Talking to Strangers: An Inordinately Long Post (Worth It; Very Entertaining)

I have a stalker.

Ok. I use that term loosely. He’s not one hundred percent bona fide stalker, but he’s around and he’s undesirable and I don’t know how to get rid of him. No, I’m not talking sarcastically about Stoker. Stoker is still one hundred percent desirable and as it stands now, he’s not around near enough.

The stalker doesn’t seem to follow me, per se. And that’s why I use the term loosely. But suddenly, I can’t go anywhere outside my office without running into him. It’s annoying.

Here’s the story. In riding my bike home from work, I was waved over to a parking lot by a guy who was in workout clothes. I thought he was going for an after work run. Or maybe they were playing a pickup game of basketball. I stopped. The dude assured me that all he wanted to know was bike stuff and then he asked me a bunch of questions about my bike. I answered his questions while still being cautious, under the impression that I was speaking with a working professional, which somehow at that time meant to me that he wasn’t creepy. Not one hundred percent creepy, anyway. When the questions got uncomfortable, I started to want to leave, like when he asked if I go for group rides or what. I thought to myself that I didn’t want him knowing whether or not I rode alone. He wanted to know where I rode, I didn’t tell him. I told him I ride with my husband, which is true.

After a few minutes, a woman appeared on the front steps of his office building. She was shouting and waving for him. “His wife,” I thought, even though that didn’t really make sense. He said he had to go and left. So I left too.

Oh, and initially, he mentioned that he was glad I had stopped. He said he had seen me riding my bike by before and he was so glad he caught me. One of the other things he said was that he wanted to get a bike and that at one point he had done triathlons. Which is cool, great for him. Apparently he had been out of the scene for a while. Fine, awesome. Go to it, man.

A few days later, I was out walking on my lunch. I went about a half mile to find a place to eat. As I was returning to my office, I stopped on a street corner while I waited for the light to change. There was a dude in the bike lane and he looked at me. I ignored him. Then he asked, “Are you the bike girl?” And what did I do?

I said yes, because I’m an idiot. Why the hell would I say yes? First of all, why the hell would I talk to a stranger? In the very first place, why would I do that? Why would I not heed my mother’s advice and the advice of the public education system and the advice of all the television commercials during Saturday morning cartoons? Why?

Because I’m an idiot. I am. There’s no way around it. My stupidness surprises even me. So I say yes to the dude’s question, “Are you the bike girl?” I say yes and nod, dumbly, because I’m a little surprised and confused and I respond too quickly, automatically. When I’m taken by surprise I tend to become a deer in the headlights, I’m very shocked that there’s a car, I can’t believe there’s a car, why would there be a car here, why is it speeding into my face? That’s what I do. I get confused. That’s what happens right before you die.*

And the dude thinks it’s divine intervention or something. He’s like, “Wow, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m running into you again. My friends said that you rode by one day when I wasn’t there and there were all, ‘______, she came by again, the Bike Girl. She came by when you weren’t here.’ And now here you are.” And then he showed off the bike he got for $400 off of craigslist.com. He was so thrilled about the bike and I pretended to be impressed because I didn’t give a shit. All I was thinking about was how the hell** to get out of this.

The light changes and the dude rides his bike across the street. I wait for the cars and begin crossing the road. The dude gets to the other side and what does he do? He WAITS for me.

There’s no where for me to go. He’s on a bike and I’m walking and my work is half a mile away. He begins riding his bike real slow next to me and he begins gabbing. He chatters on and on about the bike and how he’s getting a fresh start and how he’s been out of the scene for four years and he just got to Nashville and he’s real excited about everything, to get a fresh start. I’ve got my hand in my bag and I’m texting Stoker to “CALL ME RIGHT NOW.” And I’m not listening real close, but I catch the thing about being gone for four years. So I ask him where he’s been for four years, feeling my blood turning cold.

“Prison. I was locked up for four years. But I’m rehabilitated now and I’ve got a fresh start. I don’t want to freak you out or scare you, I’ve got two sons and everything.”

I play it cool. And what the hell? PRISON? I’m not going to tell you my life story, but what is it with me and ex-cons? I’m not kidding. Somehow I seem to attract them and it’s not like I’m hanging out in bars. They find me in the oddest places. The climbing gym, college, the street. Ok, the street is a weird one. But that’s the first weird one.

