dyke on bike
Ha just a(nother) cheap stunt to grab your attention. (Gotcha didn't I?) This post will completely fail to address one half the topic and then only the purely foot-powered subset of the other.
Yesterday I bought my third bicycle. It cost $30 (more, with indexation) less than its immediate predecessor, which has been with me for about as long as N has (that I cannot recall whether it pre-dates N says much about its antiquity); and less still, than my first (factoring in exchange rates, inflation, etc.) with which I had parted all so prematurely and reluctantly. Whether my purchasing pattern indicates a rise in living standards of the general population (being, in theory at least, inversely proportional to the so-called "cost of living") or a drop in those of my own - your guess is as a good as mine.
I am not someone who forms emotional attachments to inanimate objects (or at all) readily. Yet I suspect that I "hold on to" things - we're not talking collectibles here but ordinary fungible goods - for longer than most. Such behaviour has so little to do with sentimentality and so much with my loathing of commitment, of being inconvenienced by the necessary upkeep of possessions of escalating delicacy, that I am surprised whenever people interpret it otherwise (which, to be fair, few do, if they've ever glimpsed the state of disrepair and general neglect which sooner or later befalls most if not all of my physical belongings).
Thus, albeit by default, Bike2 has carried me through the better part of my teenage years and early twenties, over the dips and bumps, and into no less uncertain times. Once its successor is fully assembled and operational, it will be shoved (gently yet surely) into a corner of the shed where it will remain until a better use for said corner arises, after which point it is at once harsh and pointless to speculate on its fate. But - whenever I recall those awesome lonesome hours of getting to know new neighbourhoods, to know myself, of being one and at one with the world - there it will be, like a brilliant supporting character who almost but not quite steals the show (thereby fulfilling its role to perfection), to be remembered fondly, without excessive analysis.
Yesterday I bought my third bicycle. It cost $30 (more, with indexation) less than its immediate predecessor, which has been with me for about as long as N has (that I cannot recall whether it pre-dates N says much about its antiquity); and less still, than my first (factoring in exchange rates, inflation, etc.) with which I had parted all so prematurely and reluctantly. Whether my purchasing pattern indicates a rise in living standards of the general population (being, in theory at least, inversely proportional to the so-called "cost of living") or a drop in those of my own - your guess is as a good as mine.
I am not someone who forms emotional attachments to inanimate objects (or at all) readily. Yet I suspect that I "hold on to" things - we're not talking collectibles here but ordinary fungible goods - for longer than most. Such behaviour has so little to do with sentimentality and so much with my loathing of commitment, of being inconvenienced by the necessary upkeep of possessions of escalating delicacy, that I am surprised whenever people interpret it otherwise (which, to be fair, few do, if they've ever glimpsed the state of disrepair and general neglect which sooner or later befalls most if not all of my physical belongings).
Thus, albeit by default, Bike2 has carried me through the better part of my teenage years and early twenties, over the dips and bumps, and into no less uncertain times. Once its successor is fully assembled and operational, it will be shoved (gently yet surely) into a corner of the shed where it will remain until a better use for said corner arises, after which point it is at once harsh and pointless to speculate on its fate. But - whenever I recall those awesome lonesome hours of getting to know new neighbourhoods, to know myself, of being one and at one with the world - there it will be, like a brilliant supporting character who almost but not quite steals the show (thereby fulfilling its role to perfection), to be remembered fondly, without excessive analysis.
posted by In2MeC at 10:25 pm
1 Comments:
The stunt was a wild success. It's good about the bike, too.
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