And some unpopular opinions

Update:
1.) I went on a Monday Night Ride, for the first time in a long time. I only went for one reason. Keep that in mind when you tell me how busy you are.

2.) I think the Mandarin teacher is hot for my boyfriend. I could get offended and snap her in two. Or I could sell him to her in exchange for an “A.”

3.) I fucking hate laundromats.

4.) Saturday was spent roaming around the city, drinking, shopping for computer stuff, and bitching about the Love Parade. What a useless distraction. There’s an honest-to-goodness peace rally at one end of the downtown, and then there’s this bullshit blinky thumpy tripe. Way to go, idiot electronica consumers. And for fucks sake, don’t get all starry eyed and preachy about the importance of the electronic dance community. Call it what it is: a bunch of blinky blinky bullshit. Your 5-year old has more sophisticated interests. Oooh! TWELVE LIVE DJ’s! Stop the presses. But not traffic, not for that.

5.) Sunday I went to volunteer at the Rider Survival Skills Day in La Honda. It’s a fundraiser for the La Honda Volunteer Fire Brigade. I watched some fantastically bad parking jobs, and saw some really neat old bikes. Including, finally, a GSXR even I wanted! Oooh! I feel so squidly!

6.) Tuesday we went and saw Marisa off on a nice hangover.

7.) The grief is unimaginable. And yet I keep catching myself imagining it. At least, the not-knowing is over, but the conditions make it a new kind of hell. For those of us on the periphery, looking in, it is sad and confusing. For those in the middle of it, my heart goes out to you. As little as I knew Melinda Moore, I did enjoy her and find her inspiring. I don’t want to hear that you knew her, or that we lost one of the good ones, or a hero, oh, another one got taken from us, or some crap.* Of course you knew her; if you rode in the area and didn’t ever meet her, you weren’t fucking riding enough. Remember her the way you remembered her a month ago; death is not a glorifying event. This is the part where everyone is going to bring up some other riders that died in the past couple of years. It’s not the same. It never is. It’s a personal hell for her family and fiancé, and my sincerest thoughts are with them. But to say that it is my own pain, would be insincere. I wonder, and it brings me such sadness to think of the mistake, and the things that were left behind, and the journey that the close people will have to start, but it is not my story. And if its not yours either, just shut the fuck up, offer your condolences, celebrate the life as it was , not the death as you imagine it, and take care of those in your own life. Goodbye Big Red. I hardly knew you, but somehow you always remembered my name. I doubt you were a hero, but you had people in your life who love you. May they find their peace with and without you somehow.
(*I’m still hearing about Sean Crane from people I’m pretty sure barely knew him. Let him rest, people. Let it be as it was, not as you wish it to be.)

8.) We are considering hopping on our bikes early Saturday morning to go to Reno to watch Supermoto, and returning that evening when they are over. I think this means I’m a Beemer guy, even though I don’t have a Beemer.

9.) Mandarin is retarded. Tonal language: a very stupid idea.

10.) I’ve been thinking a lot about life paths and compromise lately. I’m aware of compromise in my life but the very thought of it seems to offend people. Case in point: Going to the Academy of Art, I guess everyone is supposed to want to be some faaaabulous fashion design queen. Actually, I very much knew I wanted to get into costuming. Until somewhere toward the end of my time there, when I realized that Costuming: the Career, was totally not for me. I loved the art, but it would mean finding a new job after each project, it meant low pay, no job security, no insurance, no benefits. Maybe it’s because I was going into the hospital more than my peers, but that didn’t seem OK for me. So, OK, I guess Fashion, I mean, that was my major after all. Well, a few weeks into the job search, it looked real bleak. Nothing remotely creatively interesting in the Bay Area. What’s left of the Fashion Design jobs is mostly in LA or New York. Crisis. I got desperate, started looking at other fields. People were still hiring for every goddam thing in the computer industry at that time. Internet crap, whatever, I needed a job. I got really lucky, I guess, at the job I landed, when I’d really given up hope for an apparel industry job. But the thing I wasn’t willing to do was move. I have family here, and I love the area too much to move out to where the better jobs are. Even though I’d spent 4 years in school chasing the degree, the job wouldn’t be worth it to me.

If someone tells you they don’t compromise, they are full of shit, or an incredibly boring person. For everything you give up, you get something else. For everything you decide is non-negotiable, you will find something that is, if you look. And that’s how your values grow and develop. If you’ve never sat down and acquainted yourself with the choices you’ve made, the things you’ve weighed against each other to put you on your path, you really don’t know where your values are taking you.

So I ask you, what are the compromises you have made in your life, and what do they tell you about yourself?