One year later...

I have a confession to make--I kind of fell into a dark place after graduation.  Yeah, I'm sure no one I know would be surprized, but I'll admit I did not expect it.  So I drifted down into some abyss inside my soul and just like hated on myself for a bit.  I hated on myself for a huge gambit of reasons ranging from the obvious to the introspective.  And then...I noticed on the twitter Gheto CX Pickups were going to start.  

So I get a cross bike and go to the pickups expecting all the usual elitism found on the road, but everyone was pretty cool.  So, scared out of my freaking mind I race and have a blast.  The Folsom pickup takes a break and I venture down to West Sac only to find a huge freaking party going down.  Once again, everyone is totally cool. So I'm doing this thing now.  I'm at the park hoping on and off my bike over and over.  I'm at the dirt track trying to do workouts in some kind of consistent manner.  I'm riding way fewer miles and looking at getting faster.  And then, I wandered my way over to where I'm at today.  

I'm excited.  I have all these super fun races coming up and now I see that I was just super lost. I totally ate it on dating.  I tried all the pathetic internet stuff, and dated all these girls that didn't give two shits about me because I felt all this pressure to resume my previous life.  But to be honest, that life really fucking sucked.  Like really blew major chunks.  You know when you watch the movie "Old School" and you think how freaking sad it is that "Frank the Tank" is marrying into a pathetic middle class-suburban life--that was my life.  Maybe, you do not agree with me that "Frank the Tank" is awesome, shotgunning beers and working on his hotrod--but I do.  

So I tried to ram myself back into the mold that I never fit into to begin with, and I just couldn't stand it.  And then I sank down.  So I go to these races for the summer while I'm kind of still doing the swirl around the toliet bowl of modern dating but I won't budge on the pickups.  Next I'm more focused on getting better and then...oh my lord, I have an eupiphany. My life does not have to suck.  I can just do the things I enjoy and not worry about trolling department stores with some boring ass woman because I, like "Frank the Tank" am much cooler the way I am.

myself vs myself

Why is it black or white?  Why am I always forced to choose between being a parent and having a relationship?  Between time for myself and time for my child?  Neither seem to exist together.  Of course I'm writing this on a particularly difficult day (father's day).  I think what is really hard is how hard I try and believe the lies I tell myself--the ones that rewrite the past.  

I have all these memories and I choose not to remember them.  I cannot love the woman I married because she lied, cheated, blackmailed and tore my life apart.  I did not have a perfect life but I never expected a perfect life.  So I plunge into a darkness that voids out all the joy I found giving all of myself to a life I never experienced.  I cannot acknowledge the fact that I liked being married.  Perhaps my problem is I afraid that if I dive off that cliff again I know how close the rocks are to the water--maybe I am too aware of the rocks.

Not quite done yet

After many years my college career is coming to an end--or at least I thought.  I have met my match with Senior Seminar and have gone from worrying about a silly piece of gold rope on my shoulder to wondering if I'll cross that stage a fraud.  Sometimes my professors just do not like me.  This is the dilemma behind the English degree--not every professor will like your work.  So I play the game.  I go to office hours.  I prove in class that I have done the reading and offer my opinions or theories on the texts.  However in this case, it is all for nothing.  I just try harder and dig a deeper hole.  It's like I'm drowning and all my paddling towards the surface is only moving me farther down into the abyss.  All this came to a spear head last week when my fears of failure became even more real with a gruesome presentation.

So today I sit in my chair, humiliated and beat down I stare at the dest.  I want to hide within the pages of my text and listen as my colleges present effortlessly five page texts while I was stuck with 130 pages.  Every word they said felt like a match lit underneath my desk burning the indignity and memory of the horrific moment into my consciousness.  I sat and looked at the rows of letters stretch across the page.  How can I survive everything I went through last year and the much-less-than-metaphoric collision with I car I lived through in January to let one professor beat me?  I looked at my leg and remembered what used to be red flesh, filled with what felt like tiny little knives digging into my every movement--and I was about to let one man take me down. 

