The thing I like second most about my bike – the first being how comfortable it is to ride – is how simple it is. For starters, it has no cables of any kind on it. Not for the brakes, and not for the gears, of which it also has none.

It has a very simple set of ball bearings in the pedals, and one in the headstock. The rear wheel is the most complicated part of the whole bike because the brake is incorporated into the hub. It’s called a coaster brake, and it’s often maligned by elitist bike snobs.

I love this bike. I’ve had it for 13 years, and like a modern bike of Theseus, I’ve replaced every piece of it in that time. Well, not every piece. The frame is still original; otherwise, I wouldn’t consider it the same bike.

Last year, I had to replace my rear hub, and while it isn’t totally fucked like it was a year ago, I think I might replace it again this year because my rear wheel is bent to shit the hub is a little grindy. I find that tends to happen over time. I also need new tires, and it wouldn’t hurt to replace my bearings.

But that’s all going to have to wait because I don’t have any of that stuff on me right now, so this afternoon, I did a little alignment and some tightening, and got through my whole ride with no problems.

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Then, a fly landed in my kid’s Arnold Palmer.

Then, another fly landed in my Dad’s margarita.

And before we could get out of there, another fly kamikazied in his margarita. That’s not a different picture of the same fly! That’s a totally different fly!

I just don’t want to go out to eat anymore.

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As much as I want to install these little tables around the fire pit right now, I’m going to wait until this weekend to allow the epoxy to fully cure.

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Someone once posted to the Nextdoor app that she yelled at him. I explained that whatever she was yelling had nothing to do with him and not to take it personally. That was partially true. She was fucked in the head and the yelling really had nothing to do with, nor was it directed at, anyone. If you listened carefully to what she was saying, however, you could sometimes tell that she was yelling about you.

When she wasn’t yelling at the people in her head, though, she was quite polite. The only time I ever engaged with her was when she asked me for a light while I was waiting for a train one time a few years ago. I didn’t have one. I felt a little bad, so I thought about buying a lighter or a box of matches and giving it to her the next time I saw her, but that didn’t seem like the best idea. As soon as she walked away, she started yelling like someone had flipped a switch.

I always felt bad riding past her. There were times when her mouth turned down like a baby about to burst into tears. I’ve never seen someone look so sad. It was heartbreaking. She obviously needed help, but what could I do? People would leave her food and blankets and things a person living on the street might need, but none of that was going to fix her. It might have made her a little more comfortable, but it wasn’t the help she needed. She needed the sort of professional help that is only available to people with the means to pay for it in this country.

So, I rode by. Day after day. I watched her yelling at unseen demons; I watched her smoking drugs out of little glass vials. I watched her picking up stones like she was looking for the perfect one, I watched her passed out on the hot asphalt. The last time I saw her, she was sitting under an oak tree on the bike path on a blind corner. I nearly hit her. She was wearing a black hoodie with the hood pulled up tight around her face. Four days later, she was hit by a train and killed.

This little candle is the full extent of her memorial. She used to sit on that little ledge. I saw it as I rode by this afternoon, and thought that I should get a picture of it, but decided to get the shot on my way back. On my way back, I didn’t feel like stopping and losing my momentum, so I snapped the picture as I rode by.

As I looked at the picture to see how it came out, I was disappointed and thought about going back to get a better one. I quickly realized, though, that it was perfect. This shitty picture accurately captures our whole relationship (I use the term relationship in the loosest of contexts) I ride by, barely bothered to even notice her because there is nothing I can do for her.

I hope, in my lifetime, America will get its head out of its ass and realize that the whole idea of every-man-for-himself doesn’t work. We live in a society, despite what Mrs. Thatcher told you, and incumbent in that is a duty to help those who can’t or won’t help themselves. We have the resources, we just need to rediscover our humanity.

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After my parents’ divorce, though, the boat didn’t see much action. In 1998, however, my friend Dave and I took it out. I learned very quickly that boats are just a hole in the water you throw money into. We only took the boat out two or three times, and we had problems with it each time.

The last time we took out, we invited my friend Brian to go with us. He was this weird guy I worked with. He had a little 14-foot sailboat and an excess of unearned confidence, so he was a tad insufferable. A mutual friend worked with him at a boat manufacturing company. He told me that Brian irritated the owner so much he gave him two five gallon buckets of bolts, screws, nuts and washers and told him to sort them, just to keep him occupied and out of everyone’s way. He was annoying, but he could be entertaining, too, so we invited him along.

