All done with six of the tutus...

I finished sewing peacock feathers to the peacock-feather top this morning. It's beautiful. Blue-green silk, off-the-shoulder, with a three-pleated collar running around my shoulders, with peacock feathers down the center panel and a red AIDS ribbon at the top. Goes over a purple tutu completely covered in peacock feathers. I like it a lot.

I'm giving some consideration to the order in which I wear them. I don't want to wear the nicest ones first, but neither do I want to leave them for the last. The orange tutu will be for Day One, the red tutu for Day Five (Red Dress Day), the rest is up in the air. My two favorites are the pink and the peacock tutus, so perhaps I'll wear those on the longest days, or maybe the toughest ones. I dunno. I'm sure whatever day I wear them, they'll be FABULOUS.

I still need to finish the orange top (and the turquoise roses that go with it), press the white top, and fix the elastic on the red tutu--other than that, I'm done! So it looks like Mike and I will get to go out on Thursday night after all. :-)

I have one last training ride today (a very easy recovery spin to keep my legs moving) and that is IT until the ride! Which leaves me free to worry about packing and othersuch.

finished the pink top, working on the orange one

I think the pink is my favorite! It's actually a flaming fuschia with orange highlights, and I embellished it with these very cool silver holographic flower-bow-thingies that I bought from the local Hallmark shop. Paired with a hot pink tutu and fluorescent pink fishnets, it's gorgeous.

I've started working on the orange top. I had originally envisioned a simpler design, but decided to go with a complex top with multidirectional drapes/pleats, so it's taking longer than I expected. I also ran out of boning today (I bought seven yards to start with, and that isn't enough!) so I'll have to buy more at the local Jo-Ann's Fabrics. Paired with bright turquoise fabric roses on the shoulders, and maybe a turquoise ribbon (to go with the AIDS Ride colors/logo), it should be striking. Nonetheless, probably not my favorite tutu.

I have gone shopping meanwhile, and picked up quite a few mundane-but-useful items like a travel alarm, a head-mounted flashlight (handy when trying to use a pitch-black portapotty), extra energy gels, first aid kit, and so forth. Nothing particularly earthshaking, just gotta be done. I'm going to drag my duffel bag out sometime in the next day or two and start loading stuff into it.

T minus 6 days! I can hardly wait.

Finished the peacock-feather top this morning

and am now hard at work on the blue-green top (which I think will have red "AIDS ribbon" lacing).

Mike and I had a very pleasant day together Saturday--we shopped at the Alemany and Ferry Plaza farmer's markets and bought all kinds of goodies, then cooked a nice dinner of French onion soup, Kumamoto oysters on the half-shell, broiled salmon, and fresh peas. The salmon was excellent--tender, perfectly cooked--Mike's doing. I was in charge of the oysters and the onion soup--the oysters needed no embellishment but the onion soup came out quite well. I credit the use of painstakingly prepared brown beef stock for the superb flavor--that plus LOTS of onions well-caramelized. The peas were freshly shelled English peas, and excellent.

We are now at T-7 days to AIDS Lifecycle 5, and I'm starting to get nervous. So much packing, so many things to remember. A head-mounted flashlight for seeing in the portapotties. Rubber bands to keep my hair braided. Sunscreen, first aid kit, shower cap to keep my seat dry, 2-gallon ziplock bags to pack everything into...the list goes on and on and I'm certain I must have missed something. I'm going to start packing my bag tomorrow, and just keep throwing things in as they occur to me.

I'm not even starting to think about whether I'll be able to complete the ride. I feel kind of undertrained--the most I've trained in a week is 11.5 hours, scarcely a fifth of what I'll have to put in this week--but I have to trust my coach. There's not much choice: ready or not, there isn't time to do any more training. So I'm letting that fear go and preparing everything else.

Off to work on the blue-green top...after that it will be the pink top (for which I found some very special holographic silver roses from Hallmark), then the orange one. I'm sort of hoping I can finish everything up tomorrow, though that's probably over-optimistic. I'd like to see Mike on Thursday, and I can't do that if I'm frantically sewing. So, back to work.

What to bring...?

