I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I haven’t ridden my bicycle all summer. Not once. The tires are flat. The tires are flat. That should be a crime. I should be in handcuffs.

The other day a kid was flying down my street on his bicycle (I live near the top of a hill). In front of my house, he lost control. He went over his handlebars and onto the pavement, face-first. His eye was bleeding, swelling shut, and his radius or ulna, probably radius, was broken and made a protrusion of skin on his arm. There was much screaming. I was napping and his cries woke me. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window. He was sitting on the neighbor’s stoop, a bloody cloth held against his eye. The expressions on the faces of those around him told me it was serious and they were on the phone with 911, there was nothing I could do, so I callously went back to bed.

I thought about the time I was a kid, probably ten, since that is my go-to age for my childhood — the truth being that I don’t have a good mental clock for memories — and I was riding my bike around a gym at a park. As I turned a corner, I collided with an older gent on a bike. I flew over my handlebars and onto the the black asphalt, head-first. I looked back to see what happened, almost instinctually, like when one trips on a crooked sidewalk and instantaneously feels embarrassed and inquisitive. The older bicyclist cursed at me, told me I had “better not messed up [his] bike”. I loss consciousness. I came to with my head in my mother’s lap and on the picnic blanket we had set out for lunch before my fateful bike ride. A cool damp cloth rested on my head, a red-stained towel laid within my periphery. I could feel dried tears and matted blood-soaked hair. I had been bleeding from a scrape across most of my scalp.

Some people can be so cruel.

Complement

My PhD thesis is nearing completion. I’m excited and stressed. I’m fairly certain I am developing carpal tunnel syndrome and have initiated steps to combat it. It seems like forever ago that I was in San Francisco running up and down hills, making observations, and relaxing. Since then I’ve been to Boston twice, Michigan, Canada, Britain, and Scotland, but San Francisco was somehow the most relaxing–despite the fact that I was overwhelmed by a terrible cough.

At a conference in the UK, during the conference dinner, a speech was made wherein the attendees were asked to stand if they were at their first conference in this fifth in a series of conferences. I was at my third so I remained sitting. Then those who were under twenty-eight were asked to stand, again, I remained seated. Then those who had been to three or more and were over forty were asked to stand. Seated again. There were no more calls for attendees to stand. Does that put me in limbo? In the gaps of Venn Diagram of those who are worthy of being called out. The complement of the union of all that matters… mah ha ha.

Regardless… ugh, wrist… regardless, I feel as though I seem to often reside within these gaps.

Revelations from Edinburgh

Edinburgh, Scotland — Subterranean garden porch at Wellington Coffee, above me, luckier patrons have a street view. In my view are a ring of doors, in full “pick a door, choose you fate, only behind one of these doors lies salvation”. These are half-sized doors made of brown-painted wood and probably give access to under the street. Neil Young’s Cinnamon girl is playing on the cafes sound system. I am taken back to high school and listening to the classic rock station which played full albums overnight. I would set a tape to record every album. If I feel asleep, I would try to wake myself up in thirty minutes to flip the cassette. I often failed. Hence my collection of half albums. 

Cinnamon Girl was the last song I managed to record from that overnight piracy session. Helter Skelter is the next song and I defintely do not have that song on that cassette, it wasn’t until college that I heard that song. If this is the album I recorded then and if it is playing in order, which seems to be the case as I haven’t recognized the remaining songs, then Sugar Mountain is also on this album. I remember writing down the lyrics to Sugar Mountain during a free journaling session in my high school senior English class. I didn’t know what to write, just as now I often find myself staring at a blank page thinking of writing, and this comes out “today I went to the store for a quart of milk and when I paid the woman at the counter she asked if I wasn’t a little too old for milk, which caught me off–this is stupid and boring, my journal is stupid and boring, why do i even bother! Why am I so boring!?” Thus, in one such instance, in high school, the one time where my life should not have been boring, but in fact was very much so, I opted instead to write down the lyrics to Sugar Mountain:

Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you’re thinking that
You’re leaving there too soon,
You’re leaving there too soon.

