in with it and read stories about Russians before I go to bed. Yeah, sounds good. Talk to you later. Love you. Bye."

Shouldn't take me more than five minutes.

I'm blogging because it's half an hour before dinner and I have nothing to do.

I rode down to Howdy's this afternoon to pick up Suzi's shop manual. I like to get a repair manual for any substantial piece of machinery that I own as soon as possible so that, if it breaks, I won't be totally helpless.

I decided that today being nice and humid and warm, it would be a good day to tighten the girth, adjust the stirrups and rein and...ride onto the freeway. It was time. I'd been riding secondary roads in heavy traffic, curvy roads in light traffic, and now it is time to chip a few more off the eggshell. I rolled through town, reviewing in my mind all the things I'd heard and theorized about blind spots and high speed obstacle avoidance.

I sat at the red light across from the Chevron station, bouncing the forks, praying to the Blessed Virgin, and thinking to myself, 'ok tiger, this is it'. The next few minutes will determine whether or not a motorcycle is truly practical transportation for me, and in a more remote sense, whether or not I will spend the rest of my life as a hopeless cripple. Well, not thinking about that second part.

The light glowed green, I snapped on the blinker and handed out the clutch. The freeway ramp glistened satin in the late afternoon sun as I toed Suzi through all five gears. Hmmmming along the superslab at 60 mph, I thought to myself, hey this isn't all that bad. Here I am, with a massively broad, perfectly smooth road to ride on with no intersections, mailboxes, telephone poles or four-foot canals to slam into. And I'm sitting up high, I can see all around, and gosh, the wind smells good...

...and gosh (twisting the throttle slightly and pegging the needle at 70) hanging on is a lot of work...I wouldn't want to sit here holding these handlebars for dear life for hours on end....

...(twisting and pegging at 80) gosh this is a lot of work and not so much fun and (thunk) wait what's that slapping my backside slowing down, slowing down (detwist to 70, then 60) I can't turn and look damn those saddlebags I bet I look stupid, really stupid right now and a minivan passed me on the left. I looked sheepishly towards it, expecting someone to be gesturing toward my (apparently) loose and flapping bags. Thunk, slap thunk thunk. Okay, I'm not going to pull over in rush-hour traffic. I'll just ride another mile to the Main Street exit and deal with the mess then.

Off the freeway, jet across into the left turn lane and slow, all is calm 30 serene mph. I slow to a stop at the red light and kick into neutral. The bags had flapped up off the sides of the bike, twisted against the grab strap and twisted themselves into a truly ghetto-looking mess on the rear seat. Damn. I guess riding on the freeway with empty bags is not an option unless I keep the speeds below 70.

I cranked over to the bike shop, picked up the book, stopped by Target.

part deux

I had to pick up some highlighters, as I was out of them.

I found my desired el cheapo brand and made beeline to the express lane to make my $1.60 purchase. The cashier took a second look at me, a towering mass of cordura and plastic armor. "You a motorcyclist?"

"Yes" - poking my card in the slot - "I am."

"What kind of motorcycle"

"I uh, I ride an 82" - the machine spits out my card; I key the pin - "Suzuki GS1100."

"Ah. I ride Harleys. I like them."

I looked at her again. She was probably younger than I was, but didn't have a lot of piercings.

"Mm. I like my Suzuki....it's reliable..... gets good gas mileage....."

"Have a good day."

"Yeah, you too."

I think I have unwittingly taken my place in a new strata of society. Motorcycling is indeed a way of life, as I'm coming to learn, and those who ride come to know those who ride...(especially when those who ride have to walk around everywhere looking like, well, bikers...)

It should be interesting. It's kind of cool. We'll see what happens.

My question right now is this: Are Harley drivers and Jap drivers supposed to, well, get along?

I mean, is this like Chevy vs. Honda? What's the etiquette is in this strange new society? Am I supposed to even give the wave to these Harley dudes? So many new things to learn about...

Last final is over.

I hope I haven't failed. I don't think so, but at this school, that means nothing.

One more final to go, one more afternoon submerged in Aristotle. I hope the snorkel doesn't leak.

I had Suzi's brake lights fixed on Tuesday, coinciding with my second and final payment on the bike. She's all mine now, and even better, people can tell when I'm stopping. The brake light wasn't entirely awol before, but required absurd amounts of pressure to click into life, and thus only useful by squeezing the brakes gorilla-fashion when stopped. Did no good for the crucial slowing-down part.

