Do I tell him....or not?
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Ruminations
It didn't start out as a lie. Ex Mex and I DID mean to go to Berlin for Easter Week, but we got so dicked around by the pricing policies of the budget airlines that we gave up pretty soon after we started. And after Ex Mex and I gave up on Berlin, I got together with G-Man, and then before we cooled things down I had invited him on one of my dream trips...and then I invited A-OK along because I didn't want to be alone with a guy who disappointed me...and at some point, I don't remember exactly when, I made the conscious decision NOT to tell the boss that I wasn't going to Berlin.

So now the poor boss is convinced that I'm going to Germany, and obviously when I come back to work on the 17th, it's gonna look a little strange when I come back with a tan, especially as a lot of Germany is currently up to its hind parts in water, what with the Danube and Elbe rivers flooding most of the south and east of the country. (And no, I don't wear a lot of makeup, so I can't blame it on Max Factor, either....)

So what's the problem? El Jefe is a nice guy, but he's so fixated on the idea of us being friends that he doesn't seem to realize that even being friends has its limits. And one of those limits is respecting my down time, when I'm usually doing something else (writing, riding, translating, working on my website, whatever...) More than once, I've had to lie about my whereabouts in my spare time because he thinks that, because I live five minutes from the office, he can call on me to do things whenever he wants. Had he realized that the Berlin plans fell through, I could see myself being subjected to all kinds of whining, pleading, etc., to stay in town and work. And I'm sorry, but I haven't had a holiday since last August. My back is aching, I'm way the hell out of shape (so much for riding every day) and I need a break.

We had a HUGE argument last Friday (so huge I thought for a moment that I'd get the sack) about limits on work. That sealed it for me: I didn't care if it meant having to hide under the bed for 168 hours straight - I was NOT working during Easter Week. I was not telling him that I would be on the Iberian peninsula for that time. I need my space when I'm not in his back pocket, and vice versa. It's like being married to someone you don't find attractive. So there had to be limits. And I came down on the situation and established some.

Our Collective Agreement states that we have 32 days of holidays. And I plan on using them all.

Now I just have to think of some excuse to cover for my sunburned nose, after supposedly returning from a country which is half-innundated....!

To bike away the pain....
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Ruminations
On Friday night I went out on a great date with a great guy who's perfect in all senses. And being the fatalist that I am (I'm accepting that more as I get older), I have a really sneaking suspicion that any attraction that's there is totally one-sided on my behalf and that three weeks from now, I'm going to be looking for another guy who isn't afraid of (literally) riding off into the sunset.

I know that I'm going to know by Thursday night. I know that the call will go unreturned, that the e-mail is going to get deleted once he sees who it's from. I know that on Friday, when we head down to Jaen, I'm going to be thinking about him incessantly and that there'll be nothing I can do, 'cause I'm gonna be in the mountains in northern Spain, and he's going to be in the Pyrenees, and I shouldn't even bother bringing my phone 'cause I'm going to end up being with the two people I talk to most anyway.

Does anyone else ride to take away the pain? It's the one advantage I have that few of my friends ride as much as I do. More than once, I have gotten on the bike for an hour, two hours, three hours at a time to ride through the pain, to force myself into a kind of rhythm where I can sublimate the pain and loneliness, or push it out through the pedals. Maybe this is what anorexics feel they're doing when they purge.

And I don't want to think that this relationship - for what little it's been so far - is going to go south, but it's hard to keep my spirits up and hope that something will come of this when the track record so far has been so sucky. So I keep riding, for the same reason I keep writing. At the end of some days, it feels like words and the bike are the only things I can always count on, like it's all that I've got that gives me any consistency, and that I can control.

So if the message isn't returned, the number doesn't come back on my cell phone, I'll do what I what I always do. I'll go somewhere quiet and listen to Macy Gray and Cassandra Wilson and I'll mourn. I'll give myself the requisite hour to feel bad, which is all I permit myself anymore (otherwise it's just too much time in a day) and then I'll go and either write or ride. (Those words sound too much alike. Coincidence?) Because at the end of the day, I can count on the fact that those will make me feel better.

OK, back to packing for the trip.

March 20th - Back in the saddle
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Ruminations
Runners who are especially dedicated to running talk about the "runner's high" - a Zen-like state which allows them to basically zone out and think of nothing but the task at hand when they're out running. It's what I need now, but the truth is, I've been parked in front of my laptop for six hours, working on the website and the blog.

I had a rough weekend. It got off on the wrong foot on Friday when my editor at the local paper had a (fully justified) go at me for being exceptionally late with an article... and then to top it off, I had words with my boss about whether e-mails should be written in bullet points or in full sentences. (What can I say? I'm a former ESL teacher. Bullet points are for wimps who can't handle their non-defining relative clauses.) First time out in three months on Friday night (watch dem gin&tonix); ran into an old boss; the guy I hit on hasn't called me; superhangover on Saturday; then another sarcastic e-mail from the editor this morning about the article. And it struck me yesterday that, for the little money I get writing for this particular paper, I might as well strike out on my own and do my own thing.

So here it is. I'm not saying that it's going to be the best blog you've ever read in your life, but I hope it proves to be informative and fun, that it inspires you to get back on your bike and to travel around - one of the greatest uses of bikes...and you don't have to pay some guy in Boston tons of money to set you up with a trip. Between the website and the blog, I hope to provide people who want to travel by bike with some practical information on how to get across Spain on two wheels. Obviously, those of you who are dedicated cycle tourists aren't going to sweat the small stuff; you're used to sleeping rough in forests, camping, fixing flats in the middle of nowhere.

And I'll give you the inside line on what it's like to have one of those terminally cool jobs - cycle touring guide. It is a cool job, but it's a hard one, what with having to manage personalities, a boss who's having his first go at being a boss (and has some days which are better than others) and all the other technical stuff which doesn't flip you out when you're on your own, but which takes an especially cool head when you've got a whiny housewife from Florida, two teenagers itching to take the bike apart, and a couple who got into a little too much vino tinto at lunch. It's fun, but I would be lying if I said it was all fun and games. Sometimes the funny stuff doesn't come through until six months later, when you hear from a colleague that they had to dig the dad out of a ditch in the Dordogne because he fell off the road while riding drunk....or the whiny housewife walked off a tour of Ireland because she didn't realize that, whoops, Ireland is hilly....just like the Camino de Santiago is.

At any rate, I promise to keep THIS blog current. I promise to include as much information on biking in Spain - road racing, mountain biking, commuting - as much as I can; and, through the website, I'll do my best to keep you up to date on the development on new routes, new laws and new tendencies on biking in Spain.