It’s so noisy at the fair
But all your friends are there
And the candy floss you had
And your mother and your dad.

After the lyrics I posed a series of questions: just what is this sugar mountain? Heaven? A coke-induced nirvana? I think there were other questions but I have since forgotten. It turns out Sugar Mountain is a town in North Carolina.  Following that, some speculation and analysis.  Thus was born the haphazard and oftentimes pigheaded and wrong critic you now read; living up to, if not epitomizing, the all too true adage, “Those who can’t, criticize.”  

I write best when I criticize myself honestly, somewhat honestly.

Digest: May 2010

This May saw many extremes. It began with a cold snap, mid 30s, even snow on my birthday(!), and ended in the near record 90s. Personal life mirrored these extremes. As usual I tried my best to isolate myself from birthday celebrations, but on the other extreme, I also allowed a little bit of mixing between my friend groups, which I am normally vehemently opposed to. Can I explain that last tendency? Should I? I think I learned it by watching an old friend do it. I don’t know if it was ever intentional for this friend to exist in these isolated spheres but it showed me an alternative that left a lasting impression. In adopting it I have discovered its key advantages and disadvantages.

One advantage stems from the fact that I prefer hanging out one on one as opposed to one of many. Isolated social spheres help achieve this desired dynamic by keeping the group small and selective. One major disadvantage is that it can take only one person to dissolve a sphere, which can leave quite the vacuum. Another advantage, the level of openness can vary from one sphere to the next, which is key sense people’s sense of tact and discretion varies in an unpredictable way. However, these levels of openness come with the caveat that you must be aware and cautious of them when crossing spheres. Sigh.

The origin of this tendency may have been learned from observation, but it’s adoption is clearly a result of my desire for control. As terrible as that may sound, it is a bit more nuanced and forgiving. For example, I don’t hate the large group dynamic I am simply self-consciously uncomfortable in it. That is not to say that I am suffering from severe social phobia, I am extremely comfortable when I am the prime focus of a gathering, that is in a one TO many, rather than one OF many dynamic, e.g. I have no difficulty whatsoever delivering a lecture, in fact I exude confidence in such a scenario. But when I lack the undivided attention of the group, I lose my comfort and become extremely self-conscious. Even birthdays, where I am the focus of the gathering but I am not given undivided attention, I become uncomfortable because people can segregate into little spheres, which often leaves me on the edge of these spheres. Being on the edge of a sphere leads to the extreme self-consciousness and the loss of control or ability to alter the scenario without becoming extremely awkward (yes, I know a thing or two about being extremely awkward, but more on that in another digest).

And therein lies the main problem with segregating my friends. Because I’ve chosen to live in these disjointed spheres, any collection of these spheres will inherently lead to segregation, which leaves the one common point, me, isolated! If these spheres were not so disjointed to start with, this problem would not arise. But let’s face it, neither I nor my interests conform to any status quo. In some regard, I do not closely associate with traditions, even when those traditions are on the fringe, i.e. I am a scientist, but I don’t see eye to eye with many scientists, I am not artist, but I love talking to and hanging out with artists, etc. etc. I am simply interested and curious and critical and as such I cannot appease my desire for intelligent communication (in every sense of what communicate means) with one group or type, which perhaps says more about modern American society than anything else. On the other hand, the few individuals that I can satiate my desire for a breath of knowledge and varied interests have dissolved or weakened our sphere (by choice and circumstances), which perhaps says something more about me than anything else.

That all being said, I have begun to relax my constrictions, relaxing my pseudo-contol. And I have made measurable improvements in this aspect, and that is mostly due to recognizing my behavior in others and seeing it carried to an extreme, which was alarming, off-putting, eye-opening. But is the damage done? Is self-recovery impossible? If people never change, as i have said here before, am I simply exchanging one form of control for another? If so, I think this deflection towards self-control is much better than trying to control the behavior of others, so that must be a step forward.