boozey biking

As you know, I am in love with my bike. We go everywhere together. I tackle hills, that left side of the road thing, narrow streets, buses, pot-holed bike paths, bugs flying into my person, aggressive fellow bikers, oblivious pedestrians who step out onto the road without a second look, one-way streets, rainy weather, night time ... and now, (it had to happen) I can successfully add the drunken bike ride home.

Funny, when you've had 6 glasses of wine on a summer night out, you don't FEEL drunk. And you would deny it if asked. The clear tell. So Mark & I were trying to be cool in Cambridge and went to a groovy new down joint called Soul Tree. We had a coupon. Which tells you how cool we really are. It was really a trip to be 'out' in a 'club-like atmosphere' a) at all and b) with Mark. We both reverted to those people who used to go to those places when we were 23. Neither of which, by the way, really are all that nice. But we hung and gawked and drank and felt a little old, but cool. I was proud of our bad arsed selves for leaving the sofa in celebration of the night.

Sooooo, then we biked home. A little shaky, but we cruised fearlessly along the Cambridge city centre streets, weaving in and out of night time revilers as the pubs closed. And my sweet baboo, Mark, in his loving way, wanted to hold hands. While we biked. Now before ye passes any judgment, in the spirit of full disclosure, we have actually attempted this trick before. I know, gag. And while adoring, it is a bit tricky in the light of sobriety. I cannot stress this enough, it is not something to attempt under the dark cloud of pino gregio.

Let's just say ... parked car, me, ground, scraping, bash, bloody knee, surfacing bruises today, dumped purse, neighbor lady calling "Are you alright???" from a nearby window, panicked and laughing Mark, stunned and laughing Carol. I managed to earn a deep knee scrape -- reminding me of being 10 and losing patches of skin to driveways and playgrounds and trees. But this time we lost Mark's cell phone -- which musta fallen out of my purse and failed to collect it as we picked up my dignity and lipstick.

I know Mercury is in retrograde -- started at the same time of my crash test dummy stunt. Is the universe warning me to wear a helmet? Curb my daredevil antics? Model my bloodied knee to my neighborhood local 10-years olds with pride? Or just keep that hand holding behind closed doors where it belongs?