easier than "running"

these days i work close to home: 5.4 miles away.  i was really happy to find this out because now i could finally get a bike to ride to and from work because i am an earth lover.  i have my very own bike mentor, jack, who i think is a hippy.  he gives me all sorts of tips about bikes and riding and he also gave me some seizure-inducing lights to attach to my bike, which i just now realized i haven't named yet.  maybe i'll call him alabama.  inspired by the movie on tv i'm watching right now: the help.  which takes place in mississippi but that doesn't sound as nice as alabama.  also, jack gave me kombucha once. and face cream.

anyway, i bought a used frankenstein bike named alabama. 

i was so excited to ride alabama to work every day.  i had visions of saving  the earth all by myself and enjoying the ducks along the trail and getting fit just by commuting and never having to set foot in golds gym again and being able to eat pizza every day.  i briefly considered getting rid of atticus, but that's stupid.  alabama isn't decked out enough to carry my giant jars of pepperoncini from costco.  and i am NOT riding him on the freeway to get to my parents' house.  i don't even dare turn left yet.

the first day was chilly so i wore a jacket.  but i discovered that the temperature on your hands when riding is about 20 degrees colder than the rest of the air.  my hands hurt so badly, i was near tears before i even got to the trail.  and i had to pedal really fast so i wasn't late which made me sweat like crazy which is really unpleasant anytime, but just so terrible when you're also freezing.  i showed up at work a mess (and 15 minutes late).  my shirt was wet.  my hair was matted down.  my nose was running.  i was red from cold.  it was miserable.  plus also i had to get up earlier to get to work on time.

i HATE being sweaty all day at work.  even after it dries i'm kind of clammy cold...and stinky.  and my hair is like a mop (even more moppier than usual).  but i really feel strongly about the earth so i'm going to continue.  right now i can only talk myself into riding about once a week because i have to mentally prepare myself to sit in my own filth all day. 

this saturday shelley and i are riding our bikes from one end of the trail to the other-45 miles.  we are naively enthusiastic about this because we don't have any real idea what 45 miles is like on a tiny bike seat.  we're both real excited about the picnic we have planned, but probably the whole thing is going to be awful.  so if you see us along the road, holding our behinds, we'd love a ride home.  at the very least, please don't hit us.

psa: pigeons won't fly away

on friday, i ran over a pigeon on the way to work. ran over.  i was driving along, obeying most traffic laws and i saw two pigeons just walking around in my lane.  i didn't swerve to avoid them, because in my 18 years of driving (wait, 18? that can't be right...IT IS.  oh brother.) i've never NOT seen a bird fly away quickly when there is a 2-ton vehicle barreling toward them.  as i got closer, one of the pigeons flew away, like he's SUPPOSED TO, but the other pigeon just kept walking around, enjoying the view.  i figured he was involved in some sort of dare or game of chicken and at last minute he'd fly away.  i kept thinking this right up until thu-thump.

NO.

sure enough, i looked in the rearview mirror to see feathers flying all over the place. enough to fill a pillow.  i felt terrible.

then my co-workers, kade and andrea, and i walked outside to look at it and its skull was crushed and some guts were out.  and i felt even more terrible than i did before.  i've never taken a life before, unless you count all the bugs smeared on my windshield.  kade kept trying to tell me that pigeons are rat-birds and that i was doing the world a great favor by eliminating one.  that didn't help.  it did, however, help when andrea said it probably didn't fly away because it had a broken wing and i probably just put it out of its misery.  this made me feel a lot better.  and then, for lunch, we ordered jimmy john's sandwiches and played friends scene it? (which i dominated because i'm a loser)  so i forgot all about the pigeon.  until kade texted me later that night with these words: bird killer.

the point is this: don't assume too much from pigeons.  they won't fly away and you will hit them with your death machine.