It had to happen eventually

Yes, I did promise a post yesterday about what happens in the dungeon, but I didn't get a chance to finish it. I will. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow.....I'm supposed to be taking it easy, which isn't my usual speed. I'm usually fifteen miles over the limit with squishy brakes and no tail lights. But I wrecked my bike for the first time last night and my brain is a little slow and sore.....along with my right shoulder and my knees and the front of my left thigh. I'm not sure how I hit that combination of body parts in one fall, but I did protect my wrists and that's all a musician can ask of a random flight off a bike.

I've written before about my falling phobia. This fall wasn't so bad--I didn't die--so I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about it. It's definitely a good thing I landed on dirt and grass and not on the concrete. Maybe it's not a bad thing I got through a tumble off my bike with only some wrenching, bruising, and maybe a mild concussion.  It wasn't that bad, although a doctor friend diagnosed me on Facebook and gave me an Rx for vegging out in front of the TV tonight. Even if I die, I know he can mix me up a beaker of one of his killer  kick-ass corpse raisers* and I'll be good as new. A Facebook diagnosis is much more restful than sitting in an ER for hours watching CNN amongst the sick people.

The fall wasn't spectacular. It could have been a lot more dramatic if I'd fallen into traffic earlier when we were riding on a busy street or even the river. But it wasn't dramatic at all. A Man Called Horse** and I rode until almost dark....not that the city ever gets dark. As we headed up the levy from the river path on a steepish ramp, I geared down and came up behind him going faster than he was. I thought I'd run past him on his left, but I misjudged the space there and had to jackknife my front wheel to avoid hitting his back tire when I couldn't get past. I flew sideways off my bike  and skidded along the ground on my knees and thigh until my shoulder and head whacked the ground and stopped me.  A Man Called Horse might have continued on up the ramp if I hadn't yelled, "Oh, shit" as I was going down. I'm sure the whole thing looked awkward and ridiculous as hell, and my dignity suffered a worse concussion than my brain.

We weren't far from A Man Called Horse's car, so we sat in the grass by the path for a while and then walked our bikes to the street. He drove me home and stayed for a while to make sure I didn't start frothing at the mouth and twitching uncontrollably for pizza and beer on the front porch. I haven't been back on my bike yet to see if it suffered any damage, but it looked OK once we picked the grass and dirt out of the right shifter.

It does piss me off that I have to buy a new helmet, because mine matches my bike perfectly and it didn't seem to work that well anyway. When my head smacked the ground and my brain exploded, all I could do was lie there stunned and think, What the fuck? I thought this damn helmet was supposed to protect my head! This fucking hurts! So maybe I do need a new helmet after all. This time I'm getting one with a king-size mattress and box springs in it.

So I'm feeling a little too slow in the noggin to write anything clever or medieval  or even anything with hidden metaphorical meaning. I've been catching up in The Big C, which inspired me to start planning Thanksgiving dinner, and now I'm going to start on Weeds. Who knows what that might inspire.

And tomorrow I'm going to feel fine enough to ride my bike to the baseball stadium and go to my first minor league baseball game.*** I'm excited....or I will be when my head stops hurting.



* I don't ask what he puts in the corpse raisers. I just admire the pretty colors of the liquid in the beakers, drink it down like a good girl and ask for more, please.
** A post on the men I ride with is coming up soon. There are lots of good men out there on the bike path....and some who aren't so nice too.
*** I think the only league baseball game I've ever been to was Little League.