I've been casting about for a small fiber arts project to bring with me--not because I plan to do any fiber arts stuff while on the Ride (it's far more fun to hang out with people, not to mention being on the road 11 hours a day), but because if something happens and I get incapacitated, I'll need something to do. This happened to me on AIDS Lifecycle 1 -- I had microtears in my left calf that froze up my Achilles tendon--and boy, was I glad I brought my knitting!

On the other hand, I have virtually no storage space to bring things along. There's no room in my bike bag, and I'm very reluctant to add weight to my Camelbak because a weighty pack will give me back problems. Even a ball of sock yarn is too big.

So I think I'm going to bring my Golding spindle, a tiny packet of silk top, and perhaps one size 3 circular needle. Not enough to do anything "real", but it will give me something to do if I injure myself to the point where I can't help out with other volunteer work.

When I travel in early spring next year, I think I will probably take the Golding spindle and some silk roving with me again. Silk travels well. There's no WAY I could shove a packet of wool roving into my Camelbak, bike 585 miles, and still have anything usable at the end, but silk is much more forgiving. Which is, of course, why I took it on my SE Asia trip. I look forward to bringing it along to India and Nepal.

Meanwhile, I am debating over whether to bring my laptop. Upside: I can write my blog while the memory is still fresh. Downside: have to drag it along, and worry about whether it gets damaged, and may or may not have time/inclination to write. I'm leaning towards bringing my old, beat-up laptop from SE Asia--it's slow as molasses, but it's expendable and relatively light--probably about 4 pounds at most.

Oh, decisions, decisions.

No progress on either top: Mike and Nyondo and I went out to dinner last night, and Mike is here through Saturday night, so I'll be staying enjoyably busy with him instead. :-)

Working on the peacock feather top...

Finished cutting out the green-and-blue tops today, and have started sewing the peacock top. (I know I was going to save it for last, but I changed my mind: putting on the feathers will have to be done by hand, so will make a good project if I have to travel somewhere or wait for someone.) I’m finding that laying out, cutting, and marking the pattern is taking about as much time as actually sewing the darn thing…but you don’t have good sewing if you don’t have good prep! so it’s worth the effort.

I’m pleased, though: I bought three yards of the blue-green fabric and that turns out to be not only enough to cut the tops (and a substantial collar) but to line it as well.

10 days until the Ride…I’m a little nervous about whether I’ll finish my sewing in time. The scorecard now stands:

Tutus:

• All done except the orange one

Tops:

• Peacock top: in progress
• Blue-green top: cut out, but not sewn
• Pink top: in the wings
• Orange top: in the wings
• Purple: done
• Red dress: done
• Bridal (white): done

It’s the tops that worry me, obviously—they are of exceptional complexity for a sewing project and each requires quite a bit of time. I’m spending tonight, tomorrow, and most of Saturday with Mike—which effectively gives me only a week to complete them all. The problem is that my big project at work finishes up June 2, so I can’t possibly take any time off work in order to work on them!

But we’ll see…At the very worst, I can always ride in “just” a tutu. :-)

Finished two more tutus!

Did the hot pink and the green-blue ones yesterday and this morning. I'm a bit disappointed with the pink one--I had planned to use my pink knitted tutu with it, but the knitting is a bit too heavy and so it doesn't drape well. I'm using the pink synthetic organza instead and have switched styles for the top to match.

I've also dyed the gold silk dupioni orange. It came out absolutely gorgeous! but the drape is different. It's more supple now, without the crisp finish I associate with dupioni. So I'm having to switch the pattern to accommodate a more drapy fabric. (Since then I have looked it up and discovered that dupioni is dry-clean only; if you wash it you lose the stiffness and some of the sheen. Well, oh well--there was no way I was going to be able to dye it without getting it wet anyway, and the color is gorgeous.

I'm now working on cutting out the blue-green and the peacock tops. Working on a table is much harder if there's a cat sitting on your fabric (and your pattern!).

Finished the first top!

By staying up WAY too late last night, I managed to finish the first top. I have some words for the pattern manufacturer on the subject of directions and construction (both of which I think were substandard, but then what was I doing following their instructions anyway?), but the end result is beautiful, everything I had hoped. I'll see if I can get a photo later on today.

The only thing that worries me is whether there'll be flesh showing while I'm actually riding--the thing is cut pretty high at the waist, so on the bike it might not be long enough. I'll have to hop on the trainer and have Mike take a look at it. It's too late for this top, obviously (I'm not about to go back and re-do it), but I can always adjust subsequent tops to compensate.

