Day 10 A Fascinating Ride Down Farm Roads

Day 10 August 8, 2010.

I spent a day cleaning out the office and trying to organize my life. It only made me more anxious and upset, but somehow this was the driving factor in getting it accomplished. Sometimes you find things you don't really want to find. Reminders of things you really wish you'd never have to think about. There are so many things that you work so hard to numb or extinguish, and for some reason they just pop back into your head all the time. Sometimes they pop back into your head for no reason at all. If they manufactured a drug that could somehow remove all those memories that you no longer wanted to be reminded of, I would be a life-long prescription. I think most people would.

For me yesterday was a long bike ride. Just to clear my mind. Just me and the bike. Nothing else mattered at that point. Just me and the wind.

I rode thru a fantastic little community that reminded me of hippy town folk. Lots of front-yard gardens, lots of ornaments hanging all around the houses, and lost of farm land on every side of the home. Every house had a large plastic bag out front with all their recyclables segregated, neat, and cleaned. It's a good thing I brought my trash bag. I didn't bring the trailer, which was too bad, because I filled up a bag rather quickly. Furthermore farm roads must be where people do all their drinking and driving because every quarter mile was a can tossed to the side of the road. Might be migrant farm-workers too. I began to play a game. If it was a dirty Corona bottle it had to be a farm worker, and if it was a tall can of Bud Light, it had to be a drunk driving honky. If it was a soda bottle, it was probably a little leaguer riding in the back of dad's trailer and obviously imitating the drunk drivers.

After I made my way thru the farm roads I figured I'd just head home.. I mean my recyclable bag was ripping and.. NO HELL NO! That was NOT just two bicyclists whizzing by me! I stopped and tied knots in the ripped plastic in the bag.. stuffed as much of the CRV as I could into my back-pack and kept going.

I made it to a park where I was positive there would be lots of golden CRV. No. Mexican-American family parties, and they all do their own recycling.

There was on the other hand a bearded fellow having an unhealthy lunch of kfc and root beer with his lady friend and some other couple. Instantly he reminded me of me as he slurped, "Hey man! Nice shorts! Sexy!"

To which I replied, "Hey man, thanks! I knew I'd get compliments in this park. That's why I came here," as I dug thru a trash barrel. He replied, "Because you knew I'd be here?"

"No, just because I figured something nice would happen here."

He instantly stopped acting so funny. I wasn't going to just stand there and let him belt out jokes about my shorts, which were really short. I wasn't going to feel uncomfortable for the guy so that he could look way cool in front of his friends. I continued to rummage thru more barrels and I complimented his beard. I told him we both shared a disregard for shaving and that this made us as one. I also told him that men who say "fuck shaving", should stand tall and be proud of their nature-given dead skin growth. He agreed. As I biked away he whistled at me. Maybe he was just trying to get out of his relationship with a woman by hinting that he was a little bit gay.

That wasn't the only instance of weird male awkwardness at my shorts. A common past-time of passenger seat drivers is YELLING LOUDLY OUT OF THEIR OPEN WINDOW. I think they hope to cause a bicyclist to freak out and crash, so that they can laugh and have something to tell their friends when they get to their next stupid kick-back. Unfortunately for him I didn't hear him until he was close because I had "Anal Cunt" blasting on my earphones. I made direct eye contact with him and he muttered, "Hey Sexy." To which I replied, "Do you like my legs?" He then something something that was completely unintelligible. Something like "wha, ah ata ata ata!!!" I wish I would have recorded it. I wish I would have recorded the entire day.