From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXX

Introduction

This is the thirtieth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. (No, XXX does not mean it’s rated X … it’s more like PG-13, maybe R, we’ll see what makes it in. If this ends up being my most popular Bits & Bobs post, I’ll know why.)

Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, Volume XXV is here, Volume XXVI is here, Volume XXVII is here, Volume XXVIII is here, and Volume XXIX is here. Are you thinking “pump up the volume?” (Didn’t think so.)

So what are albertnet Bits & Bobs? They’re generally passages from letters I wrote friends and family back in the days before email (or excerpts from emails, in the days after). If this sounds boring, bear in mind I’ve always wanted to be a writer so I tried pretty hard to be interesting. Also, these snippets are pretty candid, and in my youth I was socially clumsy and also tended to ride my bike at speeds some would consider dangerous … so read on because there’s always a chance you’ll enjoy some schadenfreude, righteous indignation, or relief that it wasn’t you.

The Bits & Bobs in this post are in chronological order. The different volumes are all over the place and can be read sequentially, simultaneously, serially, seriously, surreptitiously, scrupulously, sensitively, and/or sanctimoniously.

All of today’s dispatches were written when I was attending UC Berkeley.

September 17, 1990

Today I was out on my new Guerciotti, just having the time of my life riding. It was early evening, starting to get dim, when I barreled down Claremont Ave, this wide, smooth, slightly twisty road, something like a 9% grade. (The low bottom bracket of the bike makes it really stable—although I did hit a pedal yesterday at like 45 mph which was kind of scary.) Anyhow, I’m flying along and suddenly I slam into a pothole or something. There’s this incredibly loud noise and for a split second, I’m completely blinded. I still can’t figure this out; I really couldn’t see a damn thing. (My best theory is that both retinas detached from my eyeballs because of the impact, and then they reattached. Or maybe it was like a cartoon of some kind and my eyeballs spun around in their sockets.) Anyhow, when I can see again, I’m in the left lane and there are cars coming towards me. Not like right in my face, but approaching pretty fast because I’m doing 50 mph. (I noted this later, of course—it’s not like I was looking at my bike computer at the time.) Did I mention that both my wheels were basically caved in at this point, and my back one was a potato chip? It felt like somebody had removed my rear wheel and replaced it with a jackhammer. I actually didn’t have a chance to be scared; my mind was totally tied up trying to respond. All in a split second, I’m aware of several things: 1) My rear tire, and maybe my front, are absolutely guaranteed to explode at any moment; 2) The chances of crashing are so high that all I can really do is cut my speed and try to get back into my lane so that at least all I hit is the ground, instead of the unforgiving windshield of a ‘73 Plymouth Reliant; and 3) If I use my back brake, the rear wheel will definitely slide out from under me as soon as the tire blows, if not sooner. So, I slam on the front brake, which grabs on the caved-in section of the rim and lurches the bike around even more, but somehow I get my speed down to about thirty and get back into my lane just before my rear tire blows up, then the front.

From here on out it’s easy; I mean, hell, people bring bikes down from 30 mph after dual blowouts all the time, no problem. God, what a rush. Both wheels are completely totaled. The bent sections of rim look like beer cans that a party animal has flattened against his forehead. I couldn’t even roll the bike home; I had to carry it. I feel lucky to be alive, or at least lucky I’m not dead. But at the same time, I feel cursed that this freak thing happened at all. Half of me says I should go out for pizza to celebrate still being alive, while the other half says I should save my money for the new rims I have to buy now. One thing is certain: I’m not going to spend my evening studying. I’ve been through enough for one day.

September 23, 1990

It’s taking a while to make friends up here; as you know, for most of my life I’ve been pretty shy. In the last couple of years I’ve become a lot more outgoing, but because I was shy for so long, I don’t have nearly as much practice socializing as, say, you. At UCSB I had the benefit of being on the cycling team, where I had a leg up socially because I was a fast rider and people respected that. That should help me here, too, but the Berkeley team isn’t nearly so social and we won’t really get together much until the racing season starts in February. So I need a Plan B, and I have one: my strategy is to show up early to class, plop down next to any random person, and strike up a conversation. Now, the only way this could backfire is if I chat up some dude and he thinks I’m coming on to him. This could be awkward if he’s straight, and even more awkward if he’s gay. I figure I better not risk it. So I only chat up women, because if they get the wrong idea, that’s totally fine—women are really good at guiding would-be romance into mere friendship. I mean, it’s practically a cliché, right? Of course, there’s the remote possibility that this failsafe process will go astray and some woman will not only think I have romantic ambitions but she will, too. So just in case that happens, I only chat up really good looking women. I’m not on the make … just trying to gin up some friendships and I gotta start somewhere, right?

So, at the beginning of the semester I chatted up this gorgeous girl in one of my English classes, and again the next time the class met, and so on, and eventually I tossed the dice and invited her over for dinner. (I guess going for coffee would have been the more logical next step, being a bit more low-key, but I don’t drink coffee, and last time I went for coffee with a girl, I didn’t know what to order and got all flustered. I mean, I could have had hot chocolate but then I’d come off like a little kid, right? And tea is so fussy with the bag and the string and the little paper wrapper the bag came in, and the milk in the tiny pitcher, I mean, I don’t know, it all seems kind of twee. I don’t even remember what I did order that time, but I never had coffee with that girl again, which is a shame because she was fly.)

