Early Monday night was noisy and I chalked it up to the idiot criminals going to the meth clinic next door. Loud music, cars going past the kitchen window. I noticed it because I was cooking and the window was open. Monday night was uneventful, just sleeping and getting up on Tuesday morning with a little drag ass.
On my way out the door I did a small double take on the pole where I'd lock up my bike. My bike was locked, secured with its steel cable and a regular Masterlock padlock and now there's an empty space. For a minute I ignored it then looked again to make absolutely certain that my bike was missing. I was running late, quick scenarios of dealing with police helpfully shrugging their shoulders and never getting my bike back despite reporting the theft. I was running late and I was cutting it awful thin for my brief commute. I found the cable for my bike in the bushes. No cuts, nothing, they had picked the lock.
I never contacted the police. Far easier to stew in my own rage, anxiety and helplessness than to do anything which will be useless in the first place. There's the fact that I don't trust police which colors any dealings with them. Plus the stories I've heard about folks having their cars robbed and looted and how the cops say there's nothing they can do unless someone saw the perpetrators. They won't even take a report.
Lunch was a half hour on Tuesday and I wasted that wolfing down my salami sandwich while speeding home to make sure everything was in its place.
After work, I phoned my father. It's wrong of me to expect anyone to give me any sort of solace or comfort. My troubles are my troubles and affect no one else except when they have to put up with my noise. Thirty four years has reinforced this worldview. I know he was trying to be helpful in his own way but I didn't need to hear the paranoid fantasy of "Oh, they must've been scoping it out for some time." Great, so people are after me and formulating grand designs to cause me any measure of distress. I am paranoid and anxious enough about my life that I don't need to have this validated by other people, especially influential folk like my dad. What's next, dad? Are you going to tell me that my apartment is going to get hit next week, I'll come home and find Spot's corpse in my trashed home that's been thoroughly looted?
So that's why I ended the call right there because I didn't need that kind of bullshit. That's one of the reasons why I needed to get away from New Jersey. The people I was living with weren't amenable to maintaining sanity. Dad, I eagerly await any forthcoming nasty email from you after you read this entry. I'll even post it here!
Losing my bike has been hard on me. The past few weekends have been happily spent tweaking the bike, fixing tires, installing a rack for my new pannier bags and riding it whenever I wanted to ride my bike. Now I have to walk like a schmuck or waste gas driving short distances. Walking has given me a different perspective, everything's more detailed and real than when I'm in cycling world. I even stopped to say hello to the vicious chihuahuas a couple doors down from the Birdhouse. Plus the dogs around the corner who like to lounge in their sun nook looked at me strangely because I wasn't riding my bike.
The strangest comments I've gotten regarding the loss of my bike were from raddidge and Kylie.
7/1/05: raddidge says, "If it had been a bike of mine, I'd be hoping that whoever stole it was taking good care of it."
raddidge says, "Not trashing it."
7/2/05: nutmeg pages, "well I hope you find the bastard... or at least the bike"
nutmeg pages, "I just hope whoever took it actually needed it worse than you did."
Baffling, completely baffling.
Jaybird told me the same jokes that ran through my head on my way to work.
What did the black kid get for Christmas?
Your bike.
What do you call a black kid on a bike?
Thief.
Those didn't help my mood at all. Thankfully he caught on before maribou admonished him. I'm pretty certain it wasn't a black person. At the moment I'm blaming the people who go to the meth clinic. Should I ever catch the person who stole my bike, Jaybird would have to experience his nightmare of bailing me out of the pokey for assault. Some of the things which ran through my mind were disturbing to me and I'm not going to mention them here because they'd disturb raddidge and probably distance her from me. Heck, it wouldn't have to be the thief but someone who happens to be crossing through the backyard.
Shit, why do people think I don't lock up my bike? I grew up in New Jersey, spent most of my life in New Jersey. New Jersey has never had any pretensions about communities of people who aren't afraid to sleep with an unlocked front door unlike middle America!
Now I'm getting myself all riled up once again.
If I do get a bike, I'll get a folding bike to keep in my apartment.
A visit to raddidge's place. In my dream her house was closer to the mountains, nearer to many rock formations which would put Utah to shame. She's really happy about the fact that she has cable from eight different states on her TV.
I spend my time playing videogames but a few minutes later she comes back in and tells me that it's time for me to go home. "You have a PS2 at home, so why don't you use that?" she asks. On my way out, she hands me a mini-disc of some girl doing tit porn. raddidge reveals that it's one of her favorites because the girl seems to really enjoy having her tits fucked in the scene.
When I started playing the disc, her mom decides it's very important to go wandering around and act all nosy. The better part of this scene was spent hiding the porno from her mom.
When I do leave, I spend most of my time milling about outside and enjoying the view. The horizon is hazy, encircling mountains have their peaks shrouded in fog and mist. Across the way is a long road lined by broad, conical, sandstone formations that look like the faces of lost souls. The faces changing expressions from anger, surprise and sorrow with the sun's transit and the shifting shadows. After I point them out, raddidge shrugs and says they're just rocks. Familiarity breeds contempt.
raddidge says, "I had a weird dream last night. It was about Russell Crowe."
raddidge says, "He was directing a film, something set in the Middle Ages and I had been cast for a bit speaking part. The actors who had short speaking parts (which it seems there were many) had their lines printed on Magic cards. I received mine."
raddidge says, "When it was time for me to play my part I freaked out because I couldn't memorize what I was supposed to say and I ended up halting production for an entire day."
raddidge says, "At the end of the day I got a stern talking to by good ole Russell and he was extremely ticked off. He said he had promised that the movie would be released by January but it was already the beginning of February. He was very mad. The next day, even though I still couldn't memorize my lines, I made up my mind to do the best I could but I really screwed it up."
I am an introverted person. Talking to people on the phone enervates me. Being around people leaves me anxious. For the past three years I have chosen to live alone. The biggest social event on my calendar being TV and wrestling nights with the Birds. Now that's expanded to raddidge visiting on the weekend.
I'm not asking for understanding, acceptance or tolerance. Just let me be. When I want to come out, believe me everyone will know but until then everyone knows where to find me. That's the beauty and simplicity of my situation.
Trust me, it's not personal.
