This insidious compulsion reared its ugly head in my life some 15 years ago. I was 35 and starting to see that there was some need in my life for physical exertion so I could stay looking as good as possible as long as possible. Yes, this all started out of my own vanity, now WHO is surprised by that? Unfortunately I didn't do my homework and it has taken over my life. Well, not taken over, but it certainly gets a lot of my attention. I am now an endorphin junkie and bikes are my works. God this is better than AA! "Hello, I'm Defective and I'm a bikeaholic." Phew! Thank God that got said.
I wound up in my current situation through circumstance.
Almost three years ago my adoptive father developed pneumonia and spent a few days in hospital (I'm trying out the british slang, I'm not sure I like it)and on his release he was prescribed steroids as part of his recovery regimen. Those who've known him for years as I have, know that steroids are not good for him. They make him a little crazy-er...than...normal. Which is to say he says and does things he lives to regret.
One day I was digging and planting a flower bed in his yard while he watched. He'd been in the house for weeks, it was a nice day and he came outside while I worked and sat with me, telling me all the while how he would have done it better. But he did like the results because,the process overtook his drug hazed mind and he became obsessed,(hmmm) with the notion that I should become a landscaper. This resulted in an immediate offer of $10k to start my own landscaping business.
1.) I know nothing about landscaping. I was just digging a flowerbed.
2.) I have paper thin lilly white skin and have to wear sunscreen #8 to bed. I have no business working outdoors. I was genetically engineered to live in an Irish peat bog.
3.) I have three degrees in the humanities, I am a librarian, I teach college, I have drawers full of awards for my work, what would possess anyone to think I needed to change careers?
4.) Steroids are not this mans friend.
I declined the generous offer to bankroll his idea of what should be my new career. But! I told him, if he really wanted to do something for me, he could pitch in and help me finish paying for the new bike I wanted for my birthday in a couple of months. He agreed.
Ok, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.
As you know, I am 50, and at that time I was just turning 48. So the kid in the bike store was selling some old guy a bike and a slow-ass, clunky, falling apart, always in the shop, hate it with a passion, Trek 1000C was what I wound up with. I will never own another Trek bicycle even if Lance Armstrong comes to my house weekly for the rest of my life and offers me sexual favors as part of the deal.
Not happening!
I have suffered through two seasons with this albatross and I cannot wait to be rid of it. Which brings me back to the obsessive thing I was talking about earlier.
I am looking at new bikes.
To hell with furniture, I want a new bike.
I am looking at a Bianchi. Italian made,cro-moly frame,campangolo components, 120 years in business, excellent ride. I am truly in love. Now in the interest of full disclosure I am looking at the $5000 model. I could, perhaps, be talked into the $2500 model, and will likely, if I buy one at all, wind up with the $1000 model. One must temper desires to the reality of their need to eat and live indoors. I hate that.
Here it is. Can you hear the angels in the background "AAAHHH!" I can.
Pathetic huh?
No I do not like the color, but that's their signature paint job. Little I can do about that.
I'll be drooling over this thing for weeks, I may make this picture my desktop here at work. Here's hoping I have the willpower to save my pennies to get one soon.
Perhaps more later, right now a Monday morning crisis.
No one in my dept showed up this morning and there is a conference in ten minutes that requires internet access and teleconferencing in the computer lab. None of which I have ever set up here. This should be interesting.
Love
