Becoming Partially Whole Again

"I might have made a few mistakes, but maybe that's exactly what it takes

to get a little happy in this big, sad world. How many have you made?

And which have you laid on down to die?"

--The Avett Brothers

This past weeked was, to use a phrase that just re-entered my vocabulary, "the jams." Which then reminds me of a hilarious joke about jam, but this is neither the time nor the place for such crudity.

Anyway, Heartbreak Ridge was on friday...and I'm still stewing over how great that was, then saturday, I had no plans, which can be either terrifying or exciting. I wound up taking a convoluted way out to the BMX track to meet Lexy, Phil, Callum, and Cody. Lexy's letting my use his TAJ now, which I'm started to get used to, and maybe in another month I'll be able to beat some of the eight year olds. After awhile of pretending I was cool, I changed back into my spandex, put on my vented helmet, and rode a new way home...which was so good I think it'll become my standard: gravel road climb up to the best part of Elk Mountain, then its just zoomy-zoom all the way back into town.

As a sidenote to Saturday's fun, or to help suggest that I do do things besides bike riding and blahging, Saturday night was one of the most fun evenings lately, too. It was Lexy's week-late-unoffical Birthday party--which really just meant he got to call all the shots, which is how Jenna and I wound up at Asiana, watching Lexy down four plates of sushi. We then met up with some others at the Bier Garden to watch Michael Phelps show the world who's boss, and some other Olympians do their thing. Sometime and somehow later we wound up at a house party, made up of 10% Wilson alumni and 90% random ultimate frisbee players. The dichotomy of the crowd became apparent as soom as beer pong commenced, since all those alledged State School wienies were so geeked-out serious--so absurd when its in the context of beer pong. They kept saying silly things like "Yo, let us get the Power-I" or "Can you courtesy my cup to the back?" (To which Phil responded, "I'll give you a courtesy to the back." Of course he would. Ha! I loved it.) And they kept telling us we were doing things wrong, and coming from a school where anything official or rule-ridden is shunned, Beer Pong having such an extensive rulebook seemed rediculously absurd. Phil and I dominated the table for awhile, even though we apparently we scrappy, ruleless, and didn't know what we were doing, until we were ousted by Hart and Conor, two other former-Wilsonites, only much more scrappier and rulelessier. Take that State School Dorks! We can play a decent game of Beer Pong and still smile.

I'm now asking you to recognize this analogy for the sport of cycling, particularly mountain biking. Powertaps, inflexible training plans, proper hydration techniques, riding the trainer less your Dura Ace grouppo gets rusty, etc. is all well and good, but I still don't think any of this will do for you what frequent 6 hour rides in Pisgah will do for you. Besides it being infinitesimally much more fun.

Speaking of which...Sunday! Best ride, ever. I say that all the time, I realize, but this was the best ever for so many different reasons: made up route including trails I'd never ridden, wrong turn resulting in 15 minutes of unnecessary but rediculously fun climbing on an crazily overgrown trail, Laurel Mountain (which I'd been itching to do for so long), a life saving babbling brook where we could refill our empty-for-far-too-long bottles, a close-up view of Mt. Pisgah, a six mile sprint down the Parkway, a sweet final decent down Trace back to the truck, tailgate Sierra Nevadas (cooler-packed and ice-cold...homey knows how to roll), and most importantly, a rekindled friendship with someone who, I'm still certain, is one of the most important people in the world to me. It was a great ride, a great day, and dang...I'm still soft for that boy.

But I can't be. I'm not allowed. Homey's got a new girl, and a gorgeous one at that (which figures and leaves me, once again, to hope that some of my mediocre atributes might add up to something worthwhile...but they never do.) Anyway, the other day at work, after an impromptu heart-to-heart with my co-workers, co-worker Owen said, "You can't blame yourself for having feelings. You're not a robot, Kylie. Are you a robot?"

I'm not a robot. But if I were, I'd probably be made out of titanium, which would be cool. But for now, I have to adopt robot, "heart-part-made-of-stone" (for another Avett Bros. quote) mode. It hurts and it sucks and dang, he still gets me, I'm still so smitten, which I can't be anymore...but I am just so rediculously relieved, excited, all that jazz, to be friends with this guy again. Its "the jams", as it were. I don't know what to do from here, I never ever do, but I think the advice offered by one of the greatest bands to come out of the 1980's, 38 Special, (not really at all, but, hey, the lyric does the trick):

"Hold on loosely, but don't let go."

So that's that. Time to go ride the old road bike, recovery-ride style, which is good, 'cause it'll give me time to think, relish in a week's worth of great rides, and rock out to '80's music in my head.