Thursday, June 30, 2005

My horoscope

Leo: (July 23—Aug. 22)
You won't listen to the many people who tell you that your lover is bad for you until it's too late and you're almost completely finished devouring his corpse.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

All that's left

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

Henri Nouwen
Out of Solitude








Comments:
Marisa


...

Thank you.
Posted by Marisa on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 at 6:29 PM

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Today's Horoscope

courtesy of the onion:
Severian
(August 1—Sept 6)
You will be unable to shake a deep feeling of unutterable sadness as you roam the world with a scruffy band of misfits at the end of history, performing the occasional execution in your search for your lost mother/lover and a way to rekindle the dying sun.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

The "Biker Lifestyle" I keep hearing so much about

Arriving home at 10:15 pm, and having no clear idea of how to digest where you've been and all you've done in the past 48 hours, remembering that at 0:01 you were watching teenagers get thrown out of a gas station in a place called "Arvin," you pulled into Pismo Beach at 3am, watched the sun rise over the San Antonio Reservoir, checked in and later out of a hotel room in King City, and had dinner in San Jose, sometimes you just have to say "Damn, I know for sure that I am just way more hardcore than you all."


PS: the SV has just rolled 20K
more later.


Comments:
hicksmokey


always happy ta hear tales of the road...yer never one ta just sit around spike, glad ta hear it...
Posted by hicksmokey on Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 2:49 PM

Friday, June 10, 2005

In case you don't hear from me again

I’m super swamped.
This week, my sister was in town, which turned out to be kind of maddening, not because of her. Her husband is getting real weird, and I get annoyed easily. They are hill people. Really, I mean, I always sort of joked about it, but this week I realized it wasn’t really a joke. Jeff picked up a grifter cuz, he’s dumb, (and I still think because he’s avoiding my sister) and my sister thinks doesn’t seem to grasp that Einstein might not have been a native speaker of English (incidentally, he didn’t learn to speak until 3 or 4, and was apparently never very comfortable with English). They were both pretty clueless about the grifter they’d accumulated, and, feeling angry about it, Paul and I chipped in extra on dinner. So I guess in the end, we all got played. Because Jeff is a dumbass. Whatever. Total turnoff. I love them, and hope for the best, but episodes like this don’t give me hope

Then getting ready for the Cal24. I mean, really, bare minimum, I’m sure there are a lot of other things we could/should have done to get ready, but whatever. New tires left me without a speedometer for a bit, but Paul jumped in and fixed it. We leave at noon today, and we’ll see what happens. I fully expect to be cranky and throwing something of mine that is broken at 4am in Fort Bragg or otherwise, then apologizing for my behavior later. Also expect to be playing the “blinky game” and hopefully having the good sense to pull over and nap or caffeinate at some point, and also spend a lot of time cursing my decision to attempt this thing at all. Hopefully, I won’t give up, and will finish. I have no goal to get points or win or place; just finishing would be pretty cool.

After that, it’s Father’s Day weekend. Kansas for two days, then back in time to take my dad to dinner. Restaurant is still up in the air. Any suggestions? Somewhere in San Jose, Palo Alto, etc. Hopefully not TOO TOO expensive, cuz we is broke-ass, and somebody has to pay for the SV forks upgrade I’m getting soon.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Wildflowers and Squidiots and Old Friends

The weather this year has been kind of fucked. Still raining into June, and the conditions are unique because of it. Saturday we rode the Santa Cruz hills. Coach Road was like I’ve never seen it before. One of the neat things about Stage and Coach Roads (same road, different parts) is that you can see through a lot of the corners, as instead of hillsides and redwoods, you get these valley fields of low, brown grass to look through. The road is wide and undivided, but somewhat bumpy, if you have shit sportbike suspension. Perfect on the dualies. Anyway, point is, normally, this is a brownish grassy affair, but because of the weird rain this year, the grass was GREEN and like 10 feet tall, and there were wildflowers everywhere. Fucking gorgeous!

Saturday ride, very good. Must get out on the roads more. Really, no fucking around. Oh, and I have gotten so pathetically slow. Even YOU could keep up. Yeah, you.