I scribbled down my thoughts.  I dodged the professor's derailment and continued to make my point.  While I may be only capable of a high school level reading, my elementary rendition of the text just hijacked the class.  I tried not to smile as my peers mimicked my thoughts for the remaining fifteen minutes.  Apparently I am not the only one incapable of close reading.    

"Reflection"

We untie the knot 

we made out of our legs and arms,

and I realize I am holding a mirror.

The place you stand 

is a perch I know well.

I tell you what’s on my mind 

but the image is backwards,

and my words fall down on me

like the rain stumbling and stammering

while outside the storm is raging. 

Three Hundred and Sixty Five

If someone told me a year ago that my whole life would be over as I knew it I would have a hard time believing them.  If someone told me that I would be such a different person that all of my priorities in life would be changed and that everything that truly mattered would improve I would have laughed.  But in the year since I found the direction of my life would change I have altered into a new person.  I found that when you stare into oblivion, cross into it and walk through darkness for a year you learn to appreciate yourself.  I love myself and respect myself.  Life before that realization is a fading shadow of the life I enjoy now.

It took three hundred and sixty five days to really understand the value of a small decision that corrects the course of your life and saves you from untold years of misery.

Why do I ride my fucking bicycle?

I realized the deepest beauty cycling gives me. It has taken me a lifetime to understand the force that compels me to turn the cranks of my bike for hours on end. I frequently ride with a large group that maintains a small group of core riders. I am not one of those core riders, but I’ve been with the group long enough to know who is. I watch them disappear or hear through the Strava grapevine that they were hit or crashed. Usually it’s pretty bad. I was never the person hit year after year. And then, on a quiet Sunday afternoon that changed and I found out I could not dodge that collision forever.

I was rolling down a country road just outside Folsom when an SUV hit me from behind. It hurt. It was scary. The police were coercive. Everyone was against me—the cyclist. I was afraid that if I sat down I would never get back up. My body was torn up and life slowed down. At first, everyone was concerned and it was like I had fifteen minutes of fame all my friends and family. After a few days, there was silence as I struggled on. The days rolled into nights. I looked at my bike and after a few weeks I tried to put my hands on the handlebars only to find I had deep bruising in the exact shape of those bars. And the waiting continued.

I read online to try stretching my leg—excruciating pain. I eventually could climb the stairs. I started walking without a limp. I climbed on my bike on a Wednesday morning and took off for school—a twenty-mile ride. Halfway there I changed my mind, but it was too late. I let my leg spin like dead weight, using my good leg to propel my bike forward and move the bad leg up and down. Crawling along I made it. Limping back I made it back home at the end of the night.

The next day I convinced myself that if it hurt I would turn back, but my bad leg felt pretty good. My bad leg could push down on the pedal. My good leg shared the work and for the first time in a month I felt hope. I felt normal. I felt freedom as the wind shifted and swirled around the riverbed as I rolled a long at a faster speed than before. However riding held a different meaning as it became linked to so much more.

Now when I ride I feel the air hit me just before a big truck passes me inches from my back and I shudder. I hold my line and force the demons out of my mind. I force the memory of the side of that ill-fated traveler instantly colliding with me. I shut out the image of the side of the road coming at me while I was upside down and in the air. I feel the next car coming upon me and I repeat the same process. So what does all this have to do with beauty?

After someone has been hit in the cycling club it is almost as if there is a ghost in their place within that group of riders. Some times that ghost turns back into a rider as they pick their bike back up again and sometimes it slowly fades into nothingness. I found the secret meaning hidden beneath spring days, sharp tan lines and splendid journeys—I am not a ghost. I felt my feet spinning revolutions and I understand I got back up again. I look down at my purple knee pumping next to my frame and I lifted myself back onto the saddle. I look into the memories of my broken marriage and I know I will stand back up again. I look at my torn childhood and I realize I will not break my daughter’s youth. I am more than my experiences. I am bigger than the small moments that try to define me and shatter my world. I feel that rush of air behind me and I hold my line because I am not afraid to fall down.