But now it's all fine and properly touchy. Now I need to be disciplined about keeping my right toe from creeping foward off the peg and onto the rear brake lever, so I don't say "stop" when I'm not stopping. But that shouldn't be too hard.

Okay. Aristotle. (pushes chair back from desk) Let's do it.

What's cooler than a box of crayons?
A bigger box of crayons.

Philosophers disagree not on the distinctions made, but on which distinctions are important.
-Berquist

Longitudinal waves in the lunch line.

A falling leaf rotating about its axis.

A dull pain at the capital vertebra.

Lack of imagination, and bicycling in sand.

Suzi sounds good in a tunnel at 6000 rpm. *heh*
And 62 degrees + 55mph wind chill at the bottom of a valley is FRICKING COLD!!!! ((shivering))

Most important values:

Generosity, under which is comprehended the willingness to go to ridiculous lengths to do good to other people.

Reverence, under which genus is comprehended the species respect.

Respect for God.

Respect for parents.

Respect for friends.

Respect for nature.

Of these, respect may not be what it seems.

Ok, adeomata, I like the Pascalian approach better.

Masses of cumulus clouds pad the horizon and a gentle late-summer breeze dusts through the alfalfa fields as I pedal toward the empty intersection. I could smell freshly mown hay and alfalfa and listened to the rustle in the popple trees. A car or two swished by and left dents in the breeze. I sniffed the air and turned my head to let the airstream wash over the side of my helmet.

"I'm really going to miss this. I don't think they have sunsets this nice out in California. At any rate I'll be far too busy to enjoy them."

I couldn't breathe enough of the clean country air that had been shoved over thousands of miles of flat nothingness. I figured I'd miss it.

Fast forward four years...(heh. four years)...and I'm sitting on the crest of a ridge seperating the peaceful Upper Ojai Valley in the north from the populated bustle to the south. Faraway bustle, way-down-there in a shimmering carpet of streetlights. Up here, on this little mesa of weeds and sage, it is absolutely, frozenly, frighteningly still. I listen hard and the silence is deafening. The air smells of dust and citrus and vegetables and sage. The flat tinsel quilt that is Oxnard scintillates in waves. The sun has sunk behind the mountains on the western coast and left them fingers of rough lava thrust into a rim of fire. The lava rears out of the ocean in a couple humpbacked forms - the Channel Islands.

I had never seen such colors in the sky. I guess I had forgotten to look, or was paying too much attention to the nondescript smell of the breeze. My eye traveled from the place where the sun used to be, all the way up and over and across the hemisphere. Burnt-red orange yellow pink purple deep lavender to blue and all the way back to reddish blue again and then chalk-blue on the eastern horizon. The eastern mountains stood out chalk on chalk, beige against the blue. The moon hadn't risen yet, but I knew that when it did it would be a massive orange ball. SoCal moonrises are one of a kind.

Half an hour later I was striding down the gravel road in the dark. It took me twenty minutes to hike back to where I'd parked the bike, collapsible-chair and backpack a not-yet-uncomfortable weight against my back. I found all as I had left it- helmet clipped to the side lock, saddlebags untouched, bike still upright in the gravel patch. I slipped the helmet on, swung a leg over and thumbed the starter. The motorcycle growled quietly to itself and we glided away onto the twisting saddled ribbon otherwise known as Sulphur Mountain Road. It's a road that goes on and on, twists and turns and ducks and dives like a roller-coaster and you never know what the next turn is going to look like. Suzi handles a like a bike 2/3 her weight even at 20 mph.

I caught glimpses of Ojai through the trees as we slithered in second gear through twist after twist. The road warped right and left in the yellowed bar of the headlight beam. The tach and speedo glowed warm orange, both needles down and out of my peripheral vision. It was okay, I didn't need to know. I was going too slowly. A quick check showed 2000 at 25 mph. I quickly got a feel for how loud 30 mph exhaust note sounded, and went by that.

Something bounded away into the trees ahead. Maybe that doe I saw earlier, on my way up. Where there's one there's two. I passed the spot and glanced around, no animal life in sight.

It seemed like fifty twists later before we finally plunged into the cold lake of air at the bottom of the valley. Business as usual now. The road shook itself straight, we coasted up to the stopsign behind the dumpsters, and carefully nosed out into the two-lane, headed home. I'd make it back for supper after all.

Thanksgiving break was peaceful and relaxing and properly vegatative. I spent it at Kakashi's house and partook of a real family Thanksgiving dinner, numerous sessions of youtube-watching, two episodes of the Simpsons, an EXCELLENT movie (the 'Proposition') video games and various other time-wasting activities. It was nice.

