Oh, the Possibilities...

Apples

Fruits of the devil, no?

Too Late

It's just the photo from the LA Times, but it'll have to do.

So Many Sorrows

Found out today that a friend from college died.
Dear old Joey Lutz drowned in Panama.
How unexpected.
He was a strong swimmer.

I myself had just finished 1600 meters
in the pool.
Even with the fog
it was refreshing.
In the locker room
I checked my phone; one missed call from Nate.

“When you get this, give me a call.”

After nearly nine years,
I know that tone of voice.

Remember the time Joey and Tyler
forced you to lick the banana slug?
Or when Joey dressed up as Jesus for Halloween
And dragged that enormous cross all over Santa Cruz?

We were so angry when he bailed
on the Big Sur camping trip.

And that was the last time
we saw him.

Joey was the kind of English teacher
kids really need.
According to the Samo website, grief counseling is available
for those who need it.

This is not the first sorrow
nor will it be
the last.

*****

At night, I snuggle so close to Nate
that I can feel
my heart beating against his back
and I can feel
his heart beating against my arms
tightly encircling his hairy chest.

I exhale
and
he exhales.

Breathing out
to try and release
so many sorrows

locked inside.

Girl's Best Friend(s)

Happy Birthday, America

We took Penny to Sausalito to eat star spangled apple pies this 7/4. She was a good girl. GOOD GIRL!

Name that Vehicle

Answer: It's the street painter!

My First Love

It looked A LOT like this, but with a unicorn on the seat.

Falling

A good place to start this blog is with a story about when I first started commuting by bike in SF. Two years ago, I decided I wanted a road bike. After a little research, I settled on what became my new best friend, the LeMond Versailles.



When I bought this bike, I had never ridden with clipless pedals, but Bobby at Palo Alto Bicycles assured me that I would not regret joining the proud ranks of the clipless crew. So I did. And I fell. At first, a lot.

My most spectacular fall was not my first. However, my first fall was the most terrifying. On the way to CalTrain one morning, I tipped over as I attempted to come to a halt at the intersection of Cesar Chavez and Guerrero. Kersplat! Right into the roadway when the folks on Cesar Chavez had a green light. I did indeed feel my heart stop for a moment.

The second and most spectacular fall took place about a month later in Palo Alto. I was rushing to make the evening train. I could hear it approaching. I still had about one football field to ride. I blasted up onto the sidewalk to save time, just as an elderly man coming toward me did the same thing. I veered to the right to avoid him, and he did the same, but rather slower, so we basically veered right toward each other, me at top speed. The train whistle was blowing, and in my mind's eye, all in consecutive little snapshots, I saw this old man get hit by me, fall, break his collarbone, enter the hospital, catch pneumonia, and die. The final clip was me at his funeral.

Did I hit him and make the train? Certainly not. I laid my own bike and self down, at top speed, on the sidewalk to avoid him. My bike skidded about ten feet and I skidded about five. My helmet broke the fall, but unfortunately, did very little to protect my legs, which I was immediately sure were in bad shape.

I missed the train. I waited for the next one, forty-five minutes later, with blood running down both legs and pooling in my socks and no band-aids with which to stop the flow.

With this initiation, I officially joined the proud ranks of San Francisco bicycle commuters.