Grand Rapids, MI

“How often do you do this?”
“Daily. Every single day. Wait, what do you mean?”
“I mean. This. We just met, ten minutes ago. You walk out of a lobby, rush us into hotel rooms, schedule us reservations, climb into the back seat and now we’re across town at a restaurant,” he’s leaning over the table towards me, his hand resting over his amber ale and speaking low.
“True.”
“So, regularly then?”

There was a time when this sort of thing would have mortified me. In fact, when I first started at a bike shop, it was hard enough approaching someone my own age, let alone telling them everything I know about bicycles and convincing them that they should invest money in my knowledge.

More on this later.

Rapid City, South Dakota.

(Dear Mom,
I know that after reading the post where I had mentioned waking up in a suitcase, you were hesitant to continue reading. Somehow you had made it past my toppling toilet experience, but drew a line at passing out in dirty socks. I’ve come to terms with your decision to back-read these updates after you can confirm my good health, but I’m not quite convinced you’ve truly settled in not knowing which state I am currently traveling through. I’m willing to bet you check this page and at least to read the header; maybe skip to the end, hoping for a positive finish. So if that’s the case, if you are reading this before my visit home the final week of May, I’m ok.
But this one’s going to make you nervous.)

It is, in a way, similar to what I can imagine having a tornado crash through your hometown would be like. The photos won’t do it justice. Nor will the police report, unless they’ve found a way to capture the hollow feeling that eats away at ones stomach, the extreme disappointment that hovers above, waiting to crush you at any moment like an acme anvil. At first, it’s a rain drop, and the next udder destruction.

A call came in at 1:15 am. The second came at 1:35. The first e-mail came at 3, and an hour later the next. Then another. By 4:30 am I was wide eyed in bed with a notepad at my side, scribbling what broke down to four possible recovery plans, unsure of what to expect. By 7 we met face to face, vehicle to vehicle. No trailer in sight.

It could have been anyone, but it was a reserved twenty-something from Ohio who volunteered for his first road trip and Memorial Day get away. His pale face remained nearly expressionless for the entire morning. By 3 pm I had arranged all of the clues, side comments, and photos into a possible back story. It started as a flat tire. Two flat tires. Two flat tires and a broken axel. Two flat tires, a broken axel, and a bent hitch. A flipped over trailer. A vehicle spin out. A semi. Police officers. Tow trucks.

In the aftermath, there are too many places to start, too much in need of fixing. I’m finding myself staring at my feet, tempted to click my heels and start over.

Rapid City, SD

There is a certain pleasure I have recently developed in pounding unnecessarily firmly on the keys of my keyboard as I write these little love notes into virtual no-man’s land of blogging; murmuring in a tone loud enough for me to be considered one of those deranged sidewalk mumblers before the days of blue-tooth. Blue teeth. Soon, this will likely catch up with me in public. Mildly embarrassing posts, coming your way.

Minneapolis, MN

“Last summer when I was held up at gunpoint I was enrolled in his class.” She is wearing all black, paired with Doc Marten boots and magenta lip stick. Her black earrings are long and dangle, swaying slightly with her hand gestures. What catches my attention isn’t so much that she had been held at gunpoint but the annoyance of being enrolled in the particular class at the moment of robbery. My guess is Geology.

We’re sitting outside of a corner café under patio umbrellas facing the same direction at two different tables. She is sitting with a curly haired woman who is wearing large sunglasses and chewing on the straw of her blended mocha, nodding along. She may very well be asleep.
They are both on cell phones.

In settings like these, for about two second, I feel a rage creep through my body. Fingers curl into my hand, my jaw tightens, lips twisting together firmly. Whenever I see two people on cell phones within the same frame of vision, I have an impulsive tendency to assume they are speaking to each other. I lose all faith in humanity for those two seconds and then cave, realizing that with so many people in this world, it might actually be someone in a different city, state even. That, yes, some people use the phone when they are in other states.

I prefer carrier pigeons.

Minneapolis, MN

I am not so good at drinking water. I feel as if this should be one of those built in features to the human body. There are many trends pushing me towards excessive water consumption and I’ve been fooled by them all. Nalgine and Sigg have both attempted to swoon me. Both being members of the reusable green trend I can’t attach to. You’d think with biking so often it would become easier. Nope. I go through the routine. I fill two bottles and stick them into the cages on my frame. I fill up my camelbak when I’m trailside, and yet, I always return to the van, toss the containers onto the floor, and inevitably end up with a flood on my hands by morning.

So time to formulate a new plan.
Step one: Mount water bottle cage to my tool belt.
Step two: Invest in some of those straw glasses.

