Well, You Don't Know Me

There's something magical about riding your bike for 2 hours and a total distance of 30 miles in 50 degree bay area spring weather, your butt alternating between feeling like you've just been sodomized with a broom handle and feeling absolutely numb, and all the while your crotch feels like it's on fire. Yes, very magical.

I'm not even kidding. Even with the pain, I know that in the end (ha, "the end") I'm going to make it to the finish, which in this case is up just three more hills to the crest of Cañada College where, with my riding partner and good buddy JLO, we whoop and holler at our accomplishment and then speed down the road to his house, where we eagerly down a beer, some taquitos, and some ice cream (so much for all the health benefits of cycling).

Almost a month ago I purchased a new road bike, a Trek 1500, in anticipation of a 100 mile ride I'll be doing in Tahoe this June. Since then, I've put about 130 miles on it (only 130? well, two of those four weeks I was busy eating pie and sleeping), 80 in the last four days alone.

Here are some other things you probably don't know about me:
* Every time I make spaghetti, I pour the sauce into the pan and there's inevitably some left over. I don't have the patience to just hold it upside down for a while, and shaking it just gets sauce everywhere, so I screw the top back on and place it upside down on my stove, thinking gravity will do its job and I'll get that extra spoonful or so of sauce later. But I always, ALWAYS, forget to retrieve the extra sauce, at least until I see it on my stove the next morning and laugh at myself because I did it AGAIN.

* When I'm driving, I bite down inbetween signs and lamp posts and people and other random objects on the sides of the road. I imagine a giant blade descending from the side of my car that immediately slams down and pops back up, all controlled by the movement of my teeth. I've been doing this since I was a kid.

* I used to be obsessed with the number 5, which is still, by the way, my lucky number. For a period of a couple years, off and on when I was a teenager, I had to do everything five times. For example, when I blinked, I felt compelled to do it five times, imagining making the pattern that is the #5 on a die. First the upper left dot, then the upper right, then the lower left, then the lower right, and finally the dot in the middle. And yeah, when I did the car blade thing, I had to do it in multiples of 5.

* There are a lot of things I would do for a Klondike bar.

* Sharks are my favorite animal. You probably don't know this because you don't frequently visit my classroom. I have about 10 different plastic sharks resting on my classroom TV. I've got a whale shark, tiger shark, great white shark, goblin shark, leopard shark, etc. Even a megalodon, the now extinct super shark that's estimated to have been about the size of a school bus. I have a hammerhead shark on my keychain. I've got shark posters that I've bought and that have been made for me by students. I also own two shark tooth necklaces.

* There's a hockey puck in my freezer.

* Woodrow Wilson used to be my favorite President, but he's been replaced by John Adams. I admired Wilson for his pluck in going over the head of Congress to persuade the American people that membership in the League of Nations would be to our benefit. But without John Adams, our country never would have made it. Thanks to him, we were able to secure money from the Dutch to finance the Revolutionary War, money that, if we hadn't received it, would have doomed the revolution to failure.

I could go on, but I won't. It's time for this blog to come to an end. So, how about it readers? I've told you some things you didn't know about me. What do I not know about you?