Here Come the Clouds

Ahhhhh, getting hit by an automobile.  I think I have some dark days a head of me.  I wrote an incredibly optimistic post about how nothing could be worse than 2013--yeah, so perhaps there was a little bit of ironic foreshadowing in that one.

I'm watching some of the wounds turn into scabs but its what I can't see that's scaring me.  Two days ago I could barely move my arms, now I cannot sleep because my leg hurts.  It feels like a knife is tearing through my leg.  It feels like every step makes it worse.  I hopped up after I slid to a stop following the collision, and was almost running around.  Now I tell my child I can only go up the stairs one time.

When I do sleep I dream I'm riding my bike.  Since 2009 I have never quit moving.  I stopped running because marathon training forced me to take breaks, and those weeks of inactivity were too much.  I am in so much pain that I wonder if I will pedal again.

  

When I Shuffle off this Mortal Coil

I keep remembering the side of an SUV coming at me and the side of the road moving towards me while I was upside down and off the ground.  While I have been hobbling around campus and groaning as I sit down I realize one day I will die.  There is a strange silence in my life right now.  It's kind of like unknown to me, everything was building up to the events of last weekend and now there is just a quiet release.  

Initially I recieved a wave of support from friends and family, but now I look at my bike and wrap bandages around my arms and legs to hide the bleeding from the outside world.  I walk around with this hidden trauma and pretend nothing happened.  I looked at other people's car versus bike outcomes and feel lucky.  Only, what do I do?  I really think it's just a matter of time until the next driver is texting or drunk or just plain malicious and I find my life at the intersection of their actions again.  How do I live my life from here?  Am I afraid I'll fall down again?  Am I too scared of the outside world to get back up?

-Saved my life and you can barely tell except from some cracks and scrapes...

Almost a Ghost Bike

Yesterday I was riding down White Rock Road for a little warmup before I turned onto Scott Road.  I looked over my shoulder and saw an open road.  I looked over again and there was an SUV flying into me at 50 mph.  The SUV hit me and I remember being upside down and in the air.  I watched the side of the road coming at me thought to myself to just roll.  In some insane adrenaline I popped up and started hopping around to check for broken bones and make sure I was still alive.  The car went through a fence and far into a field.  I was hopping around I realized I had no major injuries.  My leg was really injured from being hit my the car but nothing was broken severly.  I grabbed my bike out of the road and waited for the paramedics.  The driver of the SUV never got out of the car.  

After the hospital I realized just how entirely lucky I am.  I went home and found everything on my body was shredded.  My helmet took all of the impact as I am pretty sure I remember landing on my head.  My clothes are shredded.  My arm warmers and leg warmers shredded.  Even my shoes are destroyed.  But I'm walking--a little slowly--but still walking.  

Self Portrait at the ER.

Where's My Mind?

Well...one semester of college left. I can make it, right? I have sort of been in a self-imposed cocoon. I realized I am really messed up from all that divorce stuff. I thought I did not care. Yeah, I guess I do care. What no one tells you when your spouse cheats on you is what is left behind in the dust is you. All I have is a painfully obvious trail of clues and some majorly telling memories that make me wonder where was my mind? So I have been staying up late and listening to Ted Talks and trying to relax as much as possible. I had fun visiting friends and managed to get the nastiest flu ever. So I guess one day I'll have to make a decision to trust myself again. I am certainly quick on picking up on all those clues now. I just wonder how I can want something so badly that I turn off my reason and live a lie. Of course when I'm wonder where my daughter is and whom she is with I think I can figure out how that happened...

Christmas 2013

So I decided to head out for some Santa Searching today and take advantage of the empty roads.  While I did not find Santa I did have a blast hitting some favorite climbs between Newcastle and Auburn.  

I climbed up Sierra College Drive and turned towards Lincoln.

While the roads feeding Lincoln were packed I think I found two cars on the road from Fowlers to Ophir.

Auburn was a ghost town today.  It's usually crawling with people in old town and it was super empty.

The Crying of Lot 49

So I found a new obsession last week with my discovery of The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon.  It's one of those books that infects your mind.  You listen to the news and hear Pynchon's commentary reaching across the 1960's to today's world.  It is probably the most relevant book to modern times I have ever read.

