second-to-last weekend

friday at five katya asked me to come pick her up. her car had started smoking on the freeway and she'd had to get off and go to the nearest mechanic. i couldn't get there until seven-thirty, after work. when i got there, the shop had been closed and she'd spent the past two-and-a-half hours at the mechanics' friday barbecue at the back of the shop, where she enjoyed guacamole and jalapenos with some armenian and egyptian mechanics and a pack of dogs. when we got home, miss tomb had a filet-o-fish and french fries waiting for me on the table. i nummed them down.then keith picked us up in his new mustang convertible and we whizzed around la with the top down until my eyes were red and dry. we danced around weho and after a miserable and sickly next morning bagel and i biked along the ballona creek trail to the beach, where the air was too still to fly my kite, and back.

i cycle la

you may remember that i attended cicLAvia last october. well it's that time of year again. yesterday bagel and i attended the first ciclavia of 2012. whereas last fall we drove to downtown with the bikes strapped to the car and started from there, this year we biked from bagel's house in culver city to the mcarthur park hub, then to downtown and over the fourth street bridge to boyle heights/east LA, where this time we ate indian food out of a food truck. naturally near the end of the day i lost bagel in the throng and ended up biking the eight miles back by myself and i lived to tell the tale.

About 100,000 cyclists and pedestrians participate in Ciclavia

i liked the community feel

idyllic land

boo

 happy halloween, faraway friends. i'm skipping conversational russian tonight (sadly) in favor of the West Hollywood halloween parade (bagel and i are going to bike there from hollywood), so here's a little book learning to try to make up for denying myself education:

beautiful godzilla visits ciclavia

yesterday for cicLAvia ten miles of major los angeles streets were closed to cars for the public's enjoyment of bicycles and rollerblades and amateur dj sets. bagel and i set out from central and 18th and joined the busy route for a Sunday afternoon of biking at a glacial pace past the piñata district, through downtown and over the 4th street bridge, stopping at hollenbeck park to absorb the beautiful bright october weather. we ate lomo saltado from a japanese-peruvian food truck called Lomo Arigato and watched people dance to bongos and then turned around.

my bagel

food trucks of LA

map

death ride

bagel left for his 270-mile bicycle death ride from los angeles to las vegas almost 2.5 hours ago. if you see him en route within the next 18.5 hours, please give him a catcall. if you see him stranded on the side of the road, please mail him back to hollywood.

labor day weekend

labor day weekend bagel and i sampled korean, deep-dish pizza, and hamburger cuisines and melon and moon cake and i had my first black and tan and we napped and watched the borgias and other scripted television and slugged around and went morning bicycling at the rose bowl. i bicycled twelve miles on my new swobo, nina. we took the wrong freeway home and ended up at the foot of a very dramatic mountain wildfire, with big black plumes of smoke. it reminded me of niu mowang (牛魔王), the bull demon king from the classical chinese story journey to the west, who lives on a mountain of fire (火燄山). The flames that can only be put out using a magical fan which is in the possession of Princess Iron Fan.

jay bells

i went to a people-who-ride-bicycles party last night in silver lake. i had the shock of my life when i saw a skunk wander out of someone's front yard and cross the street. never seen a skunk before. i didn't know that skunks lived in los angeles. i didn't know that los angeles could support wildlife.

this was my first holiday party where there were hired strippers, a trio of audacious, curvaceous women. i always thought that strippers just sort of pranced around, giving suggestive lap dances and collecting dollar bills, but the performance was much much more outrageous than that, falling only a few steps short of an amsterdam-esque live sex show. even more awesome than the skunk sighting.

Richard Calhoon Pot

insomnia was the emptiest it's ever been, with only four other patrons and a sea of empty tables for your choice. two girls were playing on a very beautiful set the slowest game of chess i've ever seen. for once, the christmas lights above the register made sense and there was an animatronic mrs. claus peacefully extending and folding her arms ad infinitum from a tabletop. outside, a father and young son paused in the nippy cold to appreciate a shiny bike locked on the street. the father asked me, now isn't that fun?

"Hi I am A kettle. Ouch! Listen I come to you for Advice. This flame is real hot but I love my job (I's getting cooked in ya know), Anyway Mister Oomp (he is the Father) Mrs. Oomp is the Mom Cris, Rich, Jan, Ray, Kent, Alan Limd, and Tim are the kids." They all hate me. They kick me, scratch me, throw me, and spits in meyes Mrs Oomp even uses me for them to throw up in. But I can't leave them. Oh well see you!"

bike woes part 26

people like to talk about supposed mothers who can summon the brute strength to lift cars off of their trapped babies. 

today, i carried my bike 1.7 kilometers. 

after class today, i went to unlock my bike and my key actually snapped off in my lock. 

wtf. 

the back wheel was locked, so i had to pick up the back of the bike and wheel the bike to the nearest bus stop. apparently bikes aren't allowed on the bus. the bus driver closed the bus doors in my face. 

it was a long trek home. i alternated lifting the back of the bike with dragging the bike (but feared wearing down the back tire) with straight up carrying my entire bike by the frame. i stopped about every 10 feet to gasp for air and shake the knots out of my twisted right bicep. i'm very weak. 

it was very awkward looking like a really bad bike thief. 

people stared but didn't say anything. one man inquired if i had a spare key and i explained to him that my key was broken in the lock and that i was trying to get to the bike shop. he wished me luck. 

i struggled to the shop of the really-nice-bike-shop-man. he greeted me warmly and probably silently wondered how i'd fucked up this time. 

he looked at my bike and exclaimed, "You're still riding that?!" 

he couldn't stop laughing. 

i told him i have no other alternative! 

he cut the lock for me and chuckled the entire time. 

i asked him how much and he said ehhhh 20 kroner. 

