Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
i'm pretty sure that queen song about bi-cycles isn't actually about riding bikes
sometimes i think that if anything like zombies ever did happen, i would be the only one ready because i would be the only one ready to believe. i don't fall prey to the notion that i can fight just because i've seen a lot of movies with fighting in them, or even that i would be a survivor of some sort of supernatural disaster just because i was one of the first ones aware of it - in movies, those people often survive, along with a handful of people who were naive and just lucky, but in reality it would be people who are mentally prepared (check), rich enough to have just the right supplies lying around (crossbow, silver bullets, motorcycle), and incredibly physically fit. in some ways, this readiness for the completely unreasonable is an advantage. i would be one of the only people who recognized the warning signs for what they were (flu epidemic resulting in complete hospital blackouts, whole towns changing their sleep cycle), and my everday life is a little more exciting than yours. strange scratching sound - mice, or malicious spirit? flash of blue light - superhuman powers, or car hitting telephone pole? it's exciting to believe in things that most people don't believe in. in movies, once the curtain is drawn back for someone, suddenly good and evil become intensely clear and day-to-day problems, like money or grad school, just drop away. he or she is exposed to a whole new subculture of people, or creatures, who understand what he or she has recently come to understand, that myths are true stories and evil is real, but so is good. yeah, this has not happened for me yet, but i'm ready. it's a real shame that it mostly happens to skeptics though.
my openmindedness has its pitfalls as well. on the other side of the coin it's called gullibility. last night i was watching "death of a president," a fictional account of the hypothetical events leading up to and consequences of the assassination of president bush, and i began to believe that maybe he is just a guy who got stuck with an enormous burden at the wrong time, whose values were right but whose actions just weren't getting results fast enough, that maybe 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, that protesters are maybe just too impatient and hate too much.
in other news, i got a new bike yesterday. i got my tax return a while ago, and since my mom did it for me, my return was bigger than usual, and i planned to spend around 200-300 on an awesome bike + new helmet + set of lights and stuff so i could ride around with jake all summer. it's been getting warmer, and i've been watching people ride their bikes around on the esplanade or over the bridge and i've been getting pretty jealous. so we set out to the recyclery, planning to hit community cycling center and maybe this dude i know's bike shop over in nw. at the recyclery we looked at some as-is frames, some of them in pretty not-bad shape but still needing a little love - my favorite was a light green 18" columbia with working brakes and derailers, just needed some pedals, a seat and some new tubes - that the guy said $20 for. now, that is not a bad deal, especially if you know how to work on a bike. i don't but jake does some, and our friend bike master andre is pretty into it, so we were heavily considering it. then, the guy (who was really friendly and not condescending at all - jake and i both came out of the experience really surprised at how good we still felt about ourselves) was like, "oh, is this for you?" and brought out this little red huffy with pink (!) brake cables and completely new tires with steel rims (expensive), which had also just had a complete going-over, didn't need any work at all. it fit me just right, and even though jake says huffys are "a little gay," i liked it and i really liked riding it around the block. also, it's a girl's bike. mostly in portland you see girls and guys riding guys' bikes, but it is a girl's bike and i kind of like that because it won't jam me in the crotch at a stoplight. so we got it and it was $30. i ended up doing the whole bike experience for under $100, and that included:
helmet
front and back lights
four pro-bike patches, two for me and two for jake (both mine have hearts, one of his says the work "fuck")
bike
brand-new car rack so we can drive awesome places and ride bikes in them
yes!
my openmindedness has its pitfalls as well. on the other side of the coin it's called gullibility. last night i was watching "death of a president," a fictional account of the hypothetical events leading up to and consequences of the assassination of president bush, and i began to believe that maybe he is just a guy who got stuck with an enormous burden at the wrong time, whose values were right but whose actions just weren't getting results fast enough, that maybe 9/11 would have happened no matter who was in office, that protesters are maybe just too impatient and hate too much.
in other news, i got a new bike yesterday. i got my tax return a while ago, and since my mom did it for me, my return was bigger than usual, and i planned to spend around 200-300 on an awesome bike + new helmet + set of lights and stuff so i could ride around with jake all summer. it's been getting warmer, and i've been watching people ride their bikes around on the esplanade or over the bridge and i've been getting pretty jealous. so we set out to the recyclery, planning to hit community cycling center and maybe this dude i know's bike shop over in nw. at the recyclery we looked at some as-is frames, some of them in pretty not-bad shape but still needing a little love - my favorite was a light green 18" columbia with working brakes and derailers, just needed some pedals, a seat and some new tubes - that the guy said $20 for. now, that is not a bad deal, especially if you know how to work on a bike. i don't but jake does some, and our friend bike master andre is pretty into it, so we were heavily considering it. then, the guy (who was really friendly and not condescending at all - jake and i both came out of the experience really surprised at how good we still felt about ourselves) was like, "oh, is this for you?" and brought out this little red huffy with pink (!) brake cables and completely new tires with steel rims (expensive), which had also just had a complete going-over, didn't need any work at all. it fit me just right, and even though jake says huffys are "a little gay," i liked it and i really liked riding it around the block. also, it's a girl's bike. mostly in portland you see girls and guys riding guys' bikes, but it is a girl's bike and i kind of like that because it won't jam me in the crotch at a stoplight. so we got it and it was $30. i ended up doing the whole bike experience for under $100, and that included:
helmet
front and back lights
four pro-bike patches, two for me and two for jake (both mine have hearts, one of his says the work "fuck")
bike
brand-new car rack so we can drive awesome places and ride bikes in them
yes!
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