UNICYCLE

Ok, so I bought a unicycle.
I went to EMS months ago for some yoga pants and saw it, and thought "Man, that would be cool."
Then, I needed some cold weather biking gloves and I saw it WITH its 30% off sign.
Wow. "How much could that be?!" I thought. I came home and asked Z "How much would be the right price for a unicycle?" He said "$200" (He's very kind and likes to let me splurge on yarn.) It was less than $100, so I got it. I live in a neighborhood with two big "walking around the pond" events per year, so I figure if nothing else, I've got those opportunities to unicycle. Also, of course, cross-lateral balance can be very helpful to our coordination and our brains as we age, and ... you know I'm aging as much as anyone.

The morning I went to buy it, I read everything I could about learing to unicycle. Everybody has differing opinions about surfaces (grass or concrete?) and support (pair of chairs? fence or wall? two friends? nothing?). One person said "Remember to flail your arms. This is very important, and will help." You wouldn't think I'd need help flailing about in such a situaltion, but I did... it took me 15 minutes of trying to balance!

I bought it during the two hour break I have on Wednesdays, then had some time practicing on the playground. (I bought a roller-blading pad set, so my knees and wrists are protected when I fall, which I do. Although I've landed on my feet every time.) Yesterday I could mount (while holding on to a thing), fall off, and then occasionally pedal a half rotation or so. I also learned not to unicycle in cordoroys for chafing reasons.

Today I balanced a little bit at home (to show off for Z, and before my downstairs neighbor/landlady came home from work) . Then I headed out to the tennis court near my house. I remembered teaching small children to ride bikes (I've probably taught 50 kids how to ride and take off their training wheels.) and how they fall off when they expect to instead of continuing to pedal. I decided to treat myself like a kindergartner during practice, and asked myself to pedal farther than I thought I could, and sang a little circus song (the tromboney one "da da dadda dah dah Da dah dah DA dah") to myself. It worked! I pedaled a few rotations, and even got it to go in a quarter circle (more or less on purpose!) It was awesome.

I've got a kickass bruise on my thigh from falling off, and am anticipating some SERIOUS shin injuries when I start hopping on it without support. It's exhilerating to try something so completely new, and to do it alone. Just wait till I can juggle on it!

Anyhow, if you have parade coming up that needs someone to fall down every yard or so CALL ME!

Snow Days Give Me Time to Think About My Age

Checked the Seattle school's website last night and discovered that I'd have *today* off of work as well... so I went to the video store. I got "Live, Nude Girls Unite" (we're watching it at our union meeting this week, because that's the kind of bad-ass pro-feminist pro-sex kind of union I'm in) and Clerks II because I am a woman of a certain age, who hung out with certain comic book geeks in high school and had no choice really, even though I was pretty certain it would suck.

While the soundtrack did have Talking Heads, Jackson 5, Samantha Fox and Soul Asylum on it, the movie wasn't very good. (When I was in fourth grade, Ms. Fox caused such a stir that it was against the rules to say her name in class! Can you imagine being so sexy that your name is a cuss for preadolesents?!) I love Kevin Smith, I do. I've seen every movie he's ever made. Even Jersey Girl which really really really sucked. In this one, they cast an incredibly beautiful woman with all of these average-looking dudes... it was very jarring.

I found it easy to watch 20-something non-actors on the screen in the first Clerks, but man, those guys haven't aged well... or probably they've aged no better than me, but I'm used to seeing actors/pretty people on screen portraying folks in their beautiful thirties and not those guys... in their real thirties. I also found it easy to watch those same 20 something non-actors talk about incredibly dirty sex acts (found it pretty hysterical, actually) and not as funny this time around. Has Mr. Smith lost his talent for making bestiality and anal sex jokes? Is it easier to imagine younger non-actors saying these things than older ones? Or... am I getting older, and no longer find as much humor in people discussing whether it's ok or not "to go ass to mouth"?!

In the last year or so I've found myself thinking more about my age, particularly how it affects how I see other folks and how they see me. My 27th birthday was the first one that people didn't alternately say "Oh, you're such a baby." or "I always thought you were so much older." This was strange. Around 25, I'd reflexively think of the near-teen skateboarders, students, and others I saw on the bus or on the street as "kids" and "about my age", and then realize that it was no longer true. Also strange. It used to be kind of funny when kids in my program asked me if I had a kid their age because it was so unlikely, but now, it's actually a perfectly appropriate question!

It's not that I feel bad about moving into what is undoubtedly and unarguably adulthood at all. It's just that my mind can't quite come to grips with it. In "A Seperate Peace" the narrator says that certain times and places stay with us for our lifetimes. For him, it was train stations full of soldiers saying goodbye and rejoining their loved ones. Train stations would always look that way. I will always instinctively choose clothes that are two sizes too big, because that's how I felt attractive when I was 18 (with practice and emotional support, I've learned to put them back and pick clothes that fit, which is how I feel attractive now).

When I went home recently, I had the strangest sensation of looking at a city and seeing what was really there superimposed on the architecture, the faces I knew, and the stories that I lived there mostly in my teens. For me, the river will always be under construction, the highway to Boston will always be glimpsed from a Greyhound (instead of our cushy rental car) and walking through downtown at night means that I'm going to an avant garde sort of show, or dancing (instead of sitting with old friends for hours at Trinity).

Even smoking outside when there's snow on the ground with a cup of coffee (something I haven't done often here in Seattle) tastes like adolescence on my mother's porch! (Don't get me started on the prospect of being a smoker when I turn thirty... ugh.) Snow also makes me introspective apparently... or was that all those dick and fart jokes last night?