It was the week before college graduation, and my friends and I had been drinking all afternoon. We were just starting to talk about dinner when a guy named John walked into the bar. He was still wearing his motorcycle helmet.I didn't know him, but my friends did. Somehow, dinner thoughts turned to a local favorite: Brooks BBQ (it still ranks as the best I've ever had). Since no one wanted to leave the bar, John offered to go pick it up. For reasons I can't remember, he needed an assistant, and since I loved motorcycles (my first boyfriend and I used to ride his dirt bike all over the fields in upstate NY), I volunteered.John was the only one who hadn't been drinking.It was a 10 or 15 minute ride on the expressway, and on the way there, John's spare helmet was merely resting on my head. The straps were left dangling. 
Brooks BBQ - Oneonta, NYAfter we picked up the food, we were about to take off when John happened to notice the straps hanging down on either side of my head. He scowled at me, said something about how dangerous that was, and tied them extra tightly for emphasis.
We were halfway back to the bar - doing 60-65 mph on the expressway - when I felt the bike begin to swerve from side to side. I got mad because I thought he was showing off. I didn't think it was funny at all.
Turns out the back tire had just blown. Luckily, John was a good enough rider that he kept the bike from somersaulting. Instead, he tried to ride it out (thus the swaying). In the end, the bike fell on top of us and we slid for I don't know how long. I would guess maybe 20 or 25 yards? Who the hell knows - it could have been 50.
When the bike finally stopped, I got up and started walking. Luckily, there weren't a lot of cars on the road. It seemed like less than a minute before some woman stopped and picked me up and took me to the hospital.
I just left. I don't remember a single thing about the accident or what it looked like. I found out later that John had been pretty seriously injured.
It was a good thing John tied my helmet so tightly, because one entire side was shaved off by the time we stopped. The strap had made deep cuts into my chin. My jeans and sweatshirt were torn clean through, and my left cheek, arm and leg were missing quite a bit of skin. I'll never forget the wire brush they had to use at the hospital to get the rocks and grit out of my face. Painful.
That was the last time I was on a motorcycle: May of 1985 (Damn ... 22 years? Yikes). I did drive a moped once (I was vacationing on an island and had no choice), but then I got scared and crashed it into a brick wall. I was also a passenger on a moped once (in Hawaii last April, with Bambi driving), and I was quietly terrified.
Being around Tea these last few weeks has made me want to get back on a motorcycle (well, a dirt bike, anyway). I have no desire to be on the road, but the idea of paths and trails sounds fun. The problem is, her bikes seem too big.
Well, Tea has solved that problem by acquiring a 1978 Yamaha YZ80. It's not a gift or anything, but it's being kept at my house and she's going to teach me to ride it.
It's yellow. I like it. I'm going to scrub and polish it until it's shiny.
If it turns out I'm too chicken to ride it, well, at least I'll be able to enjoy looking at it.
Town in Country - 2006
A biker soars through the air after taking a jump on the advanced track.I had never been to a dirt bike track before yesterday - to be honest, I'd never even thought about the fact that they existed.It was therefore something of a surprise to find that on any given weekday, there are a 100 or so dirt bike enthusiasts ripping up the tracks in Lake Elsinore (a desert community 90 minutes southeast of Los Angeles, and yes, the lake is very man-made). I'm told that number swells to a few hundred on weekends .
It was fun watching Tea run the track (one of the intermediate tracks, mind you), since riding is something she's so wholeheartedly passionate about. She set me up by the truck with a comfortable chair and a small desk thingie so I could work, but even though I managed to edit a few chapters of something new I've been writing, most of my time was spent watching Tea make practice laps.
Tea starts up one of the two vintage bikes she hauled out to the track.
After she finished riding (only one crash!), we decided to find a place to stay the night. We got a room at a cheap-but-cheerful motel and rested for a while, and then it was time to hit the mean streets of Lake Elsinore.
There was clearly no choice but to play some Blackjack at the old-school Casino across the street.
It was an exciting five minutes.
We were suddenly broke, and that's when a good-natured guy named Bill started chatting us up. Tea introduced herself as Tess and I followed her lead by becoming Kate, and Tess and Kate graciously let Bill buy them drinks for the rest of the night. Throw a few other oddball casino patrons into the mix (a party girl visiting from London was particularly amusing in a scary kind of way) and a good time was had by all.
The casino looks like an etxremely cool piece of Americana at night ...
... But reveals its tired side in the light of day.
I had a great time on my little getaway. You learn a lot about someone when you travel with them, and I learned that Tea is easy to be around and doesn't get on my nerves (she's also pretty relaxed when certain people who are supposed to be reading the map miss the exit and/or go the wrong way). An added bonus? I was never bored. A shocking development? She not only beat me in Scrabble, she kicked my ass.
The whole trip almost made me want to ride a motorcycle again, but after what happened to me on a bike more than 20 years ago, I'm not sure that will ever happen (it's a good story, but I'll save it for another day).
That track sure did look fun, though ...
Life got a whole lot better today when news came that the agency I've been talking to in New York has decided to represent The Falling Joys.
