There is a Saturday night date with Person M. (I will start encrypting the names and occupations of dates so that friends, exes, and others do not go searching for them on websites and calling them to explain why Ray is so emotionally fragile these days.) The date goes okay, probably the best that I can say is that it wasn't a disaster. Person M is nice but not for me. We do have good conversation about life and things, but Person M is not for me.
The rule of thumb for riding motorcycles, where close calls come three at a time, is now obsolete. (Or is it that I am now on my second round of threes?)
I'm riding home on Monday afternoon and I'm minding my own business in the second traffic lane from the right. I look over to the right to see a guy coming fast up the right shoulder of the road in order to get ahead of those last few cars before the shoulder closes down. With his left arm out the window holding a cigarette and one hand on the wheel, he's totally in control. He slots into the right lane - just missing hitting the car in front of him. And I can see what is coming next. He wants to be in the second traffic lane because the first isn't moving fast enough. So here he comes!
But I decide that he is the one that needs the scare. So I wait until he's halfway into my lane - knowing that I have a full 18 inch shoulder on my left to use as an escape if necessary - and just lay on the horn as long and as loud as my finger can push the button. This gets his attention quickly as he violently pulls the steering wheel back to the right and makes it back into the right lane. (And now I need to exaggerate for the next sentence.) Almost losing control of the truck as he fishtails back into the right lane. I shake my fist at him and crack the throttle wide open to get the heck away from him.
Tuesday I go for a nighttime bicycle ride. There just are not enough daylight hours left to satisfy my need to ride. I have lights on the bicycle and on my leg, so I am taking some precautions to ride safely. And most of the ride is 10 laps around an abandonded business park where there is very little traffic. I feel good at the end of the hour ride, take a shower, gather reading material, and head for a coffeehouse. But the Coffee Tavern is closed now. Probably going out of business since the Burmese ChiChi is no longer there as a drawing card. I go to a different local coffeehouse and get a lot of reading done. Though I have not started or finished the "Biped Gymnastics" paper that the KM gave me a week ago. It's next!
I get home and the telephone calls start. There's Person J, another encrypted lead. We have a good conversation and agree to meet soon. There are two calls with the KM. This time they are balanced calls where we both share problems with each other and try to help each other out. And there are two calls and an email from Dao. The email was sent after he read my latest diary entry and wanted to tell me that I am nuts and that he misses me. The first phone call sets the arrangements for a dayhike on the weekend. The second phone call, at 1am, is a trying one as he shares some problems with me. I try to listen and console. The problems that he shares are consistent with his recent behavior and now I am starting to understand (somewhat) the entire situation. I am glad that he has called and, though I don't want to see my friends in pain, his outlook/behavior is becoming clearer.
I wake up Wednesday morning after a full couple hours of sleep, recent telephone calls having taken their toll. I lift weights, take a shower, and select the motorcycle as the appropriate mode of transportation to get to work. I have the jitters this morning - I am not able to keep my hands from shaking (probably from lack of sleep and from lifting).
I have a flashback. It is 1986 and I am riding my Yamaha 600cc motorcycle (The fastest 600 production bike on the planet!) towards home from UCLA at 5am. I have been coked up for three straight days without sleep - trying to forget Noelle. I have the jitters this morning and am trying to ride as cautiously as possible so that a policeman doesn't decide to pull me over. I eventually make it home and sleep for a while.
Back to the present, today I also have the jitters and feel the same way that I did back then - mentally and emotionally perplexed from emotional overload and lack of sleep. I soothe my emotions with a fantasy.
I am Valentino Rossi at the Czech Republic Grand Prix and have just gotten a bad start off the front row of the grid. I need to make up positions so that my arch nemesis, Max Biaggi, doesn't get off the front and gain points on me. I take one car on the inside of the 710 onramp - a knee down towards the pavement but not touching. I take two more cars as I have the throttle WFO (wide f#*$&%@ open) and I am skipping the use of the clutch. I've been on the 710 freeway for less than a quarter mile and I've been in every single lane at least twice - looking for open space to let the bike run. Later I decide to pull directly behind a big truck as I try to use the slipstream to gain additional speed. Boy this is a long truck! And I almost move over too soon - my front wheel missing the truck by an inch. No more than an inch. Absolutely nothing more than an inch. Later I take another car on the outside of the Inglewood/Manhattan Beach Blvd turn just prior to the final TRW straight. Maybe two and a half times the speed limit is a bit too fast on Manhattan Beach Blvd and I slow down to calmly pull into TRW's parking lot.
I am settled down now. The shakes are gone!