Leaving, part One (Bonus: sawn-off review of "World War Z")

You ever get the sense that a state is convincing you to leave and never return? Not in the sense of being railroaded out of town, or tarred and feathered, but little things.

[Scroll down for the spoiler-free sawn-off review of World War Z]

I was driving a route I've gone about once a week for the past two years, which half of Conway drives to work and back in Little Rock, when I almost got into an accident. Part of me isn't surprised, because when I moved here, my insurance rates jumped up a good chunk. That suggests bad drivers, sorry, and it was confirmed when I actually saw people "drive." Forget about the rushing through yellow lights, or even outright blowing through the reds, that's too expected for people here. No, I saw a guy make a U-turn in the middle of a busy road, weaving around what traffic he wasn't blocking! He was ten feet past the intersection (which allows U-turns legally, but that's another story), and just fifty from an actual parking lot in which he could safely turn about. But no, he HAD to turn RIGHT THERE. 

That's one story from this week, and one smidgen of evidence suggesting Arkansas needs to require a driver's education class.

Thankfully, I wasn't near a collision there. A few days ago, however, I was almost in a pile-up. Yep, thanks to some late braking by the pair of idiots in front of me at the time, we all had to engage in a tactical swerve to a staggered-line formation for safety. They went left and right, and I went right then left and deftly avoided the semi to my right and the ditch to my left, all while pulsing, pumping, and finally slamming my brakes to keep myself out of their cars. I thanked the god of anti-lock brakes and the god of attentive drivers for existing, that day (they happen to be the same god (God), who happens to be the God of Everything, which includes anti-lock brakes and attentive drivers). And of course, I do what everybody does when the cause becomes apparent: I looked. Did I see a grisly car wreck? How about our president, handing out money? Or perhaps Johnny Cash, not so dead? Of course not. So what caused the unnecessary and sudden slow-down? A young girl got pulled over. She was wearing jean-shorts that looked homemade. That's about it.

At least it wasn't nothing (that's happened way too often already).

Then later, THAT SAME DAY, I was turning right, onto a main road, when Bozo McOld decided to pull out in front of me from the bank opposite me. It was an aggressive maneuver, which I can respect, but it did require that I slam on my brakes (and same for Dude behind me) when he realized what he was doing and then immediately apologized by SLAMMING on his brakes in the MIDDLE of four lanes. I'm not kidding; he took up the entire street. Now, had he gunned it from the get-go, everything would've been fine. So it just goes to show you that half-measures don't cook, and that it's better to be an ass-hole than just an ass.

That's not the worst, though. Once, I saw a driver work VERY VERY hard to pull a u-turn to go the wrong way down an offramp. He worked for that shit. And there's a particular stretch of highway in Little Rock that I've witnessed, I kid you not, a delivery truck (big sized) pointed the WRONG WAY (toward me!), and suddenly fix his error and about-face. That was in my first month of living here (welcome to Arkansas; we don't require a driver's education course).

And that's just the road-safety stuff.

Today, I saw World War Z (It was okay, but not nearly dark enough to be a proper zombie horror, and not light enough to be a proper zombie comedy. Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead: those are proper zombie movies/shows and you should watch them all twice. This movie fell short of greatness, but was good for eight bucks' fun. Not worth 3D, but worth the big screen.) After the (decent) movie, there was an encounter between two women in the audience that was honestly more tense and exciting than anything that happened on screen. Many a "fatass" was slung in that discussion, and I was convinced that yes indeed, Arkansas is convincing me to never return.

The places we live, they shape us, but there isn't much of Arkansas I want to take with me wherever I go (that stuff will be covered on a later post; this one is about bad drivers). As always, I'll close with this: Click the ads! All of them! Many times!

Triple-Stamped, No Erasies

Hokai, so, I had a job, selling mattresses, but I don't any more. So I have a lot of free time to look forward to these next few months of unemployment. See, I'm terrible at personal discipline, so this is a problem. Seriously, I've watched Star Wars twice in one day, just because I started with the first one! It's not inherently evil, sure, but there's a certain point where inactivity warps you and you discover that all you've got left to prove your existence is a broken-in couch.

