DScottGRRL

RELIEF

It’s true. THEY were right. You never forget how to ride a bike.

Here are some things you do forget over the years:

1. turning
2. stopping
3. the shame of falling less than 5 minutes into your first ride in over 15 years

I have the scraped-up knee to prove it.

I was sooo afraid I would hop on that bike and just not be able to catch my balance and circulate those pedals. I figured that if there was one person in the world who could forget how to ride a bike, it would probably me.

But I turned the tables on THEM, now didn’t I?

SOON COME

I rode.

In a straight line, at least.

Curves, turns, stops, they will soon come.

I’ve never ridden a bike in the street before.

I mean a real street.

With cars.

And traffic lights.

And teeny-tiny little skinny-minnie bike lanes.

TINY when I tell you TINY!!!!

Nerve-wracking to say the least.

A LITTLE SKERFUFFLE

I’m terrified of riding into a car.

Actually, that’s what caused my first accident.

I was trying to correct my balance, overcompensated, and was headed straight for a car.

My knee gallantly took the fall and saved my new bike and the car from impending doom.

I’m a little shaky, but alright, thanks for asking.

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

My new bike is really pretty (can you say mint green pearlescent?) and cool and I’m a cooler person now that it’s mine.

And that’s all that matters and nothing else. Not even THEM.

C’est ça.

P.S. the boyfriend and I got our new rides at Chubby’s in Culver City. Highly recommend it!

Technorati Tags: beach cruiser, bike riding, LA, Santa Monica, Chubby’s

Love Bowling Just LURRRRVEEE EEET!

It’s always delightful when you find new sports which you should totally never again be caught playing because the next time you just might actually die of embarrassment.

I am a horrendously awful bowler.

Not that I didn’t know that before. Somewhere in there I was always remotely aware that bowling wasn’t “my thing.” But that didn’t mean I wasn’t up for a night of balls and pins.

Au contraire, I was all over that shit.

Forgetful Jones

I guess it had been a while–say, 9 months or so–since the last time I’d bowled. And within those 9 months I had magically forgotten:

a) how much I suck at bowling

b) how much I hate losing

c) the inevitability of my sucking and consequent losing at bowling

Not Last

I’ve written about my competitive streak before (here) but let me make it clear–it had no place in bowling last night.

Bowling for me was never about winning.

I mean, let’s be real–we all have a good enough idea of what we can humanly accomplish in life and for me, a 300 is not on that list and never will be.

No, I didn’t set out with pie-in-the-sky hopes of kicking ass at bowling last night. My goals were much more humble: not being last.

It’s one thing to suck and entirely another to suck the most out of everyone you’re with. And that was me, last night.

Urgghhhhh.

And I tried. I really really really tried. Sometimes I’d get close and get 9 pins but never the strike. In 4 consecutive games, not one, single strike. Lordie, not even a spare. NOT ONE SPARE.

I tried to think about it rationally. I’ve never sucked this bad before, I don’t think.

Wardrobe Issues

Maybe it was my outfit.

I had a really hard time figuring out what to wear last night.

Here were the factors: 50 degrees outside, nice dinner with friends… then bowling.

For the life of me I could not come up with the outfit to accommodate all three factors.

Pants

There’s the whole no heels things–can’t wear pants that are long enough to wear heels because then you’ll be tripping over them when you wear those gorgeous rental bowling shoes. And of course, the pants have to be comfortable to allow for freedom of movement. Same with shirt.

Layers

And then you have to think about layers. It’s effing cold outside but you know once you’re there and throwing strikes (ha ha) you’ll get all warmed up and feel the need to remove clothing.

Dinner

And then there’s the dinner factor. Who wants to look like a schlub going to play bowling when you’re going out to dinner with friends?

It was just a little too much for me. I couldn’t deal. Couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Just that I was unprepared for the occasion and well, that just never bodes well.

I blame the weather. I’m just not in a good wardrobe place when it comes to this whole winter thing. It was miserable. I was switching it up til the last minute and I just wasn’t happy about it.

Lesson Learned

I know myself. An unhappy outfit is a sucky bowling Dan.

Lesson learned.

Challenge: A prize to who comes up with the perfect bowling/dinner/50-degree weather outfit. I’ll be the judge

Technorati Tags: bowling, LA, winter, wardrobe issues

“People are always like, ‘We like his music, but we don’t like him.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, duh, I get to edit my music.”~ Kanye West in an ABC News article

alas! if only I could edit my life…

Technorati Tags: Kanye West, editing

“It’s a signal that you are on the cutting edge if you feel like you’re experiencing early onset Alzheimer’s”*

~ Jennifer James, PhD

The Adaptive Executive

IABC Conference, New Orleans, June 26, 2007

Take that, blundering blunders.

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Can I just add to my list of eff-ups for the month? Seriously, can I?

Okay then here it goes:

12. Left my bank card at the ATM so now I’m stuck with $40 cash to last me on my trip because it takes 5 to 7 days for them to send me a new one.

Somebody put me out of my misery…

See my previously posted 1 - 11 eff-ups for the month here.

Something very very wrong has transpired in the last few weeks. Something has sent my equilibrium way off kilter and kicked my dreamer gene into high gear.

Absurd instances of absentmindedness abound.

In the past four weeks I have managed to:

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Sometimes I think I’m an idiot savant.

I mean, all in all, I consider myself highly intelligent, but mostly in the book smarts area, I’ll admit. I’m really good at memorizing things and standardized tests and all of that stuff that doesn’t matter for shit once you leave school.

Street smarts, common sense, whathaveyou–I have serious problems. It has to do with my dreamer gene, I think, which I recently learned may have a name.

Anyway, on with my story. Yes, on with the story. (not-so-obscure Sesame Street News reference)

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“You don’t know how to be a team player.”

“You have to be a better winner.”

“That’s not good sportsmanship.”

“You have to COOL IT DOWN.”

Dude, WTF.

America, it seems, has a love-hate relationship with winners and I had the pleasure of experiencing it first-hand last night.

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Today the boyfriend and I set off to go the Main Street Farmers’ Market, a sort of pseudo-hippie, very California-type, produce market and food fair where people sit on the grass and throw their rubbish in compost bins.

On leaving the house, I picked up my bag, deemed it sufficiently heavy, and marched out the door. It never occured to me to check my bag to see what was in it and whether the things I might actually need — a wallet, glasses wipes, etc — were actually in there.

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And substitute my own. I can’t remember where that’s from and I can’t be bothered at the moment to look it up but I like it.

In my family, my mother’s side to be precise, there’s something of a dreamer’s gene and I inherited it. Kind of like an absent-minded professor thing, we have going on.

I don’t look at it as a negative thing. Frankly, my reality is infinitely more enjoyable to me than the objective one.

So I’d say about half the time, you may catch me walking around with my head in the clouds, usually accompanied by series of comical expressions as I unabashedly explore my rich inner life.

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