dir/newschool/rant: I   t u r n   t h i r t y p a r t   2

Last night was strange. I updated KungFu, drank a good bit of beer and began writing. The joints are rusty and the only way to lubricate them is to start the process. So I wrote a melancholy piece, which was true to my post beer induced mood, I did feel melancholy. The thing that drives me nuts about holidays and special occasions is that I seem to have lost my suspension of disbelief that this is not just another day.  I always want something more from them, something which is supposed to just hit me then and it does not happen. Later I feel it, but not then. I'm a bit detached in that way.

A few years ago my motorcycle was grounded and had been down and out for about three weeks. For those three grueling weeks I was paralyzed with immobility… I had shunned the car and the bus way of living and my life had become the motorcycle. Of course the motorcycle experience is different. When you drive a car, you do just that you drive it. When you get on a motorcycle you're taking an adventure and this is no exaggeration. The experience with the motorcycle is a great freedom compared to the car life. The motorcycle experience is cheap, For less then a few grand you can get enough bike to get you around, the real kicker is cost of ownership, for less then a hundred bucks a month you can insure, gas up and maintain a motorcyle, try doing it with a car, it's hard.

The motorcycle gives you a freedom and a greater burden of dealing with nature, the luxury of the cockpit is traded in for the breath of feeling alive, whether it be through the death clutching near misses which you cannot ignore or the joy and thrill of riding any vehicle which rests primarily between your legs.

It is in my thirtieth year that I remember the freedom and think back to my pre twenties when I was still not legal to drink but had the right to drive and my expenses were a motorcycle and a pager. I've come full circle and my goal is similar; Low overhead.

So today I went to work and I was well wished, and I did enjoy in some frantic way the thrill of being thirty. My actual birthday was spent running around and doing errands. Later today (Saturday) I'll continue work on my birthday party, my girlfriend is footing the bill, but the drinks and foods are my specialty.

I'm big on having parties where everything is prepped and ready before guests arrive. For some people that means pouring the chips in a bowl and unscrewing the top on some dip, for me it is a menu of prepared drinks and a selection of great appetizers. So I've worked late into the night-it's not six am as I write this and am only turning in for a few hours sleep before I get back up to do more work. It's a labor and I only do it once or twice a year, too expensive, too much work. Besides it's my birthday. I guess it'd make more sense to really put it in the hands of someone else but I want it a certain way. Not sure if anyone can feel me on that or not, that could easily be my control freak side showing, but I have rigid expectations of how I want things to go and I know I will be happy with what I do. Someone else? Hm… For that to happen people would have to apprentice under me to see the attention I pay to detail.

Yeah… Control freak shit there and lots of late night sleep exhaustion honesty showing through.

But back to the story about my bike being busted. My bike was not rare or a classic as a matter of fact it should have been a pretty typical motorcycle, but my shop was having a bitch of a time finding parts for it, so it sat for weeks and I had no desire to switch back to public transportation, I didn't even have any desire to hang with/loan rides off my driving friends. At some point, when you're able to convey yourself around town, that getting rides from your friends ordeal is bullshit. Fuck it. Stay home, smoke a cigar, watch tv and that's what I did, smoked cigars, watched the telly and sat around the house sulking. My life was very much that motorcycle. I understand it now, that it was more then just something to get around on, it was my life.

Getting up and going out to your motorcycle, prepared and ready to go. The ride, when you go from being hot, to feeling those first few wisps of air as they pull at drops of sweat and leave shadows of salt on your skin. I didn't want the bus or some buddy cause I missed the union and the experience that you can only get on a motorcycle, that you only feel when you are alone and happy. To this day I keep a motorcycle at all times, I don't ride nearly as much, but to not own one, to not be able to just go get it and ride when I feel the need, that is painful. And you eventually carry your experience, like you do the joy of riding a bike, when they stop just being things stored in the back of your mind and they become things you live for. And I live for the past, it is a marvelous time. I might have fucked up a good bit of it-this is always my concern, but I'll be damned if it's still not a fraction of the time I spent enjoying myself and that is pretty nice to realize.

My girlfriend says I am better in hindsight then in how I think in the current space of things. Maybe I'm just a romantic or very forgiving, maybe she's right, but the past doesn't sting so much like the present and that might be a burden which others have to deal with in their relationships with me.  I am critical of now and judgemental of the future and always longing for the past and I remember when a loaf of bread was a nickel. I do not remember when you could leave your doors unlocked  I do remember when… You get the picture right…