I don't want that for me. I want adventure , so this blog will stand as a re-branding of, well, me, as an adventurist. The idea is, have this as a public record of what I do, which will also give me reason to do adventurous things... like, I dunno, parkour or something (please no parkour, for the love of God). I'm also writing a novel, so the plan is make this blog wildly successful over the next few years (well, overnight would be great, but I am still pretty lazy).

Successful to the point at which people say "Hey, I love your words and want you to lie directly to me, but not on the computer, can you write a novel?" To which I shall respond, "Why yes, of course; here it is!"

And they'll throw money at me (and claim I can see the future, which I of course will not correct) until I can retire and do nothing whatsoever with my life. To the casual analyst, it would seem that I plan on taking a very long route to the same place (why not just skip the writing and the blog, and just do nothing but maybe working crap jobs?). However, they would be forgetting one thing: I have to feed my ego.
Yup, there it is. I like to think I'm important.

That there's my life plan. Subject to change at the drop of a hat, of course (see the rules... listed somewhere).

But, I want to write daily in this blog, because otherwise people will just forget that it exists (seriously, that's how it is with me). The catch is, I get bored, and I lose focus. My solution is to have seven subjects I can address in any given entry. Seven things I feel I can write about entertainingly (totally a word; suck it, dictionary!) enough to actually get people to read all the way through things and again, make them buy my book once it's written.

Here are the ideas I have so far:
1) Mind-jobs (at some point, I will try to convince you that circles don't exist)
2) Principles of a Dignified Life (living by a code, so to speak... seriously... like, tip even when you're poor)
3) Outright Lies (storytelling, of the freeform variety because thick fiction doesn't mix with the interwebs)
4) Cultural Analysis (how Star Wars episodes 1-3 should have been, and the implications of Twilight)
5) Adventureblogging (doing stupid shit for attention, like, unplanned bike trips)
6) People-Hacks (like life-hacks, but with people... manipulating people)
7) Beginner's Luck (I try something with little to no preparation or experience in it, like building a chair)
8) anything else

And lastly, I'll leave you, dear reader, with this thought: click on the ads!! please for the love of God, click on the ads! I don't care what they're for, just click on them; that's how I can make money out of this! Click multiple times! I don't care if you read the blog or not, just visit it ten times daily and click every ad that shows up on it! Make a game out of it somehow, like, how many different ads will Google put in there for you to click?

you'll think of something; you're creative

ankle-biters in Banjo county

So I was out riding the countryside like two weeks ago. Just kinda picked a direction and rode. South, into the hills. I may've benefited by having a more.... planned route in mind, but I'll get into that later.

Now, I've been chased by dogs before, and it's always an energizing experience, but really I've been able to keep a good distance between me and them. I've learned to keep an extra ounce of leg for just those instances. But this time, I had friggin' Wishbone chasing me through gravel up a hill in traffic. Then, half an hour later, I had a German Shepherd trying to bite my ankles! He actually ran me off the road for a bit, which wasn't a big deal or anything, but still, the shock. 

Then, another half-hour later, Google Maps failed me for the first time! On the route I was taking, the road (according to my phone) took a hairpin turn and then connected with a straight drive back to the city. But in reality, that road never took that sharp left turn, and turned into dirt in between a horse farm (ranch?) and a redneck outpost (which was actually rather quaint). But there I was, chased by dogs, stranded and semi-lost in the middle of Banjo-County Arkansas, and wearing bright red Lycra.

Not a good situation.

Eventually, I got over my stubbornness and accepted that I had to turn around. Although, feasibly, I could have continued over the dirt/gravel roads, but I had no idea where they were going, so that prolly wasn't a good idea. But I went back the way I came, past the dogs again (who this time didn't even bark), and yeah, back to civilization.

The trip back never seems to amount to much, this time was no different.

About Lycra...

So, it has been a while since my last post. Apologies to all two of my followers, and thanks to the one who kicked me in the butt enough to actually get me to write. Yay fiancee! The bright side is that I have plenty of stories by now!

Cycling is an interesting sport... activity... thing. If you think about it, it's not an inherently social activity. I mean, you can ride your bike, cycle as much as you want, and never make eye contact with anyone else riding a bike and still be a cyclist. Or a bike rider, but that leads to confusion about riding motorcycles and frankly, I wear Lycra, not leather. Lycra (just say that out loud for a moment. There. Feel that texture of the word in your mouth). I figured out, a while ago, the difference between riding a bike and cycling. It all boils down to Lycra. If you take yourself so seriously that you ride essentially naked in public by wearing Lycra, then you're a cyclist (Cyclist: give that a capital "c"). If you wanna look good and feel comfortable and wear actual clothing, then you're bicycle-riding.