I also took the opportunity of being in the vicinity of a 'Beverages and More' to replenish my stock of liquor with a seventy-five of Fighting Cock bourbon. Supposed to be pretty good stuff. We'll see. I also aquired (finally!) some proper shot glasses. Goodbye to the days of drinking out of teacups; may they never return.

I need to get some work done on my thesis. Now that the bike project is off my mind, I ought to have the leisure to do so.

Well, this is only a filler post, I've got nothing to say, and I'm waiting for a phone call. I'm going to go back to the Communist Manifesto (interesting reading btw, I highly recommend it).

Happy T-day, ya'll.

"Suzi"



Not bad for 24 years old, eh?

Kakashi: "Do you have to take pictures NOW? It's almost dark outside!"

Tasik: "But I want to have something to post - it's been days now."

Kakashi: "The pictures are going to suck."

Tasik: "I don't care, alright. We'll take better pictures later."

Kakashi: (grrrrrr)

Tasik: "And don't bother editing them."

Kakashi: (grrrrr)

Dang it, Blogger is being recalcitrant.

I'll try uploading pictures again tomorrow.

Spent an hour or so on Sat. practicing threshold braking. Managed to lock up rear wheel numerous times (one of which sent me into a scary skid - a good education in what not to do). I did not succeed in locking up front. This big girl hauls herself down in a hurry - braking from 30 mph seems to require a lot less distance than in a car.

Smooth, oh so smooth...I just can't get over that lovely four-cylinder resonance (and it's only on stock pipes!)

Whilst commenting on another blog and typing the phrase " '82 Suzuki GS1100E" it came to me that the perfect name might very well be the make abbreviation in the title transfer form.

Year Model - 82
Make - Suzi
License plate # - etc.

Suzi.

It's smooth. It's red.

I think it will work.

Just blew fifty bucks on a cheap bike cover, a quart of motorcycle oil, and a can of Blue Magic chrome polish.

The flying blue shadows are still imprinted on my memory. I haven't felt this good in a long time. A very long time.

When I was little I wanted to fly. Now I'm partially realizing that desire...

I found her! I found her! And she's mine! (dreams do come true)

Not sure what to name her yet, but she's the same age I am, and purrs like a...cat. It's a Suzuki 1100 (yes, an 1100cc) seventy-four-thousand miles old, and has the well worn, well oiled feel of an old leather boot. It's faded metallic red, all the pipes and metal glowing in sheer mechanical beauty. Not a spot of rust (except maybe under the exhaust pipes somewhere) And because it has a real engine, I can feel the exhaust note in my chest (crazy grin).

I drove her into town this morning to fill her up with gas. It was a beautiful experience, the cold wind pressing my jacket and visor, the blue shadow blur EVERYWHERE, the engine gently warm against my knees and seat, the exhaust grrrrrrsnaprrraprrrring to itself.

I'm in love.

I can't go on about it, because it's lunchtime, but pics are coming soon, I promise....)

I successfully completed the MSF Basic RiderCourse last weekend. I highly recommend it; it's fast paced, but fun, and you learn to do just about any low-speed maneuver you want to do with a street bike. You learn to swerve, u-turn, ride over 2x4's, and stop fast. Well, sort of fast. We didn't actually do any threshold braking where you get up to speed then haul it down at the squeal limit. But we did practice fast stops in turns, the whole straighten-up, square-bars and hammer the brakes. We were taught never to brake where the bike isn't perpendicular to the ground, always turn the head in the direction we want to go, always downshift while braking, so on etc and so forth.

I passed the final riding test with zero points (points are negative), and was given a completion card by Bob who had to stand on a chair to reach (all the MSF instructors' names are Bob. If anyone messes up, it's Bob's fault.)

Now all I need to do is carve a sliver out of next week and go to the DMV and get my motorcycle endorsement. The light approaches from the end of the tunnel...

I also bought my upper-body armor and jacket. Elbow guards, armored vest and a plain old cortex jacket. Now I'm covered with more armor than an LA cop. Nothing fancy, although I did spend time staring wistfully at the $500 Italian leather togs...

All's I need now is knee armor, rainproof pants, some kind of neck protection, and boots.

Oh yes, and a motorcycle. That part of it is...uh, not progressing....

And my muse is lost in the desert. I hope she finds her way out of it soon, because I'm getting frustrated...