I have received the peacock feathers for the peacock-feather top, but I think I'm going to leave that one for last. It's the most complicated of the patterns and would involve quite a bit of extra work sewing on the feathers, so it's best to leave it to the last so if I don't have time to put on the feathers, at least I'll be adequately clothed otherwise.

I'm having fun. :-)

Tonight I'm going off for photography with a friend (he's doing a series of nudes of me), tomorrow I have dinner with a friend, but I hope to get two tutus sewn in the mornings. I also plan to dye the gold silk orange, but that may have to wait for the weekend.

Exorcising demons

Well, I went up Congress Springs Road (aka California 9) to Skyline Boulevard on Saturday, which is a nice 5-mile climb at 6% grade (2000 feet of climbing). It took me nearly an hour to make the climb, during which I asked myself a lot of questions about why I was doing this ride and why I was doing the Ride. I’m not going to share all the conclusions I came to (partly uninteresting, partly my own private stuff), but a lot of it is simply about getting over my fear of cycling. Not so much of being back on the bike, but fear of having lost my joy in cycling—in tackling new challenges, enjoying the things I used to (plummeting downhill, pushing myself), and in my physical ability to cycle.

I’m glad to say that all three seem to be intact. I discovered on the way down Skyline that my joy in speed hasn’t changed a bit—it’s only that I’m a bit more cautious going down dangerous turns. I had a lot of fun rushing down Skyline at 38 mph, leaning into the curves, keeping up with (but not tailgating) the cars on the road. Fortunately, Skyline is banked for a 45-mph speed limit, meaning I could whiz downhill with no worries about hairpin turns.

I descended 84, too. This was important to me, because it’s where I crashed almost three years ago and took out the PCL in my left knee. (I’ve since had a PCL transplant operation, so I have a bit of someone else’s Achilles tendon holding my knee together. Thank you, organ donor, whoever you are/were. I appreciate your generosity profoundly.) I wanted to go back over that descent both to prove that I’ve conquered my fear of it, and to get a better look at the area. I’m glad to say that I have forgotten the place where I crashed, but after going down the tricky descent and ID’ing the place where I finally got help, I have to say that I am amazed that I managed (injured) to ride the entire distance, hairpin turns and all, plus the long flat/uphill area where I had to bike one-legged, to the place where I flagged down a driver and got help. (Thank you, person who rescued me.) I must have been in really good shape to do that, especially after taking out my knee.

I’ve since decided that 84 is a fairly tricky descent and I don’t intend to make a habit of it, but I didn’t feel particularly threatened by the switchbacks, and even felt confident enough to test out some of the mountaineering tricks my coach told me about, like braking hard and straight into the turns, shifting my weight back to avoid going over the handlebars. I didn’t go overboard with it, but I wasn’t riding on the brakes either, the way I have been. I’m pretty satisfied with that. It’ll take time and practice, but I’ll get better at descending. I’m already thinking of hiring a woman I know (who runs the local women’s cycling group, Velogirls) to teach me better ascending/descending skills.

So that’s that. It was a nice 5-hour ride, and I was a bit sore the next day, but nothing I couldn’t ride with. I’m happy about that.

Sunday my final training ride, a 3.5-hour ride that I was going to take up to Los Gatos for a celebratory cup of hot chocolate, got rained out. So I am now more or less done with my training for the Ride—I have 4.5 hours to ride this week (which is practically nothing next to the 13-14 hours/week I’ve been doing), and then an hour or two the week after, and that’s it until the Ride! I am so psyched about this. I’m still feeling a trifle undertrained, but I’ve also put in nearly twice the mileage of the other people I know who’ve been doing it, so I suspect I’m in better shape than I think.

Meanwhile, I have cut out the fabric for two tutus and one top, and am happily sewing the top. It’s going to be pretty—a Thai silk-type dupioni silk woven in bright fuschia and electric blue, to produce a blue-purple with fuschia highlights. I’m doing an off-the-shoulder top with ruffly shoulder-straps that looked REALLY striking in the pattern-book—hopefully this will come out looking equally good. I’ve put together the lining and the bodice, and am getting ready to attach the shoulder straps and sew the whole thing together. I plan to finish it tonight, and then start work on the tutus. I’m just hoping that this one, too, will turn out to be ride-able—I want to use this pattern for a couple of the tops, so as soon as this one’s done, I’m going to take a test-ride with it (on the trainer, of course), to see if it’s usable. If not, then I’ll make some modifications.

