My Government Deflated my Ira 1.24.2007

For those of you who are not up to speed on the whole bike thing, someone terrible stole my bike (Blueschwinn Gerschwinn, R.I.P.), and so I got a new (old) bike from a generous friend, and I named the new (old) bike Ira. Ira and I have been laying down some serious singlespeed whitewalled rubber all over town. We go to Bookman’s and to the Bagelry and the grocery store and a to friend’s house wayyyyyy over on the east side, which some people refer to as “Alvernon.” We are a team, Ira and I, and I’ve been virtually undriving since we got together, which, given the way that I drive, is really such a better arrangement for everyone.

Last night after work, Ira and I went to happy hour, which I finally figured out is called that because I only go on days when it’s been such a shitbox of an afternoon that the sole hope for happiness is in a glass of wine and a bunch of drunkish flirty working guys and the option of playing “Walk the Line” on the jukebox over and over and over again.

So I happied for my hour, and I mean, who’s counting, so maybe it was two, and then went out to unlock Ira and head home.

And that’s when I discovered the VERY BAD SURPRISE.

The VERY BAD SURPRISE was that not one, but both, of Ira’s lovely tires had been flattened. Flattened to the floor. Flattened and flacid and totally useless. It was hard to tell who looked more forlorn in that very moment, me or Ira, but the two of us were in some sorry shape. To make matters worse, it actually had SNOWED yesterday, for the first time in about 170 years here in Tucson, and so it was bitterly bitingly cold, and I thought about how even global warming isn’t on my side as I turned Ira towards my house and we started to walk.

I don’t have any enemies and I don’t believe in random occurances.

But I do believe in conspiracies. Especially the ones being devised against me.

And if you think I didn’t notice that this whole incident went down the night before the state of the union address, or that I didn’t catch on that “Ira” is only one letter less than “Iraq,” not to mention “Iran,” or that I somehow wasn’t aware that riding a bike clears me of complicity in this whole tangled mess with the foreign oil…well, then, you hardly know me at all. Because I am a person who pays attention, especially to paranoid conspiracy theories that involve my FREAKING BICYCLE, which is pretty much the only thing in the world that carries any material importance to me at all.

So, if someone could please forward this information on to Michael Moore, I’ve got to get back to my post of sitting at my window making communist faces and waiting for the man to try and knock me off. Because I’m totally ready, and I have a lot of pent-up, bad-break-up, nervous-break-down, total broken-hearted kind of energy, and if anyone comes to mess with Ira while he’s sleeping, I’m going to bust out a VERY BAD SURPRISE of my own. And I might look kind of frail, and I’m pretty clumsy, but I’ve got blind fiery rage to throw around, and I think that makes up for the whole eye-hand coordination thing.

I feel safer already, don’t you? God Bless America.

Can I Buy Luck Insurance? 01.09.2007

Having already this week accepted the bike theft, I do not feel that the universe is putting forward a reasonable expectation of me when I start hearing the gravel-in-a-can maraca sound under the hood of my already banged-out dangle-mirror car. (will post picture of said car tomorrow for you out of towners who haven’t cringed at the site of me scraping the ol’ 626 down Speedway lately. I assure you, you’ll be impressed.)

If the car dies, it was meant to be. I shall retire to my boudoir and blog all day, eating quesadillas and watching porn to pass the hours. I shall accept the clear decree from the universe that I am a woman not intended to physically maneuver around Tucson. I will live life as a nonpedal. You, dear readers, will either bask in the benefit of my endless wordsmithian blogaholicness, or you will all jump out of your respective windows. You will think to yourself, “My god, I had no idea that one human being could generate such an enormous pile of brainwaste, much less have the energy and insomnia to type it all out into those little grey boxes.”

The writing, I’ve decided, is pivotal for me right now. In addition to the fairly regular updates I’m posting on this oddball little website, I’ve also got other secret hidden caches of writing stored away that I’ve been scribbling upon all month, in some kind of frenzied game of catch-up for the last decade of virtual artlessness. I am exuberant. I am obsessed. I am beyond self-indulgent and careening towards self-implosion.

When I think about the writing, I think about dreams and ambitions, and the way I moved out here, to the desert, with a few duffel bags and a tattered pile of Joyce Carol Oates books and an old PC with a moniter as big as me and thought, “I have arrived.”

Ten years later, I think about leaving. I’ve still got the books. Everything else fell away, like chunks of bark that weather off with time until the tree is unrecognizable- but still standing. And suddenly, in the public reticence of this non-anonymous grey box, I am writing again, abruptly and compulsively, and I’m kind of wondering if maybe I unknowingly got off at the wrong stop those ten years ago, and it’s taken me this long to wander back to where I meant to be.

I never have had a strong sense of direction.

The thing about this desert, though, is it’s got this way I don’t quite understand of taking care of me. The heat is healing in a sear-the-bad-off kind of way. The spiky rawness of the desert blooms in spring like watercolors spilled across the sand. The sunsets hemmorhage out across the mountaintops and make my stomach lurch with comfort of our relative smallness.

This is the strangest place I’ve ever known, and it is a great moment when strangeness enters our lives. And what a lovely thing to stop and realize, as really, my only certainty, that I haven’t a single regret.