Tesseract

It’s a good thing that the number one fans of Sugarplum Elves, unlike the charming troupe themselves, are not made of sugar (and spice and everything nice), because were that the case, we’d all have been reduced to a sticky pool of sweetness well before we’d even left Westlake.

As it was, however, the full transition to syrupy concoction didn’t occur until we arrived at the Baranoff where the holiday festivities were in full swing—not to mention rock, hip-hop, disco, and many other genres to dance and sing to.

A bevy of holiday cheer abounded throughout, clearing the place of the dreariness that often characterizes it; there were smiles as wide as candy cane palaces and laughter lay the bass line to holiday favorites sung by everyone’s favorite holiday singers.

In Clement Clark Moore’s classic poem, which I just learned is actually titled “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” it is merely visions of sugar-plums which dance in one’s head; the fortunate many in attendance at this sweet dream of an event got to have real-live three—(no, make that four)—dimensional warm-blooded Sugarplums dancing in the flesh right before and with them all night long.

Prior to that, in real honest-to-goodness old-fashioned hobo bike gang style, we hung out under an overpass avoiding the deluge and courting public intoxication; William James himself would have been proud of how we sought out those momentary glimpses of the absolute.

“Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes,” wrote James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and as far as I know, he never had the pleasure of making that affirmation while riding a bike to such a wonderfully life-affirming experience as a singing and dancing elf party.

It’s easy to get cynical about Christmas what with all the crass commercialism and forced frivolity; a solid dose of Sugarplum Elves, though, is all it takes to affirm the true holiday spirit of expansion, unity, and joy.

Yes!

Holidaze

Another fine Disaster come and gone, although remnants of it remain in my hair, nostrils, and neurons many an hour afterwards.

All the necessary components were on display: cookie-eating, beer-drinking, trail-riding, fire-standing, reindeer-gaming, gift-giving, clappie-awarding, and, I seem to recall, song-singing as well.  I got to parade along behind a remarkably patient Fred to all of the checkpoints that were still checkpoints and even a few that were no longer.  The rain stopped being rain pretty much right on schedule so that most of the wet for most of the time was from the inside, although by then, it was all “how dry I am,” in the old-fashioned cartoon drinkee-bird way.

I try to live my life in the present, but it’s hard not to anticipate these sort of shenanigans for so long it makes the weeks before drag on, just like when you were a kid as Christmas approached at its glacial pace.  But unlike that holiday, which—due to its lack of air rifles, skateboards, or go-go boots, was inevitably something of a disappointment, the 2015 version of Point83’s gift to itself exceeded its promise, bestowing upon not only the nice, but also the naughty, everything a little girl or boy (not to mention old men of a certain age)  could wish for and plenty they wouldn’t for anything.

My favorite part of the evening was all of it but I especially enjoyed the uphills through one of the fancier sections of our fair city.  That’s a price you pay for being rich: there’s no getting out of your driveway without heading steeply up or down.  Everyone was all lit up for Christmas and plenty of houses had illuminated Christmas displays, too, ba-dum-bump.

The enduring image of the night for me was of the Angry Hippy standing on a bench barking commands at scores of holiday revelers; Derrick, too, tabletop, handing out packages; I somehow made it home without a present, Disaster itself my gift.

Enough

Imagine a world in which you get to combine two of your favorite things to do for two hours and fifteen minutes before you come to have your route confirmed by a bonfire you can see from the farthest away intersection nearby; then not only are you reminded that this is the one, you’re also reminded that it is this one.

Or consider that it is this world; then, this world that is is the world that is this one.

I was so happy to see so many people I was happy to see around an outdoor fire that could not possibly have benefited from more oxygen, although that was the joke I tried a couple of times to workshop.

It doesn’t always have to be more than enough was one of the lessons I took from the experience: I got to get stoned and ride my bike on a perfectly dry night for hours; and that was just the beginning: I also talked to people, admired the sky, spun slowly around the flames to keep myself warm, learned how hard it is to throw the shuffleboard puck just so, and also, mainly, admired many an admirable quality.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the rain has resumed or whether the storm-soaked trees are just dripping on you; I think that’s the kind of ambiguity we crave.  And when I say “we” here, I mean me.

An endless variety of factors prevents us from having what we could otherwise have.  Winners never lose; that’s part of what makes them winners.