At this point, I’m really concerned about how to deter to this guy. Stoker hasn’t called me and I’m getting annoyed about that. I ask the dude why he was in prison, but he pretends not to hear. He tries to tell me his life story, his name, where he’s from, that he has some kids, etc. It turns out that that office is not an office, but is rather a HALFWAY HOUSE. It turns out that that halfway house looks out on my parking lot (he was puzzling over why he keeps running into me in such a fortuitous way). It turns out that there have been a bunch of ex-whatevers oogling me as I ride by on my bicycle.

This stirs a ton of unpleasant realizations in me, as I walk along, thinking of how to get rid of him without being offensive.

And why on earth shouldn’t I be offensive? Why on earth is there a strange man riding beside me, trying to be my friend or something when I’ve already mentioned that I have a husband? Obviously there’s something wrong with him. Something anti-social about him. I hate to be an ass, but sometimes a person needs to get a brain. By person I mean this man, who clearly doesn’t have enough mental power to get out of his own experience and recognize that I’m a girl walking by myself and whether or not he’s harmless, his actions might appear otherwise.

What kills me is that I actually feel like I should try to preserve this guy’s feelings. Why is that? Why should I care? He’s clearly crossing all sorts of lines of decorum. I’m not his friend. Usually I don’t talk to strangers, and there are a lot of seedy guys hanging around Nashville, if you’ve never been here. They love to try to rope girls into conversation. Typically I mutter something unintelligible to them and hurry on. But one time I didn’t do that and it turns out that that one time just happened to introduce me to a guy who has been in PRISON.

I wrap the conversation up with that guy after he asks me my name and where I work and what I do. I tell him something along these lines, “I’m sorry, I have nothing against you, but you’re a stranger and because I hardly know you, I’m not going to tell you my name. I don’t feel comfortable telling you anything about me. But good luck with the bike, bye.”

And he rode off. Since then I have seen him several times. Each time I wish I hadn’t seen him and I worry about my safety. Has he marked me? He’s obviously being monitored to some degree, but what the hell was he in prison for? I have no idea and I didn’t listen well enough to do a search for him and find out what he did. I don’t buy that he’s rehabilitated. I’m the person who thinks that prisons don’t turn prisoners around, they make them worse. Today he rode his bike past me and waved and said in a real aggressive-sounding way, “Hey there!”

I saw him last week and ignored him so I guess that’s why today’s hello sounded like this, “Yeah, I know you’re trying to ignore me. But I don’t care. I’m going to acknowledge the hell out of you.” Which bothers me. What kind of a-hole doesn’t get it?

Oh yeah, and the world? Full of a-holes. Sometimes, and I hate to be a big whiner and complain, but sometimes it really gets me that a large portion of my thinking powers are put to trying to protect myself from men. It bugs me that forever and ever, men will always have the upper hand. I guess someone will always have the upper hand because life really is one big competition, whether or not pacificists and all those people who say to me “it’s not a competition” want to admit it. NEWS FLASH: It is too. Everything is a competition and I’m determined as hell to win it. And if it means carrying pepper spray all the time, I’ll do it. And if it means carrying a concealable bazooka, I’ll do it. I can field strip a bazooka in two minutes and forty-nine seconds. Beat that, a-hole.





*Word to the wise, don’t get confused and you’ll stay alive.
**I swear a lot when I feel like my life is threatened. Just be glad I’m not dropping F-bombs like 99% the bloggers out there.


Some really good men read my blog. Thanks for being good men. I’d make a list of your names, but it would be too long, as my entire fan base is composed almost entirely of men.

The Joys of Commuting by Bicycle

I’m riding my bike home today. If you’ve never been to Nashville, then you’d hardly understand. There’s a song by the Kamikaze Hearts called “Tennessee.” A line in it says, “I never knew there was* hills in Tennessee, I always thought that it would be flat.” Yeah, me too. But no, no, it’s not flat. I guess a lot of places in the U.S. are hilly**, but are they hilly, hot, and humid all at once and are you on a bike with a bag strapped to your back?

Because if you’re not, you should be. It’s the only way to travel. Riding your bike in a place like, oh, Salt Lake City? That’s nothing until you’ve ridden Tennessee. Ha ha. Mwah ha ha ha ha ha. (Riding crazily into the misty distance, uphill, with a bag strapped to my back.)




*sic -- yeah, I know, it should be WERE.
** The world, really.

Belated Birthday Post

Last Thursday I turned thirty. I could go on and on about the woes of aging and how strange it feels to say, "I'm thirty," and all that, but what's the point? This isn't a Hallmark card, or Shoebox Greeting or whatever brand of greeting card it is out there perpetuating all the hilarious jokes about getting old. In fact, why am I even talking about it?