[I decided to split where I was going with this into two posts, so below I tell you a story and some other time you'll get my overarching and frankly esoteric point. Deal.]

So I was riding the Little Rock River Trail a while ago on an amazingly warm winter day. Like seventy, seriously. The total loop is about twenty miles and the north side of the trail is quite nice. Lots of good scenery, cliffs, a few gentle hills and few homeless people. It's nice, really; not as nice as all the advertisements would make you think (see the back of the latest Bicycling Magazine). The catch with doing the whole loop, though, is that you go through downtown Little Rock. It's not like you're going through gang territory (although you may), but you are nonetheless going through some incredibly sketchy territory.

Abandoned warehouses. Underneath overpasses. Dried out culverts and (dear God!) homeless people. And you're wearing Lycra. Complete strangers look and well, they can see your junk completely and thoroughly, and you tie up traffic because you've only got the two wheels.

And I ran over glass and got a slow flat, so I don't recommend the south side.

But the north? Fantastic. If you get a flat, there's a bike rental place with a really friendly dog and a guy who'll offer all the help you'll need.

But you'll sit there in your Lycra, pumping your tire up yourself, with your spare, when an old guy comes up and (remember that you're in Lycra, now) assumes you know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to biking -- I mean, Cycling.

Ugh, I've been going on for a while, so I think I'll shut up for now. See y'all in a bit!

Now With Pictures!

Yep, got me a nice raspberry today. Well, that's the motorcycle term for roadrash (pretty sure that's a motorcycle term, too), but am going to delay explaining how exactly I got nice and bloodied for as long as possible, because it's just that lame a story. In the meantime, revel in my gory glory!

I ended my day with some spicy eggdrop soup, which I made myself (I'm trying to brag here, ya mind?). Turned out to be perfect for ending a night of riding around in shorts and tee-shirt at about thirty or forty degrees. The saltiness of the broth and the protein in the eggs was darn near perfect, but what really did the job was when I added the Sriracha! For those of you who don't know what pure delicious fire tastes like, it comes in a bottle and can be found in just about any asian restaurant. And it glows red and for some reason has a rooster and a bunch of Chinese (?) characters on it. The Chinese makes sense; it's the rooster that sticks out as weird. I digress; just know that you should google search "eggdrop soup" and follow the first one that pops up, but add sriracha. Nothin beats breathing fire after freezing to death.

Hey, awesome link: http://blog.thesrirachacookbook.com/post/1535833396/sriracha-food-group-food-pyramid

Side note: I tried adding wasabi and extra ginger, but neither worked like sriracha and soy sauce (thank you fiancee for the soy sauce idea).

I had weaved around rush-hour traffic to get to the only coffee shop in town that is not a Starbucks. I'll rant about Starbucks, but suffice to say: they're evil. Really, it was a chance to use up my punch card's free drink and reestablish my ability to ride a damn bike, after having fallen. I had basically given up for the day, worn out earlier than I was expecting, and discouraged by an unbelievably cold and strong wind. Really, I'm pretty sure I was riding in an outdoor wind-tunnel in Antarctica. Like that image? I do. Took me a while to come up with it, though. Not proud of that. But, long story short, I had to man-up after having wussed out earlier.

...

No way around it; I fell, with one foot still attached to my bike. I misjudged the slope of the parking lot as I was dismounting, and my weight was on the right while my left foot was the one actually detached. Hilarity ensues, and I get up with some nice scrapes to lie about for a week or so.

I fought a bear.

I was jumping off a cliff.

I attempted to fly.

I stopped a robbery.

Anything other than I fell off my bicycle and skinned my knee.

Thank's for Riding

So yeah, It's been a good 2+ months since my last post. This is how blogs go with me; I write a lot, then gradually lose interest of just plain forget about it. Happened to my writing blog. Happened to my other writing blog, and darn near happened to this blog, too. Fortunately I have a fiancee that bugs me into doing stuff that's good for me. Also fortunately, I had a fairly eventful day of cycling.