So if you're wondering what makes it such a profound work just imagine watching the first two seasons of lost and discovering everything in that show is real...

I am going to post my verbal essay for class below.  It is attempting to answer the mystery behind Pynchon's use of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and basically managed to get everyone in the class laughing--including my professor.

According to the website Wikipedia:

 “The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium—the state of maximum entropy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the second kind are impossible.”  

Of course that definition comes with a few other terms that have to be defined like entropy and thermodynamic equilibrium.  The same website states thermodynamic equilibrium is:

“In thermodynamics, a thermodynamic system is in thermodynamic equilibrium when it is in thermal equilibrium, mechanical equilibrium, radiative equilibrium, and chemical equilibrium. Equilibrium means a state of balance. In a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, there are no net flows of matter or of energy, no phase changes, and no unbalanced potentials (or driving forces), within the system. A system that is in thermodynamic equilibrium experiences no changes when it is isolated from its surroundings.”

 And finally as if it is not confusing and scientific jargon laden enough, entropy is defined as: 

“In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a thermodynamic system may be arranged, often taken to be a measure of disorder, or a measure of progressing towards thermodynamic equilibrium. The entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which is the state of maximum entropy.”  

I find the standard definition of the Second Law of Thermodynamics kind of humorous when coupled with The Crying of Lot 49 as the beginning is extremely complicated with a little statement almost randomly tossed in about perpetual motion machines.  It’s also slightly funny to look at entropy and thermodynamic equilibrium’s definitions because—when paired with this novel—they sound a lot like sorting mail.  While entropy is pushing everything towards chaos the second law of thermodynamics states that you cannot side step entropy—which is what all this business is really about.  It’s almost like Pynchon wrote a book about sorting mail to poke fun at physicists.  So how does all this stuff relate to the novel?

Within the book Oedipa finds a clue in a bathroom stall at the Scope with the symbol of a muted post horn with WASTE written below it.  Later in the novel when she is touring the Yoyodine plant she stumbles onto Stanley Kotex drawling the same symbol on a pad of paper.  She engages Kotex and he offers her attempts to persuade her as a “stock holder” to change the company’s ownership of intellectual property.  Oedipa ironically offers Thomas Edison as the last person to really invent anything of value and Kotex  explains James Clark Maxwell and John Nefastis inventions.  Kotex tells her about Nefastis’s perpetual motion machine based on Maxwell’s the Demon. 

 And here I have to offer a side note…James Clark Maxwell was real.  He did some crazy stuff like event electromagnetic theory and influenced Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.  So it would be really funny if the demon was real…right.  It’s real.  Wikipedia shows two boxes full of little molecules and a green demon sitting on top of them opening a trap door between the two. 

Okay, so Kotex explains Nefastis’s Demon working by a sensitive taking the place of the demon and staring at a picture of Clark Maxwell.  Kotex explains it doesn’t really violate the Second law of Thermodynamics because “It’s mental work but not work in the thermodynamic sense,” (p. 80).  Almost sounding like the Remedious Varios painting described by Dr. Madden last class Oedipa wonders if she is a sensitive and thinks to herself, “Shall I project the world?” (p. 81).  While it is funny to think of a man who majorly influenced the modern world making a machine with a demon operating it the bigger question should be why would Maxwell care so much about sorting molecules?  The big reason Maxwell creates his Demon is resisting the forces of the universe that is propelling us all to our inevitable death—entropy.  If one can stop entropy couldn’t they live forever?  

When Oedipa finds John Nefastis in Oakland she tries to operate his demon machine to see if she is a sensitive.  Nefastis expands on how the demon connects with entropy and the Second Law:

“ Entropy is a figure of speech, then,’” sighed Nefastis, ‘a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow.  The machine uses both. The demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true,’” (101). 

While staring at Clark Maxwell’s image she sees he could be holding something in hands that have been cropped out of the picture.  She wonders what was in his hands and I think it could have been a muted post horn or an upside down dead badger?  Maybe Maxwell’s machine works and expands the mystery of Tristero even further?  Could he be one man moving through the pages of history?  Who is that mysterious bidder?