He immediately started getting on my nerves. He asked where we were taking the boat, and when I told him we were going to Lake Casitas, he suggested we take it to Channel Islands Harbor. No chance, I said. He persisted. I explained to him that in the first place, the boat has never been in salt water, and I’m not going to spend the time to clean and flush it, and in the second place, we had been having trouble with the throttle cable, so taking it out into the ocean would not be a smart choice.

He argued with me. He said that I wouldn’t have to flush the engine. Dave backed me up, but it made no difference. Brian was always right, and I was driving, so we were going to Lake Casitas. It was late when we got to the lake. We would only have about an hour on the water, but that was enough time for a spin and to see if the repairs we made worked.

We taxied through the no-wake zone, music blaring, spirits high, and then as soon as we passed the harbor buoys, I pushed that throttle down, the front of the boat tipped up, the rear sank down, and the boat lurched forward… for a second. The throttle cable snapped, and the boat came to a anticlimactic halt. Dave and started taking things apart, trying to save the day, while Brian, unhelpfully, whined repeatedly that we should have gone to Channel Islands until I snapped at him, “Then we would be drifting out to sea right now with no radio!” That shut him up

I was able to limp back to the launch ramp in reverse. It took twice as long to get back as it had going forward, but we eventually made it. A short time later, my mom traded the boat for two computers because we each needed a new computer. She took one for herself and sold me the other one for $500. I feel like everyone but me was a winner in that deal.

Still, I’m fortunate. I learned when I was twenty that boats are a pain in the ass and they’re not worth the money and hassle they cost to stay afloat. I don’t envy Mr. Sailor Man, who had to be towed back to the harbor this afternoon.

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He doesn’t cook often, but when he does, he goes big. He uses every pot, pan, and dish in the kitchen, every burner on the stove. He uses the oven, the broiler, the blender, the toaster, and the air fryer, and every available countertop.

I don’t want to discourage him from cooking because I know how much he loves it, but at the same time, I gotta eat, too. So, with no hope of being able to get in there and make myself something to eat, I went out. I didn’t want to go out, but I couldn’t wait any longer. As I was leaving the house, I heard thunder in the distance. It was many, many miles away, so I wasn’t concerned. As I got back on my bike after lunch, however, it started to rain. The rain only got heavy the closer I got to home, as though I were riding into the storm. I was not happy.

I hate getting wet, and I was starting to get irritated when I suddenly remembered that when I left the house, those cunts across the street were painting their car parts on their front lawn, so they got fucked when it started raining, and that made me happy. With my spirits lifted, I didn’t mind the drops of water hitting my face.

Rain that wasn’t mentioned in the forecast, at all, was strange, but hardly the weirdest part of the day. The weirdest thing I saw today came, as it only could, from Bonnie’s mom. She tore her bedroom apart looking for the remote for her TV. She couldn’t find it anywhere, but rather than looking in the area where it might be, her bed, she looked under the kitchen table, in the pantry, in the bathroom, and in every drawer, box, and container in the room. That’s where she found a turkey sandwich that she had squirreled away, god only knows how long ago.

It was wrapped in a paper towel and stuffed into a little container. She opened it up, unfolded the paper towel, had a sniff, wrapped it back in the paper towel, and set it aside. I figured she didn’t put it back in the container because she was going to throw it away, but oh, how I was wrong.

She ate it. She ate a turkey sandwich that had been sitting in her room since sometime last week, maybe longer. She ate a turkey sandwich of unknown age with mayonnaise and butter on it. (Yes, she puts butter on a turkey sandwich. She puts butter on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, too. She just puts butter on everything.) Mayonnaise and butter that had been sitting in her room during days when the temperature outside was over 90º.

How many times has she done that? And how far will she go? She sniffed the sandwich multiple times, which tells me not that it was perfectly fine, but that she caught a whiff of something and wasn’t totally sure it was safe. She ate it anyway, though. What would have turned her off to it? Visible mold? Mold in her butter dish doesn’t bother her, so probably not. Bugs? God, I hope so.

I just can’t even imagine. Never would I ever eat food that I found while cleaning my room. I also wouldn’t stash food in my room, but that’s besides the point. Living with her is like living with a wild dog. You can’t predict anything she’ll do, and you can’t leave food where she can get to it because she’ll eat anything she sees. Even if she doesn’t know what it is or how long it’s been there.

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But you can get a better sense of the depth in this video.

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