Committed a total newb mistake last Friday night: I ate it on slick streetcar rails, fairly badly. I bashed an adductor magnus (such a cool name!), the adjoining hip and an elbow a little; my head, too, if I weren't wearing a helmet. (WEAR YOUR FUCKING HELMETS PEOPLE!!!) I'm going to get my hip x-rayed, days late, of course, because I'm a bad patient. I don't think anything got broken, though the elbow sometimes feels like I could have incurred a meager fracture of some sort. I'm still pretty gimpy from the accident, but I've managed to run a few deliveries the past couple days. Well, I'll be better soon, at least enough to walk normal and get on and off my bike somewhat gracefully.
Frankly, I'm starting to have reservations about being a cyclist. I haven't really done anything to my bike except wreck it and barely keep it running with a — probably dangerously — warped rear wheel. The deliveries are only paying so well, especially considering 51% of my earnings come from tips and how much in taxes I'll owe at year's end; I'd probably be earning more if I were still slinging Dippin’ Dots and popping kettle corn at the stadium. The roads are terrifying game preserves wherein prowl SUVs and biggus-dickus trucks driven by dangerously inattentive and inept buffoons, who flail at intersections, can't park, and never signal. (Weren't those big vehicles supposed to go out of style, or did they briefly and come back?) These supersized Hot Wheels are also parked alongside curbs, but up to a foot away … so, it gets crowded on a lot of streets, and I get nervous as hell when I'm squeezed in between walls of man-crushing titans. And then there's the inevitable end of summer: not too long from now it will be dark and rainy much of the time, not to mention windy and occasionally icy.
We'll see. I may feel better about it after my body heals and I manage to get some real work done on the bike. Also after I get a decent part-time wage slave job somewhere. lol And, yes, I'm also going to buy some body armor, probably of the kind mountain bikers use; I'll totally feel ridiculous wearing it for a while, because I'll probably end up looking like some poser Dark Lord of the Sith — but I'll be damned if I cruise around with no protection at all, like those foolish single-speed hipster/messenger kids do. And, as silly as it may sound, I'm pretty bummed about having lost my cute little lucky cat bell! I'm replacing it, of course, but this time I'm going to fasten it to my backpack with some burly nylon cord.