But here’s the thing: we stood on the edge of the heart, (or more to the point, the lungs) of the city and couldn’t help but be reminded of why it’s all here.  Inhaling fumes from smoldering mattresses is a small price to pay,

More importantly, it is what it is, except when it isn’t, although it predictably is, even when it isn’t, out on two wheels.

Scatter

It turns out that even in Puritan (well, I guess technically Lutheran) Seattle, it’s not against the law to have fun, even when one might construe that a little casual vandalism is involved. 

Apparently, the police don’t actually scramble a phalanx of cruisers with lights flashing and sirens blaring just to roust a gang of (putative) adults from the woods simply for talking loudly and sharing warmth.

But you do have to be impressed by the alacrity with which several dozen cyclists can stow the contraband and begin streaming from the site just to avoid what: a stern talking to and, at worst, a ticket?  (Although as was pointed out to me, in this day and age, those seemingly benign interactions with the authorities do sometimes end up with the alleged perpetrator dead and the guy in uniform on paid administrative leave, so discretion—that is, getting the hell outta there—may be, after all, the better part of valor.)

Several of us with cooler heads coined a new word while we waited for the departed to return: “hisderrickal,” as in “I think it was the influence of the argle bargle and perhaps a little guilt over the melted plaque that made them all hisderrickal when they saw the bubblegum machine.”

The thing is, it’s perfectly understandable to imagine that so much attention would be paid to so little: I often have the feeling on a Thursday night that what I’m experiencing is at the apogee of human experience; it’s not surprising to conclude that a drove of PoPos would want in on the action.

More than a decade in, there’s still a path we’ve never taken, this one involving concrete stairs and a full-body workout up a freeway exit; blame my leadership skills for missing the intended turn that resulted in this serendipitous routing; I often don’t know where I’m going, but I have learned that if you stick around long enough, eventually you’ll get there.

Moisturizer

People do, as LWC Kevin pointed out, pay good money for this sort of treatment: champagne bubble-sized droplets steadily applied for hours to your entire face—that’ll keep your skin young. 

Pedaling through the first real beginnings of the season, by extension, helps to keep the rest of you feeling like a kid, especially one lacking enough sense to come in out of the rain, even though much of the time was spent indoors drying off from the previous portion of the route.

Derrick went to eleven right quick and in spite of the fact that Ye Olde C.I.P. didn’t have its fireplace going, remained lit all the way cross-channel to the Boxcar, a ride that might have been longer had we shortened it to GasWorks for palettes and pyrophilia.

Nevertheless, I consider the full route legit, especially taking into account my solo tour home into the teeth of the storm along Elliot Bay, including the marble-raceway ascent from Alaskan Way to Western through the elevator parking lot.

If you don’t ride your bike much in the rain in Seattle, then you won’t ride your bike much in Seattle is how I remember it each year about this time and I’m also reminded how it’s not really all that bad, especially if your socks stay dry and you treat yourself to a second pair of gloves at some point along the way.

“Is everyone up here from down there?” asked the Angry Hippy as we were leaving the first stop and he had had the opportunity to confirm his long-held bias; I, on the other hand, retain many more fond memories of the place—although I do recall how awful it was to be in the smoke-filled underground at Friday beers there during grad school twenty-yikes years ago.

So maybe it really does get better, just as long as it doesn’t get worse. 

Cry all you want about about the rain, no one can see your tears.

Luminous

It really did get lighter; not just eyes adjusting, although there was probably that, too.

Maybe it was cloud cover, but there’s no doubt: I’m not the only one who reached for a headlamp upon arrival but eventually found it superfluous.

Most importantly, no one was hit by a train, a feat that would have been difficult, but hardly anything’s impossible on either side of the tracks.

Mainly, I’m reminded to have faith: if you take the route with no turns, you’ll eventually meet up; still, it might have been better to communicate better, except that it’s obvious when you’re following Fred that you can count on following.

Make a big loop and distance shrinks; follow the river bottom and soon, you’ll be on your way home.  The shortest distance between two points can be surprising even three times in; hooray, hooray, hooray for the reminder to go forward.

Someday a birthday boy may be half your age, too; the bicycle makes it possible for this to be commonplace, not weird.

