Same Play, Scene Two

I'm back in Boston. Dan and I got here last Wednesday night after three days in the car, nicely broken up by lunch with an old professor-friend of his now in Arkansas and then dinner with Kerry, Dan's sister, in DC. It was pretty fun. I love the fact that we can do a drive like that and everything is relaxed and ok. I got all pissy one morning, but it was due to a lack of sleep and stress over my cover story for the Fort Worth Weekly. The final draft was still inwork while we were on the road, which sucked, but what can you do? When there's a story, you gotta do it. And I love that Dan does the same thing and understands.

Dan and I tooled around town for a few days--or rather, in the evenings. I let Dan sleep late while I worked on edits until dinner time, then we'd go out and get dinner and walk around. Friday evening was especially nice. We wandered in and out of bike shops and down to Harvard Square and watched the street performers and then caught dinner and wandered back. The weather was beautiful and we'd bought a gift for Loren's birthday and we had nowhere to go, nothing to do. Once we got back to the house I realized I'd left my keys inside, so we were locked out for a few hours, but we just went down to Mike's to have beer and watch the game.

Saturday afternoon Dan left, just barely making his flight because the T was slow and he got the full security treatment at the airport. Megan leaves tomorrow to go back to Texas for three weeks before her classes start, so I'm pretty much here alone with my bike. Now that my story is done, it's almost like there's nothing to do. I should be happy, but I'm in a slight funk. It's just that people from school still aren't back and there's only so many miles you can do until the stress of the traffic starts getting to you.

But at least now I know I can cycle and not get killed. Sunday I drove down to the river to give the Charles trails a try. What a mistake. It was horrible. Not a single person out there knew what they were doing, and it was just bad. The trails were of crappy condition, and were narrow and all the walkers and clueless people in the city were on them. I spent more time going 2 mph and dodging people than doing anything else. Memorial Drive was blocked off for a bit, and so with the whole street I could get up to 23, 24, but then the barricaded part of the street ended and that was it.

Today I had better luck out on the streets. It was downright scary in some parts, but I was out for an hour and was doing pretty well. The only time things got dodgy is when I had to merge into the left lane to turn into my neighborhood. But I was doing a steady 20 for most of it and the hills weren't a problem. I'm much better, which makes me happy. Next time I ride with Dan I don't want him to have to slow up for me too much.

While he and I were in the ATA bike shop I decided my next bike goal is to do a century ride. By next December. That will give me almost a year to train in a better climate after school. But I want to do the full 100 miles and I want to do it well--no lightening speed or anything, but to keep at least a pretty steady pace and not crap out. Dan was really encouraging and said I could do it without any problems (or anything but the normal problems), and I think I can too--I can do 30 and 40 well now, so I'm excited. My goal is also to do one NOT in the summer heat. That would suck.

Boston, take two.