(no subject)
Right, so, I have been absent for the last week or so.
Wait, okay, let's back up and be blunt. I have been absent for a lot longer. A lot of you are thinking, who is this guy again? right now. But the point is that for the last week I have been absent with Purpose. I have been Up To Something.
What?
It's under the cut.
This last weekend I took the Motorcycle Safety Course. The instructor was a hilarious guy, a comedian who had toured with Stephen Wright and Emo Phillips, and just loves motorcycles. He was a great teacher; he made everything seem easy, was calm all the time and very gentle and funny in teaching and correcting. I <3 Uncle Mullet.
(Yes that is what he told us to call him.)
I got Snowman off Craigslist the same day the course ended; Monday I got my motorcycle license (although she's clearly a scooter, Snowman can exceed 30 mph and therefore Texas considers her a motorcycle) and insurance, Wednesday I got a ride out to the tax office and got temporary plates, and today I got my helmet and can finally ride. I still need to get her inspected and get my real plates but the temps are good for thirty days.
I may have, uh, hit a curb and fallen off the bike already tooling around my neighborhood. I managed to forget everything Uncle Mullet taught me and do all the things you're not supposed to do turning a corner. All of the things. My butt is bruised and Snowman is scraped a little along the bottom of one side; otherwise all is well. It was going to happen eventually.
I am so excited to be mobile. So excited, you have no idea. Today I will drive myself to work. Tomorrow, the post office? Maybe lunch at the taco trucks? The world is my oyster. I mean, I can't go on the highways and I'm kind of scared of the near major road (ITS NAME IS SLAUGHTER) but the world is still my oyster.
*Why Snowman? The short answer is that she's shiny and black with white trim, and Snowman is a slang name for the eight-ball in pool. The long answer is predictably more nerdy and I think only furikku is likely to get it. Basically, in Homestuck, my latest webcomic obsession, there is a noir-themed intermission, featuring a gang of gangsters called the Felt, who have a pool-themed naming convention. Snowman is the femme fatale, and she has a shiny black carapace too.
(Technically you should pretend all the o's in Snowman are green. Shhh.)
There is also a sort of sideways tribute to my learner bike from the Safety Course, Lucy. Lucy and I got to be pretty good friends over the weekend, and I wanted to think of a reference; the first place I went was the Beatles and Narnia. For a lot of reasons--the least of which is that the scooter is smaller than Lucy--I didn't want to call her Susan. The other girl in Narnia, of course, is Jill, who's younger than Lucy... and who Eustance persistently calls by her last name.
Poole.
Wait, okay, let's back up and be blunt. I have been absent for a lot longer. A lot of you are thinking, who is this guy again? right now. But the point is that for the last week I have been absent with Purpose. I have been Up To Something.
What?
It's under the cut.
This last weekend I took the Motorcycle Safety Course. The instructor was a hilarious guy, a comedian who had toured with Stephen Wright and Emo Phillips, and just loves motorcycles. He was a great teacher; he made everything seem easy, was calm all the time and very gentle and funny in teaching and correcting. I <3 Uncle Mullet.
(Yes that is what he told us to call him.)
I got Snowman off Craigslist the same day the course ended; Monday I got my motorcycle license (although she's clearly a scooter, Snowman can exceed 30 mph and therefore Texas considers her a motorcycle) and insurance, Wednesday I got a ride out to the tax office and got temporary plates, and today I got my helmet and can finally ride. I still need to get her inspected and get my real plates but the temps are good for thirty days.
I may have, uh, hit a curb and fallen off the bike already tooling around my neighborhood. I managed to forget everything Uncle Mullet taught me and do all the things you're not supposed to do turning a corner. All of the things. My butt is bruised and Snowman is scraped a little along the bottom of one side; otherwise all is well. It was going to happen eventually.
I am so excited to be mobile. So excited, you have no idea. Today I will drive myself to work. Tomorrow, the post office? Maybe lunch at the taco trucks? The world is my oyster. I mean, I can't go on the highways and I'm kind of scared of the near major road (ITS NAME IS SLAUGHTER) but the world is still my oyster.
*Why Snowman? The short answer is that she's shiny and black with white trim, and Snowman is a slang name for the eight-ball in pool. The long answer is predictably more nerdy and I think only furikku is likely to get it. Basically, in Homestuck, my latest webcomic obsession, there is a noir-themed intermission, featuring a gang of gangsters called the Felt, who have a pool-themed naming convention. Snowman is the femme fatale, and she has a shiny black carapace too.
(Technically you should pretend all the o's in Snowman are green. Shhh.)
There is also a sort of sideways tribute to my learner bike from the Safety Course, Lucy. Lucy and I got to be pretty good friends over the weekend, and I wanted to think of a reference; the first place I went was the Beatles and Narnia. For a lot of reasons--the least of which is that the scooter is smaller than Lucy--I didn't want to call her Susan. The other girl in Narnia, of course, is Jill, who's younger than Lucy... and who Eustance persistently calls by her last name.
Poole.