October 16, 2007

See, I'm really more of a mind to do me some cartooning, but at the moment all of my software tools are locked away on some other distant hard drive, awaiting recovery. So there's that.

But: this past weekend. San. Fran. Cisco. Love that town. Traipsed about the place with the Mountain Madman. Consumed significant amounts of martini. Watched other people watch football. Got into an increasingly inebriated conversation with Dave the bartender, who knows how to green up a business and also makes a fine martini, all proper with a spoon through the ice krosh-krosh-krosh which melts said ice in just the right way, taking the edge off of things and smoothing them up proper.

And realized, finally: intention's the thing. So I intend to do something. But I can't tell you what it is.

Color me coy and smack my bottom.

Ooo!

Anyway, I am a bit put off by my sudden lack of graphical tools. But that'll be remedied tomorrow, and I can get around to posting random images for your enjoyment.

I've been thinking about selling my trike. Yes, this one. It's worth...what's the technical term...ah, yes: a shitload of money. But beyond that, it was a pedal-powered tri-wheeled crucible. That thing hauled my maniacally depressed ass across the entire states of Virginia and Oregon, as well as into the hearts of Kentucky and California. And I, in turn, hauled its steel-tubed carcass from Kentucky to the Pacific Ocean. It began its life in Australia, so it's better traveled than I am. It's an aero-nosed home away from home, and there's not really a price on that, not yet.

This evening I totaled up what it cost me, and priced it out according to the current used trike market, and then started thinking about putting the new tires on it. It came equipped with slick Scorchers, but I traveled on Primo Comets, which are better suited for long haul triking, and they served me well. That means that I still have a shiny new set of tires, though, designed for zipping around with the speedy whoosh! that only slicks can provide, and Scorchers are as slick as they come. I thought about those new tires, and about polishing up the trike's frame in preparation for its sale, and taking some fine steel wool to the rotors of the disk brakes that once got so hot they threw tiny dabs of molten brake pad onto the backs of my hands as I careened down the switchbacks into Vesuvius, Virginia. And I realized, by the gods, that right there is a vehicle with history, and meaning. Yeah, it's a material thing, and it's worth a wad of cash, and it cost even more wads of cash when I bought it new. But it is a Space Blue, chain-driven, Lexan-faired representation of my intention. No, I didn't make my 5,000 mile leg-powered journey in its entirety. Yes, I was fairly close to miserable for much of my time on the road. But it was a thing I did, a journey I set out on, that wrenched me out of a black rut that was miles deep and years long, and--except for the parts where its hub exploded--that trike bore me through it all. I'll be damned if I let someone else take her now, for any amount of money.

Which is an incredibly impractical decision, and that, in turn, is what the machine embodies. The lure of the impractical, the keen shiny flare of the ridiculous and the romantic. It's all one big happy tadpole of a windmill tilt, and it's mine. Mine, I say! So this weekend after I've trimmed errant branches from trees around my mom's house I'll be swapping out her tires, greasing her nine-foot chain (mmm, that sounds...uh, moving on), replacing her brake pads and applying liberal amounts of bike polish to her long-neglected powdercoat.

Hell, I might even go for a ride.

To intention! And the defeat of crass happenstance.