Sunday was a mixed bag. My tolerance for the ride portion of the day drops a little every year, and I think I’m done. On the one hand, I insisted on going because I love to see everyone, before the ride, in Port Costa, and then at the party, but now I know I can’t tolerate the bullshit ride in between. So as we started going up the hill and I saw the Biker Boyz bullshit happening around me, I gave up: Slow down, put my hand in my lap, follow a minivan up the hill. Why on earth I had to witness some fuckup on a sportbike passing a car in a hairpin WITH A PASSENGER, to race to the next waiting point, I have no fucking clue. You, sir, are a dumbass. And your girlfriend is an idiot to ride with you. Multiply this by however many riders there were. Yeah, here’s a news bulletin:

1.) Riding in the Oakland hills sucks even on a good day. Too many cars and bicycles, and hardly any road anyway.
2.) The Port Costa run is like thirty miles (Or less?) with a lot of stopping and waiting in between to get the stragglers.
3.) The route NEVER changes.
4.) The cops know this, and are EVERYWHERE. (remember the year they followed us with helicopters?)
5.) Please advise what the hell you are racing for?

Paul and I decided at the gas stop (every year’s first stop. Again, did you all not know we were going to go for a ride?) that we would just take off and go straight to Port Costa, but unfortunately, a bunch of people followed us. I actually suggested ducking into Safeway, but it seemed silly. By the time we got into the lower part of the hills, it was boy racer dumbass time all around, and of course there were already cops waiting for the arrivers at the wall. That’s fine by me, as I do not need to ride like a dumbass to have a good time, particularly on the silliest ride of the year. Paul and I took off without pause at the wall, and had ourselves a nice, leisurely ride out to Port Costa. Not speeding. (Surprise, surprise: cops everywhere!) How many of the other riders saw the wildflowers and turkey vultures and goats and squirrels and tractors with kids and dogs in them? Not as many as saw their names written on speeding tickets.

Port Costa was fun, though, and we took off back through the hills (not freeway), pulling into a dirt turnoff to explore some crap just off the road. Beautiful vistas of the reservoir and valley. More squids getting tickets. (what, you were surprised to see cops?!?!)

The party was moved, sadly off the street, but still a good time. Many of the old faces never showed, and that was a bummer. I got silly on a little beer, on account of no food, and then punchy, and then tired, and then decided to take off.

The moral? I gotta start picking my battles more carefully. I know I hate riding with squidiots, and next time, we'll bypass the gas stop and the wall. I'll see you all in Oakland and Port Costa.
More ideas on how to make things fun, lest it just gets tired.
More quality time with quality people. If the danger and fun stupid shit are over, that's fine, but being left with quiet company means the quality counts a lot more.

Seeing the same people once a year makes it real clear to me who's moving and who's not. I've known so many of these people for years and years, and although I was never part of the tight-knit family part, I can see very clearly that I don’t want to fit in too much.
-If you’re talking to me about too much drama, I am delightfully clueless. I’m not even fed up with your “drama,” I just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Fabulous!
-If your answer to “what’s new” is still “same old,” every year, what the hell is wrong with you?!?! You’re not getting any younger! Worse, though, is the visible downward spiral I see on some people.
-Overhearing someone talk about herself and “all the other girls in the scene,” makes me want to start slapping people. Wake up! THERE IS NO SCENE. We are all adults, with lives to make and enjoy, and growth to push for and foster, in ourselves and those around us.

Fortunately, several old friends I talked to were full of exciting news: trips to Baja, bikes back on the road, adventures on and off road, jobs, travel… LIFE. Everyone else: it's time, you are of age, make it happen.


Comments:
Marisa


Reading this makes me so happy I missed the ride for the first time since before 2000 to sing my very first paid role.
:)
Posted by Marisa on Monday, June 06, 2005 at 9:19 PM

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Today's Horoscope

(courtesy of the onion)
Leo: (July 23—Aug. 22)
You've never been afraid to learn the lessons of history, which is why your solution to everything is nuking Japan.