I mean, I think they're going to. The email sure made it sound that way. I'll know more after I speak with them tomorrow.
It's hard not to jump ahead in my mind - to imagine selling the book and actually seeing it get published - but I'm trying my best. Luckily, I have a seriously superstitious side (I had to mail the rewrite from the same post office I mailed the first draft, had to use the same color Sharpie on the box, needed the first person who read/edited the manuscript to be the last, etc). This means I'm terrified of jinxing the next step by assuming an outcome. If anything, my tendency is to underplay the potential.
(Okay, so I walked around the house earlier turning the words "book-book-book-book" into a truly retarded chicken sound ["book-book-book-bawwwk!"]. It was a momentary lapse of karmic judgment - not to mention a clear lapse of anything resembling cool. I'm over it now.)
So. I might get to have a book.
This is an idea that appeals to me.
It's hard to focus on losing weight when you're starting to like someone. When they call you up and say they feel like pizza and ask if you'd like to join them, it's hard to say no just because you know pizza is off-limits.
So you instead say to yourself, "I'll only have one small piece. And I won't eat the crust."
You say it because what you really want isn't the pizza (although it does sound pretty damn good) ... you want to see the person you like.
Then you get to the restaurant and there's salad and good beer and when the pizza comes it smells amazing and you eat your one piece and you know you should stop but then there's the part where you have to try a piece with eggplant because you've admitted that you haven't tasted eggplant in like, 15 years and you know that if you don't step up and try it you'll look like a stick-in-the-mud with no sense of adventure.Suddenly, there's a second piece of pizza on your plate. One with eggplant.
Unfortunately, it was good. I was shocked. I ate almost the entire piece.
Like I said up top - dieting and dating don't mix.
I'm sure some of you are thinking that what I should have done was told Tea that I couldn't eat pizza, or wasn't in the mood for it, or suggested somewhere else to go.
No.
This is the first time in ... I don't know, maybe forever that I've started seeing someone without making my weight an issue. It hasn't even been mentioned in conversation - not once - and I haven't felt particularly insecure about it. Tea does know I'm in the throes of some no-pot-lose-weight-blog-experiment thing, but that's about all she knows.
Now, with all that said, I also realize that I need support when it comes to the diet, and if I'm going to keep seeing Tea (the red flags, by the way, are feeling increasingly insignificant), I'll have to find ways to get my dieting needs across without making them a constant topic of conversation.
Even though I'm not used to emotional balance when it comes to my weight, it feels very freeing to not be worrying about it.
The Self-Sabotage Monkeys were out in force today, hitting me between the eyes on two different fronts: career and romance.I hate it when they do that.First, the career. I sent the revised Falling Joys draft off to the agent this afternoon, and the second I walked out of the post office, the monkeys began their obnoxious chatter. What if it's not good enough? What if there are mistakes? What if you didn't go far enough? What if you went too far? They're not going to like it. Stop dreaming.
When I told them to shut up and mind their own business - after all, it's a very good manuscript, and if this agent doesn't take it, another one will - all they did was laugh.
I hate the way monkeys laugh.
But if I managed to quiet the little shits on the manuscript front, I had a much harder time on the personal front.
I recently met a very cool girl with a strange name and an even stranger nickname - let's just call her Tea for now - and we had an excellent first date. We were supposed to go out to some bar, but Tea has a foosball table in her apartment (a big place on a hill not far from me that would cost a fortune if she hadn't rented it years ago), so we played foosball and drank champagne and she DJ'd a great mix of old vinyl (The Stooges, Buzzcocks, The Stones, etc). She kicked my ass in foosball (I dug that) and a good time was had.
At the end of the night it became clear that there was definite mutual chemistry, and I wasn't seeing any red flags. Tea is old enough to take seriously (39), has a good job (film/tv editor), is smart, makes me laugh, has interesting hobbies (racing vintage dirt bikes, making short films, collecting records), seems emotionally balanced, and (not for nothing) is incredibly easy on the eyes. She's a definite California native (words like "rad" and "dude" are on the table), but I actually find that kind of cute.
Anyway, the date ended on a very good note, and I had nothing but positive thoughts. The good vibe continued today, when she called and invited me to lunch (oh yeah - I should mention that the only drawback here is that she works the graveyard shift at a network - as in 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. - and then sleeps until noon. It's not ideal).
The monkeys began their evil chatter as soon as she picked me up. You don't look as good as you did at night, when the warm glows and champagne softened everything. Now it's the harsh light of day. She's thinking twice. You know she is. She's figured out you're overweight. Your hair looks shitty. She's 5'3" and weighs like, 120 pounds - get real. She wishes she hadn't kissed you. She just wants to be friends. Duh.
Nevermind that we had a very nice lunch, and that a few flirtatious lines were dropped. Nevermind that we've talked on the phone twice since then and had good conversations. In Karen's monkey brain, if someone's not overtly telling you they're into you, they're probably not.
For the most part, I stood my ground today. I know the manuscript is good, and I certainly have a shot at getting representation. I like this girl Tea, and there might actually be some potential there (if I can possibly manage not to act like a total freak).
But I have to admit, I really hate those god damn monkeys.