Birthdays are still great, even when you get old. Honestly, I'm not really SAD about aging, if for no other reason than that the older I get, the better the presents get. Okay, so not really every year, just this year, otherwise by the time I am thirty-five I should have a Hummer . . . or a tank (the kind with cannons on it, not the ones seen driving around American towns doubling as Cadillac Escalades or some other "family" vehicle). And what's with all the crap about the economy being bad? I'm still spending money. Loads of it.

Last year I got a Trek 4300 for my birthday. That's a mountain bike. This year I got a Scott S40, that's a road bike. A picture:



What's with the bikes, you might ask. Simple. I haven't ruled out nuclear holocaust and when the shit is coming down, how else am I going to get around quickly? The rest of you will be in wheelchairs. I'll be gliding along on all my bikes.

Really I just wanted to say "the shit's coming down." For my sensitive readers out there, I've given up on you. The only sensitive people I know stopped reading my blog long ago. I'm too crass, I guess.*

I almost got a Sledgehammer this year, but instead I just put pegs on my Trek.

Seriously, who knew Scott was out there making bikes? Ski poles, ski goggles . . . and bikes. I guess I'm WAY behind the times.



Special thanks to my lover for working all the long hours just to put bread on the table and a bike in my back pocket (it weighs so little, you see). And also thanks to all the relatives who kindly sent me money (even though I KNOW you don't read my blog [secretly YOU are the sensitive readers I was talking about]). This is where it went: the bike and bike accoutrements. Happy birthday.



*Understatement is funny because it's understated. No one in their right mind could presume to think that the word "shit" is offensive. Understatement is a form of exaggeration, and we all know exaggeration is funnier than hell.

Clipless Pedals Save the World

Cycling with clipless pedals is a million times better than without clipless pedals. If you ride at all, I recommend getting them. It took me about thirty seconds to get used to having my feet clipped in and then it was like we had always been meant for each other, the pedals and I. You know the feeling you have when you clip into your ski bindings? It feels like that, only better, because now you're a machine.

Bike Shop Ruins Customer

I feel like the guys at the bike shop were talking smack about me.

You know how it is. You ask one of the sales people a bunch of questions. You let them know what you're looking for and why. And then one of the sales guys' girlfriends comes in and they've put you up to asking her about some women's cycling club and the two sales guys retreat to behind the counter. You're left standing near the front door talking to the girlfriend and you happen to notice the sideways glance of one of the sales guys. Like he's talking about you to the other guy.

How else can this sideways glance be interpreted? You know what a sideways glance is. It's the indirect look that's supposed to disguise the fact that a person is talking about you (we've all done it). The "I'm looking at the cash register here, not at you. See, my head is even angled downwards." As though you can't see the whites of the eyes that are so obviously fixed on you. It's hilarious.

But also incredibly disconcerting. As I left and got in my car, all I could think about was "What the hell were they saying?" And then I'm left to run through everything I said and everything I did. I replay it over and over in my head. I said this and this. He said this and this. And then it's like, "Wait, he kept mentioning his girlfriend. Did he think, somehow, that I was picking up on him just because I was asking questions?" And then I’m like, "Why the hell would he think that? I have a ring on and I didn’t flirt and it's his job to answer my questions." Then I wonder if I unintentionally sent signals.

And then I become a wreck. Then I wonder if I was one of those annoying customers who dream big but never do a damn thing. Then I remember how he said something like, "Yeah, tons of people come in here looking for triathlon bikes . . ." And there's that elliptical phrase, the unspoken, "but they never buy them and I doubt if they ever actually do a triathlon."

And then I think, "Well, I'll show you, Mr. Arsehole." And then I'm calling him names without actually knowing whether or not he was talking crap about me to his stupid co-worker and, after I left, the girlfriend too.

See, you can't ever do that. Unless you really hope a customer like me never comes into your stupid specialty shop again (I was the only customer in the store, by the way), you can't go behind the counter and have a word about the customer. And if you're not having a word about the customer, you really shouldn't do the eye thing, the sideways glance. Because it LOOKS like you're talking crap about someone. This goes for all social interactions.

By the way, the nice girlfriend: ripped as hell. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were veins popping out of her biceps. That sounds like an exaggeration but it completely isn't. She's probably nice as hell, too. I just couldn't believe my eyes, that's all.