Went to Bay to Breakers with Mike yesterday. It was his 28^th birthday, and he celebrated by running it in his birthday suit (i.e., naked). I just came by to spectate, so I saw him off at the start and then sat down, spun on my new Golding ring spindle, and finished knitting a pair of socks while waiting for him to return. I now have a pair of lovely, handspun angora-silk-merino wool socks, purple flecked with bright fuschia, royal blue, and dove grey. Nummy; I plan to wear them as bedsocks, or around-the-house socks. They’re too pretty to be locked into shoes!

I’m also psyched to say that I’ve gotten some last-minute donations for the Ride, bringing my total up to $4000. That brings my overall total (for the last three years) up to $14,500. People are being more generous than I’d expected—I owe some major thanks to people for supporting me. I plan to take tutu pix and send them to all my donors.

Got a Golding ring spindle!

My sister-in-law went to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (the biggest handspinners’ festival in the country) a few weeks ago, and I asked her to get me a Golding ring spindle if she could find one. And she did! It arrived today. It’s the “Tsunami” model, 2” around, and weighs just .6 ounces. It’s gorgeous. It’s carved in cherry and walnut, and set into a thin brass ring that rim-weights it. These are truly the Rolls-Royce of spinning tools. I test-spun it with a lock of raw wool today and it effortlessly spins the thinnest imaginable yarns. Not too heavy and spins forever. I highly recommend them.

I have now dyed the blue-green organza and the teal lining for the blue/green tutus. I’ve also received my cuts of silk for the fuschia, purple, and orange outfits, although I’m disappointed in the orange: it looks kind of sickly. I may swap it out for a brighter orange, if I can find one. Tonight I have to spend an hour on the trainer (I was supposed to ride two and a half hours today, but I only got 1.5 hours in before work, and it’s raining now), but after that I plan to put together the blue-green and the pink tutus. Saturday I have to do a five-hour ride (and plan to climb up some seriously challenging hills) and after that I’ll be spending the day with Mike, but I’m hoping to get some work done on Sunday.

And then, of course, I have the entire next two weeks to work on tutus, so I think I’ll be OK. Fortunately I’ve sewn a lot of this kind of stuff before so it goes relatively quickly—as quickly as one can expect a bridal-complexity outfit to go, anyway.

Wow, am I looking forward to the ride.

Next steps

I’m excited.

I’m thinking about what I want to do with my life next. For the first time in three years, the horizons look open and anything is possible. I’m no longer battling with bipolar disorder, I have a stable job, I have an S.O., and my big project (the AIDS Ride) is about to complete. I could go ANYWHERE from here!

So I’m thinking carefully about my next goals. It’s not really about having a pleasant life full of challenges—I could have that just by drifting along—but I want to think about my next large project, and rearrange my life in support of that. For example, I could decide to learn drawing, and arrange my life around one or two drawing classes per week, read through all my books on drawing, pick a significant artistic project, and devote my energies there. I could decide to finish writing my book, which would probably mean joining a writers’ group, taking a writing class, and committing significant time to writing. I could decide to work on a successor to the spiral shawl, in which case I’d have to think a lot about fibers and blending and spend a LOT of time spinning and knitting. I could train for the Death Ride. The list goes on and on…I’m considering all of them, and also thinking about spiritual goals.

It’s so hard for me to choose between this and that, but I also don’t want to drift. At the moment I’m leaning towards finishing the book (because I really do want to), but drawing is also very tempting—Patrick and Christo are both artists and it would be fun to draw with them. I could do both, but it depends on how much free time I have. Mike is also very important to me, so that’s another place to devote my life-energies.

But I am really thinking hard about what to do and where to go next with my life.

