Highgate

Wednesday

Memories of Bikey

It's my birthday!
Well... not for another 2 weeks, reguardless i just recieved my first birthday present, and it's from my sweet baby Eva, It's a Bicycle!

With handle bars, and grip shifts w/ 14 thousand speeds, and breaks in the front AND back, and a thing made to carry things, and a nifty generator that makes the headlights work, and alloy wheels, and mud guards, and that's all i really know about it. It's got a trek frame too. That is good i hear, now i am sporty.

What really matters is that it's sooo much fun to ride my new bike, that i call affectionatly. "Bikey (mk2)." It's been far to long since i felt the joy that is automotion, the wind in my hair, the bugs in my teeth, the obligitory rolling of the pantleg (you better believe i'm rockin the pantleg; in fact, im thinking of getting a tattoo on that part of my lower right calf, just so i can show it off whenever i ride... it'll be a tattoo, of me riding my bike, but... like, jumping an SUV stuck in traffic, no make that "Ollying" an SUV stuck in traffic!)

It's been almost three years since i've had a bike, far to long i know... before bikey, i had this shitty silver racing bike that i found literally in the middle of the road one night walking home from drinking (no i didn't steal it.) My guess is that it fell out of the back of a truck... (stop looking at me like that.) Or someone else stole it, and then decided they didn't actually want it. (yeah...)

I really liked that bike for what it was worth, i repaired it's tires and rode it all over the place, although it was a bit to small for me... At the time I was living in winooski and didn't have "Truckey" yet and if my memory serves me, that may have been the "year of many jobs" for me, an endless succession of shitty jobs that i succeeded in getting fired from within a month of being hired. Dominoes (ask me about the raw sewage backing up into the handwashing sink), Vermont Sandwich Co, and then there was Macro, everyone knows macro right? they're the annoying phone call people, i was one of them for a while till i got fired... i was doing the Housing and Urban Development questionaire, but some of the lucky ducks i worked with got to do the Feminine Hygene Product Questionaire. (excuse me miss, would you describe your monthly flow as "Average" "above average" or "Biblical Flood?")
Yowzer.
After that i moved to Saint Paul Street, i found my dream home, close to downtown, an entire house with upstairs and downstairs, wrap around porch, a back lawn, just one roomate, and only 250$ a month... except that that roomate was a suicidal 45 year old alcoholic who was haunted by the ghost of a past roomate that he had infact murdered (accidently of course.)

Once in a while he'd smoke some crack too. but the worst was when he'd be up at 7am frying sausages in his boxers, blasting and singin along to Annie Lennox or Kate Bush or fucking Concrete Blonde, somehow managing to chain smoke and chainbooze the whole time... that sucked.

Around this time, Bikey (mk1) disapeared from the porch, and i was inconsolable - i searched high and low, but i knew it was gone, i chastised myself for leaving her unlocked, but in the end - well i thought, easy come, easy go. Then one day walking past the parking garage on N Winooski, the glinting of silver caught my eye, i turned, rubbing them against the sunlight, and as i peered into the darkened garage, there behold, was bikey (mk1) I looked left, then right, and with lighting speed, reclaimed my sweet sweet bikey (mk1) and road off laughing at my fortunes.

That lasted about a week. Then it got stolen again....

Then i found it again!

but then it got stolen again.

Then my roomate killed himself

Then i didn't have a bike for 3 years... it took me a while to get over Bikey(mk1) but now that Bikey (mk2) is in my life... i feel that i can go anywhere, without paying for gas, as long as it's in the downtown burlington area, and it isn't raining, and traffic isn't bad, cause i'm still kind of nervous about ridding in traffic still, and there's not really any bad hills, and it's not to hot... Yay Bikey!

8 comments:

the le duo said...

Tanner, that was a lovely tribute th Shaun- aka the Krazy Kweer. oh, and your bike was cool- but I still thinks you stole it- wasn't it right in front of the police station crashed in the road with blood stains and crack sprinkled on it? thats how I like to remember mk1

t.l.d

Anonymous said...

Your old roommate sounds like me at 14. So you're saying I should've felt bad about frying up (veggie) sausages whilst singing along with Concrete Blonde and Kate Bush?

Congrats on Bikey!

Tanner M. said...

if you're a cute young women wearing boxers frying up sausages in my kitchen at 7am, listening to Kate Bush, i don't think i'd mind to much, no, no... i wouldn't mind that at all.... not as long as it was "hounds of love".

i think it was more the... gross, 45 year old swaggering drunk, falsetto....

Anonymous said...

is that todd's shirt you're wearing?

michelle

Tanner M. said...

good eye!

i'm also wearing his underwear.

Anonymous said...

its kinda like an 'American Psycho' scenario- are Todd and Tanner two different people? Are they just two different personalities hidden in one body with two diffrnt beards? Has anyone seen them at the same place & time lately? Am I babbling? blah...

t.l.d

Tanner M. said...

if that's the case i'd say todd sort of embodies the danielle Boone, and i sort embody the Larry David.

But i get to wear the blue shirt once in a while, so it all works out.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR2ygFn-yR8