Bottom to the Top

I spent the day riding around Folsom Lake. It was spectacular. It was so beautiful out that I rode just a  tiny bit slower and took my time to watch all the fall colors.  I realized something as I watched the swirling world of orange and yellow vanish underneath my wheels--this is the best year of my life.

It did not exactly begin that way and looked to really be miserable.  I started the year off with stress, followed by more stress with the eventual demise of my marriage and divorce.  But, what looked like an awful chapter in my life turned out to be the beginning of the best chapter.  And, I guess you have to realize what you really had going on when you see it in someone else to fully understand where you are...

So Saturday I went on the group ride and shifted my chain off the big ring.  I had to stop, and managed to get lost at "Left turn on unnamed street."  When I found the second group I ended up riding with a new guy to the group.  Now the ride had a lot of climbing which always means a lot of decending.  I rode along with this dude and we hit a pretty steep downhill.  I did what I always do when I'm with people and hitting thirty plus...I hit the brakes.  I drifted back about twenty feet when I watched him start fish tailing and miss the turn.  So there's one problem when you miss a turn on a turning road...you run out of road.  To my horror I watch as he hit a barbed wire fence at full speed.  He tumbled over the fence and his bike ejected from his body.

Luckily he got up with only a long shallow cut on his leg and some bumps and bruises.  You would think he would simply be happy to be standing--as I was really glad to see him moving--but he was only concerned his wife would tell him to stay off the bike!  I understand his pain, as that was once was a slave to my spouse too.  But guess what?  I'm not.  I actually enjoy doing the exact opposite of what she wants in almost every situation. It's really liberating.

Surviving the semester

Well, college is a strange experience.  In some classes it does not matter what you do-your professor just does not like what you have to say or write.  Oh course, this is the same professor that assigns 500 pages of reading in five days (no exaggeration).  So now I just do not care.  I throw out all my random ideas about the text and simply smile.  I know...he is only badgering us along to say what he discovered and that exact answer is very obvious...but where the fun there?  I'm going to bomb this class, so I might as well do it in style.  Also, I've never really bombed a class where I do all the reading in advance and show up every single day...but I guess there is a first for everything.

Secondly, I have decided to spend a year reconnecting with myself.  I would like to point out that my self-discovery year is not actually a year of planned selfishness even though it might sound like one.  I still have a child so I am only half selfish.  Well, I'm incredibly selfish every other day.  I am going to reconnect with the lost aspect of my life and find what I really have been missing.  Or...at least I'm going to ride my bike a fucking ton of miles.  And I'm going to probably race a lot.  Maybe I'll even buy a CX bike and race all fall and winter too.

Oh...and my year of self absorption just began by not even touching the Edith Wharton novel in my backpack and blogging away my Starbucks buzz.

Burning at both ends...

Being a single parent is hard.  Being a student and a single parent is almost impossible.  I have quickly realized why young parents are statistically inclined towards poverty.  It is so hard just to get to campus--and doing homework, keeping up with my 1,000 pages a week and papers is almost impossible.  Aida was sick.  Ashley had her...but I still have to be her parent.  As the semester gets harder and deeper I'm watching my custody sky rocket well above 50/50 while my workload grows.  Last semester, I would have never imagined doing school work all night, all day, all weekend--but here I am trying to finish 100 pages before work of the most depressing and boring book ever writen. Apparently graduation really means you can edure some unique tortures in addition to jumping through bureaucratic hoops.

Fragmented me or I cannot ignore reality...

I would like to think if anyone ever were to write the story of my life it would be me...or atleast the guy who wrote Obama's autobiography.  Well, if The Bell Jar could have been written by a man it would be called The End of the Road--and it's not exactly a happy tale.  Apparently this is where I should stop writing because it's about to get very personal--and probably random and vague.