It’s too bad when people who could have come can’t because they won’t; on the other hand, if you won’t because you wouldn’t, then you could have only if you would have.

It’s maybe the best place of all, just like the other ones.  There’s something about proximity to parallel lines extending to infinity, however, that helps a lot.

What can you get forty people to do whether or not there are exactly that many?  Point being: plenty showed up and rode deep.

Chocolate covered cake powers mightily.  Three to a pack and one is plenty.

Sparks beneath alders always inspire.

Notice what you’re noticing; remember all these memories.  It only takes all it takes to get there. 

I offer up my favorite form of gratitude for all there is to be grateful for: natural features, experiential connections, the way in which the seemingly unconnected leads directly to connections for the making.

Thanks for the light.

Spooky

It turns out that to be “hoist with your own petard” is a real thing, not just in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Or:

You know the scene in Pixar’s The Incredibles, where Helen, the brilliant costume designer, based on the legendary Edith Head, lists all the superheroes done in by their own outfits—Dynaguy, Metaman, Splashdown, Thunderhead—and insists, “No capes!”; it’s like that.

Or:

We’ve learned that it’s not just gun-owners who are the ones mostly likely to be wounded by their own firearms; experience shows that wielders of more traditional forms of weaponry, to wit, the pirate’s sword, are also those with the highest potential for suffering injury from their own armaments.

In any case, no matter how you spin it, our collective hearts go out heartily to last night’s fallen comrade, Lieutenant Dan, whose very own and very official buccaneer cutlass found its way into his spokes (insert “sword in the spokes” joke here) causing him to go endo and face plant behind Husky Stadium for the second worst Thursday night accident I’ve had the distinct pain of riding up upon, while giving the EMT crew who attended to him (after first aid with feminine hygiene products) almost certainly the best story they’ll be able to tell about bike crashes in a long, long time.

But that’s sort of how the night went pretty much from the start, as all manner of scary things emerged from their autumn slumbers to mess with the collective abandon.  Even despite the participation of Ronald McFondle and Winnie the Angry Hippy, there were flat tires to be had and split-ups galore.

A fire was finally effected among the marshes, and television characters, movie villains, and a sexy banana cavorted accordingly.  Many peace pipes were loaded and dispatched with Ronald’s homegrown, perhaps another source of the evening’s topsy-turviness.

Frankenstein is the most misunderstood monster because he is our own invention; that which we do to ourselves, the spookiest beasts of all.

Remember

Sometimes the hill appears and you take it and even though it’s obvious by a third of the way down that this can’t possibly be the way out, you descend to the bottom, just to prove to yourself that you were right all along about being all wrong.

The thing about having lots of experiences is that context gets lost; while you certainly recall each location from previous incarnations, where you were headed that time blends into multiple memories.  It’s not quite déjà vu if you’re seeing it for the first time once more but sufficient vestiges reveal themselves when re-encountered from a different direction.

I lost track of taillights leaving the park and let my bike take over the route; naturally, it chose distance over efficiency.

Somehow, though, we knew the bar’s porch would still be crawling with two-wheelers and so it was, complete with smiling faces inside to sing along with them. 

In his comprehensive history of the bicycle, Bicycle, David V. Herlihy writes that in 1874, Coventry Machinists improved the bicycle wheel, “introducing a durable construction with individually tensioned spokes interlaced for greater strength.”  Of course, that also describes how it feels around the fire, each of us wound a little tighter, connected via flames, the whole far stronger than any single component.

When you get to see the bright quarter moon resplendent between autumn branches, importuned by rising sparks and lifting voices, you need little more: some alcohol, sure, and ample cannabis to stay vertical and visual and maybe whatever else suits your fancy, but in the end (and for most of the beginning and middle, too) it’s all about simply being where you are at the time for the time you are there.

Eventually, if you hold the destination in your mind’s eye and trust there are roads to get there, you’ll find yourself arriving.  And when you do, you’ll know that you have by what you’ll remember when memories are made.

Dads

Even so motley a crew as Point83 has at least this feature in common: every single rider has a dad in one form (including formless) or another.

So it was heartwarming to see an actual instantiation of said fact, especially one so game to carry on all manner of shenanigans, from trail-riding to park-drinking to bar-diving well into the witching hours, winning props for being the senior member of the troupe still standing (which, truth be told, was already the case at the start of the ride, so there’s that, as well, to commend.)