Meanwhile, the tutu update:

Outfits:

• Blue-green silk dupioni top with blue-green silk organza tutu
• Peacock feather top with peacock-feather tutu
• White wedding-dress top (silk dupioni) with a white tutu with gold stars
• Screaming pink silk dupioni top with a knitted hot pink tutu
• Red silk dress with white trim and poofy bottom
• Bright orange top with bright orange tutu
• Purple silk top with sequined purple tutu

I still have to sew five of the tops, though, so I don’t know if I’ll have time for all of them. I’m also not certain I’ll wear all the tops--the temperatures can hit 90-100 pretty easily on the ride, and cycling jerseys wick sweat a lot better than silk does. I’m going to carry a spare cycling jersey with me every day just in case the temperature gets too high—then I can switch out of the top and wear a normal cycling jersey. Unfortunately, the first requirement of any costume is that I can ride 80-100 miles in it. That pretty significantly limits things.

The Markleeville Death Ride

I think I’ve decided on my physical challenge for next year. I’m going to attempt the Markleeville Death Ride.

No clue yet whether I can do it—it’s 129 miles and 5 mountain passes (15,000 feet of climbing)—really, really tough. But I want a challenge, and this will certainly qualify. AIDS Lifecycle is fun, but it’s not a challenge anymore—I know I can do it, it’s just a matter of training. But for the Death Ride, I’d really have to build up my skills. I’m a very poor hill-climber, and not very good at descending, so attempting those mountain passes would force me to develop those skills. I’d also have to lose weight—every extra ounce is that much more to drag uphill—and that fits in with my goal of getting down to a “healthy” percentage bodyfat. I’m currently at 30-33% and would like to get down to 22%, which would mean losing 10-15 lbs of fat. Last, I’d have to build considerably more strength in the legs than I currently have, which means time weightlifting in the gym. Which I had planned to do anyway.

So I’d have to develop more skills, lose weight, and gain a lot of strength before getting ready for the Death Ride. The good news is that (according to my coach) prepping for the Death Ride shouldn’t be as time-consuming as prepping for ALC, since the emphasis for the Death Ride is speed and power, not endurance. So I might be able to train and have a life as well.

Somehow the idea of arriving at a point in training where I can look at Page Mill and call it “easy” is really appealing to me. I’ll get into great shape, too.

I admit that bragging-rights is on the agenda as well: the Markleeville Death Ride is very well-known among cyclists, and cyclists who complete it get respect. It would be a nice feather in my cap—if I can do it. Big if.

On other topics, I went out and bought three yards of blue/green silk dupioni. Blue in one direction, green in the other. I plan to use a yard and a half of it to make a mostly-green top, which I will then decorate with peacock feathers and use in conjunction with the peacock-feather tutu. The other yard and a half will make a mostly-blue top, which I will combine with the blue-green organza tutu that I just bought the (white, undyed) organza for. I plan to crinkle-dye the organza in shades of blue and green, in the microwave. If I have time. Time is rather tight right around now.

Where is the passion?

As the AIDS Ride gets nearer, I’m starting to think beyond the Ride, to my next big project. I want a challenge, something that will open up my horizons to something new and different—something with excitement, with passion in it. I’m not sure what that is yet, though.

What I’m asking myself is, What is my passion? It’s not enough for me just to make something—I want to stretch my limits, to push myself as an artist, and that isn’t going to happen unless I have something that is both meaningful and enjoyable. I don’t think that whatever it is will come out in fiber arts (though I could be wrong); I’m thinking another direction entirely. Perhaps drawing? I don’t know.

Ride report

Well, I didn't make it up either Page Mill or Congress Springs road on Saturday. But it's not a bad thing. Friend called me up on Friday wanting to do a group ride down the coast to Woodside, and I decided to do that instead--so, 4.5 hours of beautiful riding, not too challenging, wonderful time.

Sunday I decided to tackle Page Mill Road, so started going up it. Unfortunately I ran out of daylight on the way up, but I did pretty well overall. I'm not sure I could have gone all the way up the steep parts--towards the end I was having to stop to rest every 100-200 yards--but I'm satisfied with how well I did. If I *had* to, I think I could do the entire thing.

One of the things my ascent of Page Mill Road taught me (or perhaps reminded me of) is that endurance cycling is not about physical ability, it's about persistence and respecting your body. The persistence part is just keeping going. Respecting your body means stopping when your body needs a rest, or you feel like you could use some extra time. It isn't about flogging yourself to do more, better, faster--there's a lot of patience involved, both with meeting your goal and keeping within your physical limitations.