I have a rule about making life decisions.  If I am swimming in a sea of confusion I do not make any choices.  I just freeze all decisions of all magnitude except for the ones that are immediate for day-to-day living.  However, let's just postulate that this mantra is not always effective.  I once wanted to break up with someone and I decided to wait until after the holidays...and now look at me, divorced seven years later.  Was it the right decision?  Was it a calculated decision?  Would my life look like it does now with allowing the more dangerous and careless aspect of my personality do a little bit of driving?  I'm really not sure.  I know that I am happy.  I know that the dangerous place in my mind that acts without thinking does not take any crap from anyone.  I know that I am not going to deal with being treated poorly--maybe it is the solution.

Also does anyone think I only posted a post about dirt roads to make a little bit of space between two posts?  I'm sure it does not look like that, right?

Dirt roads

Turning down my first dirt road on my new bike was some kind of undiscovered and illicit pleasure that I have never really understood.  I found myself stuck between two points staring at a path that I thought was paved...and in my mind it was covered in asphalt, but in reality was nothing but a dirt road.  I debated finding some kind of alternate route as I did not really want to ride the new bike off road, but I caved into my desire to get home before the rain.  As I gingerly rolled down the trail and watched the mountain bikers and runners pass by I found out it's actually fun.

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and...

Alright, let's just get into this one.  If there was a singlular subject I should not post on the internet on my secret blog (that only serves to give me some amusement), it would be the beginning of a new relationship.  I mean, let's face it--it's kind of a delicate issue.  In April I swore I would never do this relationship thing ever again...but here I am, writing about one.  So what should I say?  One thing I will say is in order for me to be excited about spending time with another person they must be pretty spectacular.  And wonderful in a fashion that is like an increase in powers from ten-to-the-one to ten-to-the-sixth because that is what it would take for me to love someone.

What I did not expect was to see someone and be speechless.  What I did not expect was to find myself in the middle of some kind of fairytale romance.  I never dreamed that I would dream again, but life is surprising.

Hello sharp tan lines, good bye spin class!

I have decided that buying a new bike is much better than paying for your cheating spouse's tuition! I ended up getting the Trek Madone 5.2.  I demoed a BMC TMR01 and it is like the TMR01, but it rips up hills!  It's so stiff that it took about five miles to adjust the force of each peddle stroke pushing the bike around!  It's not the Madone 6 series I have been eyeing, but honestly...I would be afraid to ride anything lighter than this bike.  I'm actually a little bit scared of it right now.  I did not realize how light it was until I lifted the bike and it felt like it floated into the air like a balloon.

So tonight I'll sleep well eagerly waiting for morning and a nice long ride to get my legs and my bad tan lines back.  

Let's be honest...

So I have been dating.  It is much different than I remember it being.  In the mid 2000's it was pretty fun to go on a date.  Yeah, you might not be completely compatible with the person, but people remained courteous to each other until the end of the date.  Now...I go on dates and if that person is not perfect I still remain polite until the end of the date.  I will still text and say I had a nice time, etcetera.  Only in this modern time all the old rules are out the window.  For example, you could possibly go on a date with someone that is completely unattractive -- from the magic of ten-year-old photography and a lifetime of facebook selfies-- and that person will have the audacity to be rude to you!  

Not subtly rude, but overert and direct towards you obvious dissappointment.  So I have made a list of things to not mention on dates out of fear of twenty minutes of uncomfortable-forced conversation...or having to fight the urge to excape through a fire exit:

Being a parent: yes, they say they want kids...but what they really mean is they do not want to look like a selfish person avoiding responsibility.

What being a parent, or having children is really like: if you don't know then you really don't know...

Money: almost completely unavoidable.  If they do not straightout ask you they will size you up by the car you drive or the lack of a peace sign on your key chain.

Your Ex: Repeat after me, "we are still great friends." Yeah...she cheated on my with an old dude, told me what his reproductive organs looked like and how unsatisfying it was, blackmailed me, extorted me with our daughter, and now currently uses her a hostage to keep a small trickle of income rolling in every month...but you just love her.

All that stuff after "We are friends": No one wants the damaged goods that you are! You're previously owned now and you do not want to stick the carfacts to the windshield, unless it's a good carfacts--which is impossible because you are divorced.