20.00 DKK	=	3.48764 USD
Denmark Kroner		United States Dollars
1 DKK = 0.174382 USD		1 USD = 5.73453 DKK

we chatted a bit - i don't think he understood everything i was saying because sometimes he would just nod and smile. he also sold me a 79 kroner lock for 70. 

i like him a lot. i'm glad we're friends. 

bike woes pt 456

Today I woke up at an ungodly hour to go to the police bike auction.

ungodly = 7:45 am

The auction began at 9 am. Conveniently, the S-train began running at 9 am as well.

We arrived around 9:20 am. Apparently people were at the auction at 8:30 am to inspect the bikes going up for auction. Now, how do you get there at 8:30 am when the train isn't running and you clearly don't have a bike? I don't really know.

The auction was packed so tight that you couldn't see at all over the heads. We snuck up closer the front, where the auction was going on. In lightning-speed Danish. Good practice for my Danish numbers, bad for my ego.

The going rate was a low of 450 kroner and highs of 800-900 kroner. Being a foreigner from car-city, I have never practiced my instant visual bike evaluation skills, so it was pretty damn hard to judge the condition of the bikes from the few seconds that I had to view them.

I made a few bids but was always outbid (I'm cheap.) In the end, I made the executive decision to not buy a bike. I feared nabbing a shitty bike which needed, god forbid, repairs, at 450-600 kroner plus 23% tax plus 20 kroner to cut off the lock.

Repairing my injured bike (I'm thinking about naming him Alex - but don't hold me to that) will cost 450 kroner (yes, what I paid for him to begin with. eff) and he'll be functional (hopefully.)

I think the two of us are in it for the long haul.

DOA

nice bike shop man said that bike is finished. 

(the bad kind of finished) 

and i'm really offended that this happened at all. 

attempted grand theft bicycle

Someone tried to steal my vehicle last night. 

S/he/the immoral fool decided to get on a locked bike and try riding it away, effectively tangling the coil lock in the gear. (oh how I truly miss my u-lock)

I was able to get the lock out of the gear this morning (my hands have been coated in tar/grease all morning), but I think having the coil lock jammed in the gear messed it up somehow. The chain dropped when I tried riding the bike. I called Andrea, a boy from Venice, and he put the chain back on for me (aka I'm useless), but it fell almost immediately when I tried riding it again. 

So once again, bike is in the shop. I hold my bikes in high regard and take it personally when they are unwell, so I'm pretty bummed out. 

"In Italy, a cheap bike would be like 300 kroner. Even cheaper if you get it from thieves." - Andrea 

bedridden in copenhagen

status: alive

bike shop man re-chained devilbike and didn't even charge me for it. he doesn't know if the bike is entirely fixed. gears, blah, blah, gears. definitely the best bike guy though. and his shop is right around the corner from me. i've been singing his praises to everybody.

i ended up hobbling to bingo because...well, who wants to miss out on bingo, dammit. naturally, i didn't win shit.

i am listening to taylor swift and eating nutella.

voice is not back yet. frustrated.

the knee is not so good. good if i need a softball for a knee. i was temporarily worried that i'd have to go to the hospital, but i think it'll be fine on its own. fucking knee. i'm lying in bed with a bag of ice on it. but the ice makes the rest of me cold so i have to hide under a blanket.

i'm missing bingo night

today i fell off my bike. bike is in the shop and i am in the bed.

my bike chain came off. whether this is the cause of my fall or a result of my fall, i'm not entirely sure. i'll probably tell people the former but the truth is probably the latter because i am retarded.

i was biking across the street when all of a sudden i was no longer on my bike but on the ground.

as i walked my broken bike home with my broken body, i thought of some positive notes.

i didn't get hit by a car and consequently didn't die.

i didn't break any bones.

i didn't embarass myself in front of the entire exchange student body, only my ever-compassionate bathroommate, pia.

i fell to my right while wearing my purse on my left, hopefully sparing my digital camera (let harm fall on me before my cam.)

umm...i didn't die.

bike is undergoing some work at the shop and will be picked up at 6 pm. apparently he has a space in his gears (result of old age) which may be the cause of the chain falling, so putting the chain back is no guarantee from future incident. im paying 85 kroner for this repair, but i'm not sure if i'll have the guts to ride the contraption again.

in the meanwhile, i'm in need of some work as well. my left hamstring and side-of-calf are pretty beat up. the worst is my right knee, which took the brunt of the fall. it's swollen into two bloodylumps. naturally, all serious injuries of this sort have to take place on my loose, pure bone kneecap. i wish i had some ice for it. i'm glad i didn't look at it until i got home. it's one of those things where it feels okay until you look at it and kind of gross yourself out and start to feel panicky and weepy for no good reason. i think i will be bedridden for at least the night, with a hobble break to pick up devilbike.