I will welcome the rain, the cold, anything to wash down this convulsed atmosphere. Rain will melt the edges, slick the rough surfaces, calm the hurricane and maybe even bring my appetite back.

Okay, that was random.

I'm still watching the craigslist parade, watching and waiting for that perfect deal on a mid-80's Suzuki 500cc naked-frame. Less-than-perfect options march by, an '89 Honda CBR F1 that's been lowsided and has 51,000 miles, an '82 Honda 550 that's hardly been ridden, sundry and divers 250's, and then there was that '83 GS1100E that Howdy had. I was a bit taken with it, actually. In spite of it's wretched-excess bulging-valve-covers four cylinder massiveness and expected 35 mpg, it was clean, a burnt-orange color, and looked pretty damn comfortable. I wouldn't mind putting away a few freeway miles astride that beast. The question is, would I mind filling up as often as your average Geo Metro driver....

But I'm getting impatient now. I have a thesis to work on, and I don't have the time to always have motorcycle shopping in the back of my head. I just want to get a bike and a cover and luggage and park it and not think about it. I need to think about other more important things.

I got me a lid.

And so it begins...

MSF course starts next Wednesday.

I still haven't found a bike. Apparently 450-500 CC's go like hotcakes here in SoCal. A 250 is just too small for me, and an 1100 is too damn big and wasteful. Where's my happy medium?!

The coffee shop somehow seemed far too noisy and bright, even from my corner underneath the potted plants. The misty darkness outside looked inviting and comforting, so I wandered out into the cold. Hands jammed into pockets, I slogged across the muddy lawn, mind sliding on three inches of cloudy ice into a blurry snowbank. Two hours of Hegel, two other hours of not looking anyone in the eye in a crowded room, I was tired of it, tired of people, tired of all the nameless things that remain nameless because I have no more energy to give them shape.

There were only five cigars left in the box. I dimly remembered Kakashi's voice echoing into my sleepfogged ears: i'm grabbing one, and my reply, you're buying the next box, and his rejoinder, i don't care.

I couldn't sit down anywhere though. I hate it when I can't sit down and have a peaceful smoke. This is my campus, dammit. I've been here four years, literally, and I should be able to sit wherever the hell I please. . Apparently I wasn't the only one who found the night an inviting place to be; there were people everywhere in the dark. Voices of couples whispering and giggling followed my back as I crept restlessly from darkened bench to darkened bench. I had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

I finally sat down on a relatively deserted, dimly lit flight of steps and sucked on my cigar for a while. Eventually the mist began to soak into the back of my collar, and determinate shapes began to soak into my mind. The slick feel of the remote on my car keys as I placed it into John's hand, the aged-leaf feel of the monstrous wad of twenties I got in return, a day later. It's going to hit me sooner or later. I know it will. I no longer own a car. I no longer possess a possession that I sank heart and soul into getting and keeping for five years, and WHY THE HELL DOESN'T IT MAKE A DENT? Why does it seem like Nighthawk's only sleeping as they pull the sheet up over her clay wings? Why am I sitting here staring vacuously out into the fog, still sliding over the ice, three inches of protection between me and any disaster in the world?

(I still don't feel very intelligent.)

I'll write up something soon. I promise...stuff has happened, my life is different, and I'm not used to it.

(That didn't sound very intelligent.)

(I don't feel very intelligent.)

(Maybe I better post tomorrow.)

(Yeah.)

I need to find a good motorcycle helmet and appropriate armor. Was planning on heading down to CalCoast Motorsports this afternoon to check out such. I'm really on the fence about colors. My favorite color is glowing blood-red, but flame orange or yellow is going to be more visible, and therefore more safe. Is my vanity a worthy tradeoff for safety? Do I really care?

This is SoCal, remember. There are more cars than people and more people than roadspace.

But yellow is such a painful color...

I turned in my thesis proposal at 9 pm last night. If I wasn't such a lazy bastard I would have had that done a week ago and my conscience would have lain in peace for a whole week, and I would be that much less ragged today...I just don't know what's good for me.

overpass walls glow dusty in my insect-yellowed brights
graffiti tangles boldly with mirages from the day

I hear the cold wind rushing lulling me to sleep
I hear the engine breathing rushing me to death

I snap wide with a jerk the car's across the road
mountain fills the window frame terror fills my blood

I hear the cold wind rushing keening through the rift
fingers stiff and shoulders straight and glass driven deep

overpass walls glow dusty in their insect-yellowed brights
graffiti tangles boldly with strobes and blue and red