The Impending Exodus

My exodus from Los Angeles, as I'm starting to call it, occurs in about two weeks now. I can hardly believe there are so many people to say goodbye to, I didn't know I had so many friends. There are many parties to be had as simultaneously I try to pack up my life. Sometimes I do get scared that I don't know anyone there, that I don't know the language, that I won't have all my bikes. Of all the things which are now uncertain as to how my new life will be, I cannot really get caught up in any of them. In my cases people prefer to stay in bad situations, simply cos the unknown is scarier. While I have a pretty good idea of what things would be like if I stayed here, I have no clue what they'll be like in France. But I can't just stay here and wait for something to happen to me, I've got to make something happen. When I think of all the night walks I have taken around Paris, and how perfect they are, how lonely, and wonderful, I can't help but know it will all be fine.

Tomorrow is the last Mosey.

Testing the Waters

I truly cannot wait for it to be summer.  After turning in today's paper on Pedophiles, next week's on MLK, Mandela, & Gandhi, Thursday's final thesis draft, and two finals, I'll be done with school, maybe forever.  As much as humanly possible I'll be striving for a carefree summer in which I can do the following things: ride everyday and hopefully to the beach several times a week, write for fun, use sunscreen, try cooking with peanut oil, and read some of the things I managed to get through school without reading: Lolita, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Anna Karenina, Notes from the Underground, Family Happiness, Lord of the Flies, A Midsummer's Night Dream, some Hume, Death of Ivan Ilynch, The Jungle, Interpretation of Dreams.  And perhaps, if I'm very lucky, figure out what the crap to do with the next few years of my life.

Will I end up going to culinary school?

To grad school?  If it were for writing I'd want to wait a few years to get my MFA to find some things to write about.  But otherwise, I'd probably do PolySci or History, and within those two there are infinite options.

Will I run out of money?

It is unknown.  And for the reason that does not bother me, I can speculate.  Virtually since kindergarten I've had a very certain, preconceived notion of what exactly my life would look like up until now.  Things were very much planned out for me.  I knew when I was six I would in school until twenty-two.  In one month I'll be on my own: financially, academically.  There is an enormous comfort here, in the not knowing, in the knowing that for the first time I'm not obligated to do any one thing (however much my Mother would appreciate my going to grad school).

If I stick to what I already know, hopefully they will be enough truths to go on.

1) Cable locks are useless

2) Good tuna and steak are never well-done

3) A library card is priceless

Back in the Saddle...

After having not updated for months and months, and being on the brink of graduation with nothing on the immediate horizon, I've decided to get back into writing things down when they happen.  And so much has happened.  The Chill Chinatown Mosey had started to become unmanageable.  Every week new gangs of unruly teenagers would show up, and despite our warnings, refuse to listen to us.  Many of them would steal from the local stores we frequented, tag right on the fronts of bars or buildings, and leave trash when they were asked to clean up after themselves.  Soon they were showing up in larger and larger numbers, to the point where we were outnumbered.  Some regulars were deterred by the new company we were attracting, and stopped coming as often.  Finally, after one night of futile scheming we were able to ditch them, and they seemed to finally be discouraged from trying to pursue us.  This was after weeks of changing the start location all over; they'd merely scour downtown, find us, and call their friends to catch up.  One night at Bogie's after having the cops called on them while they were tagging, they swore us off and vowed never to return, and since then, h

aven't.  All these unnecessary theatrics have made me think about how easily the ride could have completely fall apart.  We weren't united, and out of necessity I had to assert myself.  There were some weeks when only six or seven people showed, and it didn't feel like a Mosey at all.  But when we debated ending the ride entirely, people complained, and got upset at the prospect.  So we hung in there and had a series of very small rides.  Now, somehow we have successfully weeded out the kids who were causing trouble, gotten our core of about 20 or 25 back, and still manage to see a couple new, chill people every week.  I don't even know how it happened, but dear God am I grateful it did.  It was an easy decision to remove the ride from MidnightRidazz.  It was too hard to control who was coming, and that's how we ended up with the problems that we did.  The Mosey was never meant to be a huge, party ride.  It was founded on some important principles: riding slowly, and having a good time.

All of these problems with the Mosey coincided with my reading Steve Sample's The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership for a class.  The single most important thing he said in there was that to be a good leader you've got to withhold judgment.  When someone says something to you, don't decide right away whether or not you agree.  I thought this was the most sound advice I'd ever heard.  Also, when you try to actually do it, it's very difficult.  Think about how many hundreds of times a day you are confronted with opportunities for judgment.  It is the easy thing to know what side you are on; it is a much harder thing to wait until you have all sides of the story.  All the kids who came on the ride who ended up being problematic looked very very similar.  Everyone had an equal chance not to tag, or steal, or litter.  But we certainly didn't want anything to do with the ones who did.  I don't understand these kids who come on rides: no tubes, no pump.  Last week on the Mosey, a kid got a flat, we stopped, he, and none of his handful of friends had a tube or anything else to fix the flat luckily we loaned them the fixins.  At the next stop he got another flat since his tire was probably fucked up, and asked to use my second and last tube.  I said no, and he insisted that nobody else at Den Dinner had a tube.  I told him they probably just didn't want to give it to him since they knew they'd never see him again, or at least that he'd never return the favor.  I told him his options were to borrow a couple bucks from his friends and offer someone money if nobody would give him a spare tube, try to patch it (ended up being impossible), watch one block out to a main street to catch a bus, or call someone for a ride.  He told me he had no money, and nobody to come and get him.  So I asked him what the hell he was doing out here with us in Beverly Hills if he had no backup plan.  I think he felt pretty silly, but who know if that will be enough to cause him to change in the future.  His friends somehow got him home, because by the time we were ready to leave he was already gone.  I must be missing something.  Isn't the best part of riding a bike being self-sufficient, and efficient?  If you are just going to get stranded somewhere, what is the point?