Insomniatic Ramblings

My stomach hurts. What time is it. I shouldn't drink beer on an empty stomach before I ride home from work. I'm bloated. I wonder if I'm getting sick. I hope I remembered to plug in my light into the charger.

If I can get up at 6, maybe I'll take the dog for a walk. I have to remind myself to put those pants in the dryer. Where did I put my phone? I haven't seen my ipod for a while. I wonder if it's still in my rain coat pocket. My stomach hurts. Maybe it was the rice.

I like that granola I got at trader joes.

Is it yesterday now, or is it still today. Maybe I should keep an extra charger at work. I wonder what kind of sandwich I should make myself for lunch tomorrow. Last time I went to that burrito shop, I got a stomach ache.

I need to buy more of those peanut butter filled pretzels.

I wish those strawberries weren't so expensive.

I need to stop drinking coffee after lunch.

If I leave early enough to go to work tomorrow, I could stop at Peets halfway to work and get a latte'. I need to start eating better again. That salmon was pretty good. That kitchen smells like fish now. Oh crap, I forgot about the PTA meeting tonight.

My foot has a cramp. I need conditioner. I wonder if I look older then I really am. Who would keep a gorilla as a pet and let it brush your hair. That's fucked up. Oh crap, I forgot to put the bath mat in the wash. I bet the cat is peeing on it. That thing smells like ass.

I need some more long sleeve t-shirts.

I should take the cat to the vet. And sign the dog up for training. I need to pay the dentist bill. How come my head hurts now. What if I have an aneurysm and die right now. I should tell Morgan the bill pay service password just in case. I need to turn on the heat, it's freezing in here.

Jesus christ, why must we keep it so cold in here. Where's summer.

I think I'm going to do a long road ride Saturday, it it's not raining. I should get more wool. I need some more sport bras. I hate doing wash mid-week. Maybe I should wear a hat tomorrow, with one braid instead of two. What happened to my phone. I think I left it at work.

Maybe I'll try and ride up to intermezzo during lunch for a sandwich.

I should try and get to work early tomorrow, so I can get caught up. I do kind of like disco. Didn't Michael Jackson have a monkey too. Is it supposed to rain saturday? Maybe I should have some tea. If I cut my hair short it may never grow back. Those kids still need their yearly checkup.

I need to finish painting this room.

I'm going to figure out a mtb race to go do and start getting some miles in to get ready. Next week I'm starting to train again, maybe. I should do an 8 hour race. Nah, that's too long. I liked that omelet I had on Saturday. That was good. I'll make egg burritos for the kids for breakfast if i get up early enough. I'm going to get up early.

I need more wool socks.

That song, Boogie Wonderland, is stuck in my head. I have to remember to get Sam a white shirt for his band performance. When's daylight savings again? I don't like the word gobble. I wonder if those turkey's on Scout St. belong to anyone.

Which hat should I wear tomorrow. Today.

Someone's Gonna Get a Letter About This

Back in the day, when something would go wrong ...

Like when we'd pay for an extra water melon at the grocery store and the bag boy would forget to put it in the bag and we'd get all the way home and call the grocery store and the manager wouldn't believe my mom that the 15 year old bag boy was an idiot. Or when some parking ticket would appear on our car that had been parked at a meter that still had money in it and the meter maid wouldn't listen to my mom about how the meters were jacked up all the time and how she was going to take her picture and send it to the mayor.



My mom would get very upset and threaten to write a letter to someone about IT.

First she would walk around the living room, taking tiny puffs from her cigarette complaining and analyzing the situation, while we sat on the couch watching cartoons and eating pretzels and pretending to listen.

Then she'd use the words, shit and jesus christ and talk about how she was never going to shop, eat, buy, drink, park or go near said place again.

Then she'd light up the next cigarette and talk about the injustices of it all and how she couldn't understand why these things happened so often and how city government was so messed up and what idiots they all were - which would ultimately lead her into yelling about how "someone's going to hear about this" and "this isn't over yet".

And that she was going to "WRITE a letter to someone about it!"

Then she'd get on the phone and start calling people and taking notes and searching for supervisors of supervisors - which was great for us, because by then she was so far gone, she'd often forget how long we'd been watching TV and that our TV time had been up quite some time ago.

Sometimes we could even get her to flip the switch on the back of the TV to unlock HBO so we could watch the "incredible shrinking woman" for the 20th time.

Eventually, she'd written about enough stuff and spoken out about enough supermarket, restaurant, bad food and ugly billboard sign injustices that her friends helped her focus her energy and gently nudged her to run, sit, organize, manage and work in our local city government for a number of years.



And by the ripe old ages of 8, 10, and 12 my siblings and I were standing at various BART stations handing of leaflets as well as canvasing neighborhoods and knocking on people's doors to tell them the dangers of nuclear waste, urban sprawl and republicans and how they needed to save our parks and keep open space alive and vote yes on S.

And to please buy our girl scout and cub scout cookies.

You can thank us kids, for the open space left undeveloped around the bottom of Mt Diablo and that there are no billboards in downtown Walnut Creek over the size of some gigantic size measurement.

After a while she gave up the local politic game when the campaign she was managing to "elect Jim Hazard for state assembly" was lost against a man in a kilt.

I still remember the night of defeat when everyone was getting drunk at campaign headquarters and I was sitting on the sidewalk outside with my friend Kate Hatcher, playing dice and mumbling the campaign slogan my mom had drilled into us over and over again "elect a representative not a politician", when the man in the kilt tried to come inside and my mom shoved him out and almost punched him.



And in the scuffle, I managed to see up his kilt.

So yes, as a little kid, it did make me feel a little bit better. The ever present threat of the letter being written - like there was someone, somewhere who could really do something about the thing that was so fucked up. Like we had some sort of control over it all - over those men who wore kilts.

Uh huh.

But as I got older, it didn't always make me feel so good.

Like when I flunked my drivers test for the 4th time, because I didn't yield to oncoming traffic at the green light - and she threatened to write a letter to the test giver's supervisor. And when my high school boyfriend broke up with me in my junior year, she threatened to write him a letter and get to the bottom of it all.

And when I went skiing with my best friend and we wanted to stay overnight in a cabin full of 17 year old boys and I lied a little bit about the fact that there WERE adults there and a few weeks later when she found out afterwards that there weren't any adults there - she threatened to write a letter to me and my friend and all the boys.

And so, here I am, 41 and often threatening people, silently in my brain - that I'm going to write a letter to someone about it, whatever it is, that they're doing to annoy me.

Lately it's about me riding along on my bike towards home, singing led zeppelin, riding happily through the flats in the bike lane and then finally getting up into the hills - into my own neighborhood village, where there are NO bike lanes, where people drive like morons and they buzz and honk and well, you know.

And as I ride along, I write that letter in my head, to the editor in the local paper. And it's every night at the same intersection, and it's always a very similar letter.

Sometimes I really do write them. Like the time I wrote to the editor of the local paper - and suggested people slow down and not drive so fast in the village. And stop at stop signs. And please let pedestrians walk across cross walks without being afraid of getting hit.

And to be more courteous drivers.

And a week later I got a call on the phone from a man who'd read my letter and told me that writing letters wouldn't really get anything accomplished, even though it had been a nice letter and all.

Uh huh.