 I myself look forward to a day in the not-so-distant future when my own progeny will think it’s cool to invite her old man for a Fall Break visit, an offer I think we will both concur with last night’s guest of honor to be superior to sharing time during the Spring version when potentials for sights better not seen might be significantly higher.

As it was, it still turned out to be an evening so well attended that it was almost impossible not to fulfill the casual challenge of meeting at least one person you’d never met before, a task made even easier if you’re the sort of person like yours truly who is prone to forgetting the names and even faces of those you’ve hung out with even several times before. 

 

And yet, surely some slack can be cut for not being able to place a newb so newb they inquire of the Angry Hippy whether he is a newb.

 

I think of my own father, born in 1920, and--assuming I’m still alive just half as long more as the erstwhile bike gang has been extant—will have spanned a hundred years from his start to my finish.  And then, if you connect his father and my child at either end, you’re up to two centuries, a daisy chain not unlike Dad's favorite dual fires, one hotter, and one brighter.

Tandem

photo by altercator

On Point83 rides, we never leave anyone behind.

Two people, however, that’s a different story.

But at least we lightened their trailer full of home-made cider before abandoning them for the Abandoned Highway, and, in our defense, not only was a serious effort made on roadside repair—highlighted by the Rez Run to Home Depot for missing lugnuts—but, more importantly, Team Brad and Allison formally absolved us from further efforts and wished the ride godspeed with assurances that further help was on the way; still, it felt sad to leave them in a downtown parking lot, even one that been the site of much spontaneous gaiety and mirth, occasioned in no small part by the aforementioned homemade applejack.

The newly-christened Argle Bargle drinks seemed to have many in fine fettle and led, in part, to a Hansel and Gretal trail of marijuana leaves indicating the route from Westlake south to the firepit that needs no firewood.  Palettes and underbrush appeared from thin air and were ignited by spray bottles of the improved technology to produce a cheery conflagration way warmer than necessary on such a mild October evening.

The faces by firelight, though, made it more than worthwhile all around the largest circumference for which we stand. 

Sparks rose heavenward…and so did burning embers from the flames, ba-dump bump.  Better jokes were told and more compelling lies traded.

It’s grand when you unintentionally end up at the spot you had more or less intended to from the beginning.  Thanks to the unexpected mechanical, and the unplanned-for absence of store-bought combustables, the revised and updated route leads you to the very place you were halfway expecting and planning for all along.

Of course, this requires a willingness to part company with one’s aspirations, but the beauty part here is being reminded to enjoy what’s happening as opposed to bemoaning what isn’t. 

After all, even the left-behind tandem team rode the perfect ride for the ride it rode.

Gorgeous

It’s only the first week of October, but already the gauntlet for seasonal spookiness has been thrown down.
It’s hard to imagine that there will be any more frightening sights on All-Hallow’s Eve than the one that was witnessed around Carkeek’s firepit on the first Thursday of the holiday’s month: at least a score of same-faced ghouls (whose images, however, were customized with different drippings of blood and a variety of scary teeth and fangs) glimmered in the dancing flames, shoes occasionally afire.

The predictable axe-murderers, vampires, and zombie Donald Trumps to emerge on Halloween will likely pale in comparison when it comes to inciting terror, and assuredly won’t come close to inducing such hysterical laughter as did the multiple Georges. 

For all those out there who were readying their Caitlyn Jenner costumes for this year’s All Saint’s Eve festivities, you’ve been served.

I myself will probably never relocate to New York City from the Pacific Northwest, but if I were to, I don’t think I’d be brave enough to endure the spectacle of my own face peering back at me from so many others.  It was frightening enough to conjecture with the departing guest of honor that he’s got thirty-four more years of opportunities to do so again before he reaches my age; the prospect of carrying on like this at age ninety-two, however, doesn’t seem so bad, just so long as such shenanigans persevere, as well.

Time is simply change under observation, you might say, so when you do the same thing over and over (especially behind almost identical masks), the clock stops and you get to cavort in the realm of eternity.

“Numerous opportunities for disaster” was how longtail rider Lalo put it and yet, about the worst that happened was losing a friend in the woods for a while.   A small search party found her, though, in plenty of time for lots more fire, a little dancing, and enough Georges to scare you silly.