Saturday, November 15, 2008

flying

No, first off, I'm not running off to Korea, not just yet. But just the same, I am flying, in a way. Maybe that's the drugs talking. See what happens when you put a painkiller in me? It kills the pain, makes it ALL go AWAY.

Suddenly, I have a strange and frightening deep empathy for He Who Shall Not Be Named (and you know I don't read Harry Potter, so it's not that bad guy, I mean that other bad guy). It's just true that waking up having no recollection of the previous evening is only disturbing if you dwell on it; if, instead, you are dwelling on the spine-tinglingly beautiful and the aesthetically... um, what was I saying? Argh, my attention span!

Assuming we are similarly afflicted, go do s o m e t h i n g while you listen to this heart-breakingly beautiful song... The "big city, little town" hook is how I feel about here, my self professed home base. Oh, and I'm fairly certain a well-meaning fan made this video, and I thought for a moment that it'd also be heart-breakingly beautiful, until it dawned on me that the opening IS the whole video. What a shame.



-- Wait -- Are you thinking "what painkillers?" and "what's going on?"...

I forgot to fill you in on some details.


I was going to write a whole blog about how lucky I feel and how life is precious and fragile and about awareness and fear and preseverance. And then my painkillers kicked in and I could smile.

My face is NOT broken. I intend to keep on riding. The RUDE_ASS driver of the white pick up truck did not kill me. My new bike is ok. I flipped over my handlebars for the first time ever, and I hit the pavement teeth first. I took to it like a duck to water.

That was Thursday night. I had the right of way, I was riding conscientiously, I had TWO lights on my bike and a (practically neon) green hoodie sweatshirt on. A truck wanted to turn, so it invoked the "bigger, stronger" clause and did so, after making eye contact with me. Unfortunately, I had some speed and had the right of way, so stopping was a bit of a surprise, as was tasting the road. My bike hit me on the back of the head, my quart of yogurt exploded in my messenger bag, the truck sped off into the distance.

Did you know that this past Wednesday night, in St. Pete, a 20 year old, who had gone to Clearwater High with some of my friends, died? He was riding his bike (with two lights on it) and was struck by a Jeep. The St. Pete Times gave it all of 50 words and mostly just pointed out that he had not been wearing a helmet and that the driver just was not aware of his presence on the road. Oh, and that no charges had been filed.

This is not just upsetting to me, this is UPSETTING. After my 'incident' I was shaken up and worried about what I'd look like with no front teeth. And then I thought about what I could have done differently. And about how to prevent this sort of thing. And about how if I had been going a little bit faster, I'd be dead.

3 comments:

Leah said...

My friend Nathan is a bike messenger in portland, OR and he carries an extra u-lock to smash the windows of asshole drivers who almost kill him. People really need to respect bikes like they do cars.

I hope you feel better!!

Michelle said...

Oh my goodness! I'm glad you're alright! Cars are so rude to bikers, it's disgusting.

Gladis said...

Michelle, is your dad still cycling?