After having bought my bike, Vigdis (a Surly Cross-Check), I immediately started thinking of what to upgrade first. After having to deal with the weird knobbiness/non-knobbiness of the stock tires that came with the bike (I accept that, being what is effectively a high-end hybrid, Vigdis and her finer points will be exceptional at nothing, but still people!), I upgraded the tires to WTB's CrossWolf tires. So far, they're fantastic on wet grass, which is weird, of all things to excel at, but whatever. I no longer fear taking those sharp, low-angle turns because these new tires have a nice, consistent oh my God is this boring! New topic:

I got clipless pedals today. For those of you who don't know what those are (I didn't until like six months ago, so no judgments here), essentially, you attach your feet to the pedals, such that you cannot accidentally take them out. I rode with a mild fear of turtling (picture two wheels in the air and me upside down on the pavement -- oo! better yet, picture those fainting goats but riding bikes), but luckily i only looked like I had special needs a few times today.

Really, the cool thing is that you can power through on the upstroke when you're pedaling, so yay for efficiency! It's pretty cool dropping into pedaling beast-mode at any given moment, completely burning out your (my) legs and rotating which muscles to use and which to rest at any given moment. I'm getting that much closer to cyborg!

It's not exactly a life-goal, but still, it'd be neat to be a cyborg.

I was on my way back from the only coffee shop in town that's not a starbucks, weaving aroung some amazing holiday traffic, surrounded by cars at a stoplight (Conway sucks, that's all there is to it; it's a town with ten times as much traffic as there is to justify it). But, the car next to me, the passenger rolled down his window and said "thanks for biking!"

Merry Christmas, you commuters out there; we are appreciated!

The First Long Ride

So, I like to name things. Inanimate objects, I mean (literally, things). My car, I named Isabelle, after a short story and its main character of the same name, written by George Saunders - look it up; it's heartbreakingly beautiful. But naming my car isn't so strange, and frankly, nobody wants to read a blog of the banal (vanilla mementos? chalk thoughts? hrm... those are some fun names).  So, I named my iPod Charlyn Marie Marshall, after the birth name of Cat Power. My computer I named Cormack after Cormack McCarthy, author of The Road. And my detachable Hard Drive I named after my favorite Watchman character, Rorschach.

So my bike, my recently acquired new love, I named Vigdis (nothing whatsoever to do with the World of Warcraft npc).

Yup, it's weird. But then again, to be exceptional, you have to be weird. That's my excuse.

That, and there's a story to it. She's a steel-frame Surly Cross-Check, a bike known best for being able to take whatever its rider puts it through and keep asking for more mud, grit, and asphalt. Think an A-10 Warthog: violent and dirty. So in order to respect her, I'd have to give her a name that evokes in me a sense of her potential grace and power: Vigdis.

It's old Norse for "War Goddess."

Now that's a bike I'd be almost afraid to ride. Afraid of how she'd change my life, of how hard I'd push myself to even meet her capabilities. A bike I'm a little afraid to look at on days I don't ride.

So I'll accuse my bike's inflammatory name for my pushing myself too far on our first legit ride together.

Before Friday, the longest I had ridden Vigdis, or any bike, was ten miles of rolling countryside. This ride, though, was more than three times that. Thirty miles isn't a lot to more seasoned riders, but just consider tripling your previous longest ride, and you'll get a sense for the scope of my trip.

It's a ride a local group takes on Mondays, and it is designated as "great for beginners." That phrase is very open to interpretation. I learned that twice. First, on my way out (it's a there-and-back route), I was feeling like a pro, blasting the average speed of the ride by like five knots. Then, I learned again of the vagaries of a "beginner" on my way back home, where I bonked into a headwind. Pretty sure that's what happened, because I was putting out twice the effort for half the results. Toward the end there were moments where I couldn't think, where the whole of my existence was my pedaling legs.

But I did make it back, wall and all. Even my throbbing nether regions didn't stop me! I have now invested in a padded chamois, btw. I'll let y'all make all the jokes you want about a Viking War Goddess pummeling my ass, that's only fair, and there are far too many to list here.

Vigdis made it the 34 miles easily. Easier that I did, anyway. Maybe I'll be able to take some solace in the hope that I'll be able to ride that route in a few weeks without dying (or at least without my index finger going numb - the hell?)

I have difficulty pushing myself, like, always, but it's good having my War Goddess keeping me riding the path to Asgard