Damn, where was I? Oh, right, dinner. So I made H—, the girl from my English class, dinner at my apartment. My friend B— (who graduated from UCSB last summer and moved to Oakland with me) was there, at least for a bit before finding an excuse to bail, assuming I would want privacy, like this was some romantic thing. He subtly razzed me about this: when H— complimented our apartment and furnishings (most of them B—’s), particularly our couch and its pillows, Brett said, “Did you know these are throw pillows?” He didn’t actually wink at me as he said this, but it was obviously a subtle reference to “throw the ho’s,” a phrase in surprisingly widespread use by me and my Santa Barbara pals. We will say, for example, “Call me Hector. Hector Throw-da-Ho’s,” or we complain, “No meet da ho’s, no throw da ho’s,” or simply “No ho’s.” Of course we don’t mean ho as in actual whore; “ho” is just a handy synonym for woman, or perhaps for attractive woman, just like “freak.” And the “no throw da ho’s” lament is mostly true; most of us have nobody to throw most of the time.

Well, dinner went fine, and then H— and I randomly started watching “Akira,” a movie B— had rented, which was this Japanese animated thing that started off pretty well, with young attractive people zooming around on cool motorcycles, but at some point the main character has some kind of weird bodily mutation with his arms growing insanely and becoming like tentacles. I could tell H— was pretty freaked out so we shut that off and went up on the roof. It’s not that high up but had a great view of the Golden Gate and all that. Then it got a bit late and we went back to my apartment and the phone was ringing, which doesn’t happen that often, and it was H—’s roommate, calling to see if she was okay. I was surprised that a) her roommate would worry, and b) she was resourceful enough to find my phone number. Or was this a precaution? (“If I’m not home by 10, check on me, would you?”) So anyhow, I walked H— home even though it’s a pretty good neighborhood. It was a nice night and when we got to her place, she invited me in.

Well, this was unexpected. I figured I’d just see H— to the door, and then head on home. I don’t think I was even speculating about a friendly little peck on the cheek because this wasn’t really a date, not as far as I could tell. I mean, how do you tell? Was she inviting me in just to be nice? Or was this like in the movies and was supposed to lead to (dot dot dot)? Obviously I was over-thinking things, as usual. Anyhow, eventually it came to pass that I found myself sitting down in her apartment. I don’t remember what would have made me decide to sit down other than perhaps our conversation was ongoing and I didn’t feel like standing anymore. So now it didn’t look like my departure was imminent. So what was I supposed to do next?

It occurred to me that H— might be waiting for me to bust a move, and if I didn’t, she might take that as an insult. I sure didn’t want to insult her, and besides, she was super fly as I believe I mentioned already. The opportunity (even if it’s only a perceived opportunity) to bust a move with a fine betty doesn’t come along every day. A decision tree formed in my head: if I don’t bust a move and that hurts her feelings, that could jeopardize our friendship. But if she’s not waiting for me to bust a move and considers us just friends and then I do bust a move, that could also jeopardize the friendship, though honestly she must know she’s fly so how could she possibly blame me for wanting to bust a move? I figured, worst case, I bust a move when she’s not actually expecting—or wanting—it, in which case she’ll just turn her head suddenly to deflect the kiss, and I’ll immediately get the message, and then I can quickly blush and stammer out an apology, following which there’ll be no hard feelings, and then she and I can go on being friends. Right?

The scenario that I didn’t actually even consider, for some reason, was that she’d actually respond favorably and we’d suddenly be making out. Why didn’t this cross my mind? Who knows. Perhaps I’ve just been shut down by girls so many times, to auger in yet again seemed almost inevitable, scripted even. So imagine my surprise when I busted the most awkward move ever and it seemed to work. I said something totally inane, like “I like your sweater” and then I guess I must have reached for her, or maybe she read my mind and came forward, but next thing you know she’s sitting on my lap and we’re making out! Pretty thrilling stuff and she paused a moment to say something similarly inane like “I like your sweatshirt, too,” but mostly we’re just mashing faces. And then I become aware of this strange kind of rhythmic pulsing—not a sound exactly, but not exactly not. Kind of like a hydraulic rushing you might say. And I realize I’m hearing her pulse through her chest, which is proximate to my ear. This didn’t occur to me right away because the rhythm was pretty high for a heart rate. I mean, I wouldn’t expect a typical resting pulse rate (e.g., 60 or 70), since making out is kind of exciting, but we weren’t running stairs or anything either. Since my arm is around her, I can see my watch out of the corner of my eye, and what the hell, I decide to track the second hand and measure her pulse. Granted, in all the excitement I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my calculation, but it seems like her heart is going at about 130 beats per minute. Is she just super excited? Or maybe frightened? Or could she be having some kind of seizure?

After a few minutes our embrace subsides, as explicably as it had started, and we say goodnight and I head home. As I walk along up Alcatraz Avenue, I ponder the strangeness of recent events, this sort of hybrid between a romantic comedy and “Telltale Heart.” The song in my head (there’s always a song in my head) is “Walking On the Moon” by the Police. By the time I get home I just kind of shrug the whole thing off as just another of those strange things that happen to me.

I saw H— in class the next day, and afterward as we walked across Sproul Plaza chatting, H— seemed just a little off, perhaps a bit stiff, certainly not behaving like somebody who has just embarked on a sweet romantic adventure. Honestly, I’d have been a lot more surprised if she did seem all excited about the passionate turn our evening had taken, though I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because I wasn’t that excited either; I was feeling strangely ambivalent about it all, probably because my excursions into dating so often end badly, so why would this be any different? And thus it seemed, like I said earlier, almost scripted when she finally came out with it: “About last night. I like you and want to be friends, but I don’t want to be … well, I don’t want to get involved.” I didn’t need to ask “involved in what”—the answer was “it,” as in “it all.” Which was fine with me. From that day forward we were just friends. Which, as you might recall, is all I’d really been looking for anyway.

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