The exorcist

December 26, 2018 § 6 Comments

I feel sorry for normal people. They get all pissed off and have to deal with it normally, you know, hold it in, talk it out, go to therapy, get religion, buy a gun and shoot up a shopping mall, that kind of stuff.

I am grateful for the abnormal affliction of cycling because it provides such a wonderful outlet for all pains large and small.

On my birthday it was windy AF. Yasuko and I went down to the Manhattan Beach Pier and were met by Baby Seal, Elijah, Charon, Kendall, Tom Duong, his buddy Adrian, Boozy P., and Surfer. Charon and I smashed into the wind all the way to PCH, and then the wind magically stopped, the sun came out, and we enjoyed a car-free Christmas on the world’s most beautiful bike lane.

When you are in a serious training block, as I am, it was crucial that I fuel up at the Trancas filling station with a chocolate-chocolate-on-chocolate Hag bar. What was less crucial was everyone secretly standing around with those little popper things and scaring the crap out of me as they shrieked “Happy Birthday!”

I hustled back into the bathroom and got things sanitary again, but really? Us old people scare easy, crap easier, and have been known to stroke out at loud noises. The dude inside the store heard the pops, and he commutes from a rough part of town and thought shit was going down, and I don’t mean the shit that went down.

The next morning I hooked up with Michael Marckx along with Marco Cubillos, Kristie Fox, and Emily Georgeson, and we did the same thing all over again, minus the poppers. The main difference was that whereas yesterday it was windy until we hit PCH and then perfect, this morning it was perfect until we hit PCH and then it was the maelstrom from hell.

But that is the great thing about battering into the wind. It batters out your brains, but it batters out your worries, too. I got home and my son Woodrow was heating up some mindblowing Thai curry leftovers that Yasuko had made a couple of nights before. “You want some, dad?” he asked, and when I grunted he put on another plate and served me up first, almost like I mattered.

END

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Pop! Goes the weasel.

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