Go, Obese-Exercise-Man, GO!

Recently Stoker and I went for a bike ride on the greenway. We passed an extremely obese older man wearing an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants and perspiring heavily. He'd just come up one of the steep hills. I've seen this guy before and every time I think, "Great job!" Because I'm secretly really proud of him. I learned this from my friend Anna K., who rolls down the window and cheers people on when she sees them out exercising. The first time she did this, I think I was about to make fun of them with a snide remark about their weight, because sometimes I'm really small like that. And then Anna surprised me by rolling down the window, waving, and letting out a "woo-hoo, great job!"

At first I was embarrassed for her and for me a little, thinking, what will they say? And then I thought, "Who the hell are they?" After realizing there was no they to laugh at me, I thought wow. Then I asked Anna why she'd do something like that. I probably said, "Anna? What the heck?" And she said something like, "What? It's so cool that they're out doing that. I love it when people exercise!" Something very Anna to say. She has a lust for life that I envy.

And I think when people cheer you on, it really makes you go harder. It helps you to believe in yourself. One time I was out running and going hard. I was sweating up a storm, what with the humidity and the heat. As I came around a bend, there were two older guys walking towards me, who I had passed earlier. This time when I passed them, one of the guys said to me, "Great job! Keep it up!" Or something like that. I smiled and wanted to say thanks, but I might have been out of breath, having just tackled a hill (curse you, Tennessee, and your rolling hills!). But that encouragement from a complete stranger gave me a burst of energy and I felt I could run for forever.

When Stoker and I passed the obese gentlemen, I gave him a silent cheer in my head. Then I looked at Stoker and he seemed sad. I asked him if he was all right and he said:

"Sometimes don't you just want to give people a hug and say, 'It's OK, everything will work out'?"

And I said: "Do you mean that guy we just passed?"

And Stoker said: "Yeah. It just looks like he has a sad life. We pass a lot of people who look like they have sad lives and I wish I could tell them something reassuring."

Then I said: "I've seen that guy a lot. I usually just want to cheer him on, but I know what you mean."

Then I told Stoker how I love and adore him and think he's really precious. How can I not? I'm f-ing lucky to be married to him (f-ing lucky = flucky. New word. It will be all the rage!). As for Obese-Exercise-Man, I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to actually say, out loud, "Keep it up!" Because I am a chicken. So I'll say it here: "Great job, man!" Maybe he's out there, somewhere, reading this.

Monday, Monday You're a Big Fat Meanie

Oh man, I'm so depressed. I don't know why. Because it's Monday? Probably because it's Monday. "Monday morning you sure look fine, Tuesday I got travelin' on my mind." It just so happens that Monday has more songs about it than any other day of the week, and it does because it's the crappiest.

I would say shittiest, but I'm trying to cut back. Stoker was recording me the other night, singing this song we wrote together (I suck, as we both know), and I messed up and said, "shit," and Stoker kept playing me saying it over and over again in my headphones. It sounded like . . . shit. It was terrible. I sound terrible when I swear (AND when I sing). So, I've decided it's OK to write swear words, but not to say them anymore.

By the way, about that thing I said up there, the thing about Monday having more songs written about it than any other day of the week? I made that up. It's not a fact. I'm sure I could research it and everything and come up with some statistics showing that it is fact*, but who has the energy to do that? This keyboard kind of sticks and my fingers get real tired from typing.

"Monday monday, can't trust that day, monday monday, sometimes it just turns out that way."

I prefer "California Dreaming," if you now what I mean. Mondays are typically tough for me because I can't sleep Sunday night. Who knows why. Probably because on Saturday I sleep in an hour later than usual, on Sunday I often take a nap, and the whole weekend I eat like crap. I don't eat crap, but if crap could eat, it would probably eat the kind of stuff I eat on weekends, like Zingers, more cheese than is necessary, and lots of Dr. Pepper (I've stopped drinking it during the week). I'm sure all those things in combination disrupt the bio-rhythms or circadian rhythms or whatever term you prefer. Maybe if I got a body suit of health magnets or something. Feng shui. Something alternative, because I'm really into that . . . whole thing.

And to close, a little shout out to my hero Stoker, who bought me a mountain bike on Friday. Yeehaw, Stoker! Let's ride**!



*"Faith is a fact . . . . Ha ha. I almost said faith is a fact. Faith's not a fact . . . . . I'm going to prison because you don't know what a blooper real is?!!!" George Bluth Sr.
** Bikes.