Karma must be exacting a little payment from me today. First I went down with my bike—again while not going anywhere. This time it was that my right foot didn’t clear the trunk bag as I dismounted. Why hello thar, driveway pavement!
This afternoon I was walking down the steps to the French Broad Co-Op’s back parking lot, thinking how pretty that little area is, a garden oasis between two parking lots, and bam—twisted my ankle. First word out of my mouth: “Fuck.” Next: “Ow. Ow.” Then, as I hopped around: “I’d better be able to ride tomorrow.” I think I’ll be okay. I’m more concerned about the heel of my right hand, which I apparently bruised on the driveway. It hurts most when I’m shifting in the car. Can’t wait to see how it feels on the handlebars in the morning. Meanwhile I’m alternating an ice pack between the two owies.
My plan for this morning was to buy Lewis Black tickets as soon as the public on-sale started at 9:00 and then bike down to the tailgate market for yummy fresh produce, but at 9:00 I realized that the on-sale was actually 10:00, leaving me with an hour to…do what with? It was enough time to ride to the market and back, but not enough time to browse all the yummy produce. If I waited till after the presale to ride, it’d be hot outside, and I’d be in a rush then, too, because we had plans for lunch. So I headed out around 9:10, went my usual route to the dead end, then came back and cruised past the mouth of our road, kept going past my previous turn-around spot, climbed a new hill, and came home. In all: 4.1 miles, and I was back in the house by 9:50.
We scored seats in the center orchestra pit for the Lewis Black show in Charlotte. Badass.
After I showered and drank breakfast (mmm banana peanut butter smoothies) and got some reading in, we met Neil for an early lunch at Nine Mile on Montford. The place just opened about a month ago. Jamaican food, tasty, and the meals are very reasonably priced, especially for lunch.
After that, we headed downtown to catch the kick-off of this year’s World Naked Bike Ride. Except it started pouring rain. We got soaked and missed seeing any bikers. We might have been there at the wrong time, too. The website I was going by said 1:00pm; others say 2:00pm.
(Incidentally, I got an email from my step-daughter, who’s interning at SCAD this week, with a link to info on the bike ride and one line: “don’t take dad.” Hahaha. Whoops.)
This afternoon, I finished reading Nancy Peacock’s A Broom of One’s Own (about writing and working as a housecleaner) and started in on Complete Book of Road Cycling Skills. Mark shook his head about that one. He figures once you get past getting the bike moving without falling over—something both of us licked years ago—the rest comes naturally. He could be right; I don’t, after all, have any plans to start racing. But it’s what I do: “Get into something; read up on it.” So there you go.
After my eyes tired of reading, I lubed my chain and adjusted the front shifter, which I’d been having to push waaaay to the right to shift. Should be better now. I wanted to level my saddle, too; its nose is pointing just a touch upward. No luck, though. I’m probably missing something stupendously simple. Something so simple they didn’t feel the need to put instructions for it in either the bike’s manual or my road bike maintenance book. I’ll mess with it again when my new saddle arrives (I took advantage of a sale and free shipping at Performance Bike this weekend to order a woman’s saddle—it’s a little wider where your sitbones go and has a bit of a cutout where your delicate bits go, which I think my delicate bits are going to appreciate).
Finally, I haven’t been writing, and I should have been writing, but I haven’t. I’ve figured out why, though, so tomorrow I’ll be back at it. The reason I’ve been avoiding working on the Rot rewrite is this: I keep thinking about it in terms of its ability to be commercially viable. Viable, schmiable. For now it’s more important that it be engaging to me. So I’ve tossed that pressure off and will dig in with renewed excitement tomorrow after my ride and before we go see The Happening. M. Night Shyamalan is one of my guilty pleasures.
Tonight it’s dinner with some other couples at La Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaz. I’m totally looking forward to the bacon-wrapped jumbo shrimp with coconut rice.
Which of course means they’ll have taken it off their menu.