Milwaukee, WI

As you may not be familiar with the ins and outs of the seemingly pathetic but insurmountable joys of hotel living, let me clue you in for a moment. For the cost of an average hotel room, one has the option of staying in a Residence Apartment which includes a full kitchen and living room. This means the average road warrior can feel like a baller for little more than it would cost to hole up in a smoking room at La Quinta. This is the closest thing I have to an apartment these days, but as I usually feel wasteful inhabiting such a space by my lonesome for merely one or two days, it's treat I don't often experience.

Alas, I am staying three days. Worth it.

Tonight I went grocery shopping for about the third time in six months. I placed items in a full sized refridgerator without moving aside left-over cartons or various percentage of milk containers. I stood back in wonder, forgetting about The Morning Blend, I surveyed my purchases, the freshly washed dishes near the kitchen sink, my miscellanious belongings scattered on the couch in the simulated livingroom. I'm waiting for the voice over from Arrested Development to continue guiding me through the "Model Home." What I'm left with is the ear piercing screaches of Rachael Ray, which, when heard from the corner of a couch, with feet properly stacked on a coffee table that doesn't actually belong to you, upon magazines you don't actually subscribe to, can be mistaken for comforting.

Milwaukee, WI

(Tuesday 12th, Minneapolis, MN)
11: “I learned this week how to motivate myself into working at 5 am in front of 45,000 people.” Anything else? I can hear the soft breathing and traffic sounds from the 6 other marketing team members attached virtually through my earpiece. Recap imagery from the week flash through my mind; showing up two hours late for a meeting I presumed had been scheduled in accordance to California time, visiting seven different service centers and auto dealerships before finding one able to service the Sprinter, eliminating four possible breeds of dogs from my truck companion search. “Turns out people really like the color green…”

12: I cough. The light scratching just beyond the back of my tongue has joined forces with the pressure building behind my cheek bones to overthrow my body. I’m willing to surrender, but am having difficulty deciding whether to aim towards a collapse upon the large grey tiles at my feet or in the newly constructed mountain of soiled tissues from the courtesy napkin dispenser near my bag. I’m in the waiting room of an auto-dealership; my coughs occurring often enough to distract feet from gingerly swinging to the serenades of an alto sax emanating from the circular overhead speakers.

3:30: He lights a cigarette and slouches down in the metallic chair across from me. The unnecessarily large circular table is set for five, and with only two of us sitting directly across from each other, the space that has grown between us in the last six months is mapped out between the tea pot and small plates on the table.
“We kicked him out. Did I tell you that? We did. Yeah, it’s just, you know, that guy. He’s been nothing but completely disrespectful to me and everyone else in the house. He’s completely taken over the first floor and it’s trashed. All the time. There were five girls sleeping on our floor the other night and we didn’t know any of them. They were, well, not girls we’d want to know, yelling and screaming at 11pm on a week night. The cops had been called already. We hid out with Scotty in the attic. He was slamming doors and picking fights, getting physically violent. I’m just, you know, tired.”
“Things are okay, you know, I’m just, sort of, venting. So what happened to you, where’ve you been?”
This is not the sort of question that wants a response. After another puff he starts in again.
“I heard a few months ago that you came back. At Grumpy’s, your name came up at Grumpy’s, I don’t remember how, and someone mentioned you were back.”
A waitress exits onto the patio and posts a sign featuring a cigarette with a large red circle and slash around it. He tucks his butt under the teapot in front of me and finishes his coffee.

Minneapolis, MN

This feels like a strange dream. I’m waiting for my eyes to open, to turn to the first acquaintance I run into and diagnose what they think it all means. I pinch myself and watch the skin on my arm change from white to red. This is no dream.

I’m sitting in a room at a seemingly endless conference table. The chairs perfectly lined one against the other. Florescent lighting. Red accented items are strategically placed in a stark white room. Two people enter and sit across from me. They are familiar yet distant. I’m unsure of their middle names or favorite foods but their mannerisms are comfortingly familiar, the small winks, the excessive blinking and eye rolls, the hearty forced laughter. Their murmurs rise and fall. Somehow my hands interpret their vocal vibrations into some form of outline. Suddenly, my whole Sunday is planned on paper before me.

Silence falls in the room. They are staring my way, eyes wide with anticipation. A folded piece of white paper is pushed across the table towards me as they share quick glances of approval. I unfold it slowly. It reminds me instantly of the mock-blue prints my sister and I used to draw up while planning out the older versions of ourselves from a fuchsia walled bedroom. Magazines scattered across the thick browning carpet, we’d turn through pages of headless adults, used in previous life dreams, in search of the most photogenic child to claim as our own.

This floor plan is lacking the color and blinding hope of adolescence. I don’t see any glue sticks handy. I look up from the table and they are both gone. The lights snap off from lack of motion. I stand and walk out to a van covered in blue flowers. Tom Petty blares from the radio.

St.Louis, MO

It's amazing how quickly you can screw everything up.

I feel like I've picked up the dying dandelion seeds, torn from the grass, blown away the fuzzy seedlings, and am left standing with a stick figured stem- unsure of what to do with it.