I am not a fast cyclist and I am not a strong cyclist, but I can make it up one of the steepest hills in the area with patience and a willingness to stop and rest. I can do this Ride.

I have also discovered, to my great excitement, that it is physically possible to ride in an off-the-shoulder top with boning. Now the sky's the limit on costuming...

Next weekend I still plan to tackle Congress Springs Road--go down from Palo Alto to Los Gatos for a cup of hot chocolate, then bicycle up Congress Springs/Great Basin Road to the top of Skyline, come back down the 84 (Page Mill descent is a bit too hairy/scary for me to want to try it), and make my way back to Palo Alto. I'm debating it, though--I may have a friend riding with me, and I'm not sure I want to put him through that route, which is a lot tougher than anything on the actual Ride.

Meanwhile, I have gotten my rug hung (with the help of quite a bit of Velcro)--now all that's left to do in the living room/dining room is to hang my cross-stitch piece (Teresa Wentzler's The Castle) and reupholster the chairs. Then I need to get my thangka framed and hung in the hallway, and I'll be DONE! Then I can get on with my life and enjoy my nice new place. :-)

...perchance to dream...of tutus...

Well, it’s 23 days to the AIDS Ride, and I’m getting really excited. All the hard, tedious training is behind me (well, almost…) and it’s just about time for the fun part…COSTUMES!

This year I plan to go all-out on the costumes and wear a different outfit every day…I have all the tutus I need now, so I’m turning my attention to tops. Silk tops. I plan to do this in style, in 100% silk dupioni. All those prom outfits I never got to wear. :-)

I’m using silk for a not entirely arbitrary reason: I need a natural fiber, one that breathes. Cotton would do as well, of course, probably better, but there my vanity gets in the way: I like the sheen of silk. Cotton isn’t FABULOUS. Silk is.

Anyway, I plan to do various different costumes—poofy sleeves, simple cap sleeves, plunging cleavage, demure cuts—well, maybe not that demure—and bunches of colors. I’m debating whether to reuse tutus of years past—I might use one or two favorites—and whether to tie-dye myself a tutu. So many options.

Whatever I do, you can be certain of two things: it’s going to be LOUD, and it’s going to be FABULOUS.

Miscellaneous updates

Got the rug hung properly--sewed Velcro to the back, nailed up a board with Velcro glued on, and hung the rug from the board. It's apparently the approach museum conservators favor when hanging delicate things--I went websurfing looking for the best way to hang a rug, and that was it. I did have to drive several pins into the wall around the edge of the rug to keep it flat, though.

I've ordered 3 yards of upholstery fabric so I can reupholster my dining room chairs. Who would ever have thought I could be so domestic...? It's a burgundy damask with a complex floral pattern. I like it quite a bit, picked it out of seven or eight other upholstery swatches. Matches the futon cover and the tapestries nicely.

I've also ordered three kinds of dupioni silk! I've decided to try riding the AIDS Ride in full costume (i.e. not just a tutu and regular cycling jersey), so I bought some silk in hot pink, flaming orange, and bright purple. I'm going to try making fabulous cycling tops to go with my tutus. Still gotta finish the bright pink knitted tutu, now that I think of it.

I don't know if those costumes will be ridable (i.e. whether I'll be able to ride in them without dying from the heat), but since I just got myself a new Camelbak (water pack), I'm less worried about it. The new Camelbak has enough cargo space to carry an extra jersey in the back, so that if I run into problems with the costume, I can ditch it and go back to a regular cycling jersey. That gives me the freedom to go for it whole hog with the costuming.

Training continues to go well. I have two long rides (this Saturday and next Saturday) left, and I plan to use them to rid myself of my cycling demons: this Saturday I plan to ride down to Los Gatos, then back up and over through Congress Springs Road, down Page Mill Road, and back into Palo Alto. This is a pretty challenging route, and one on which I wound up shivering and exhausted four or five years ago, when I tried it as a novice rider without any idea how difficult it would be. (I wound up having to call my partner to come and rescue me, which was mortally embarrassing but better than hypothermia.) So it should be a nice confidence-booster.

The following week's ride will be the real challenge: up Page Mill Road and down 84. This is the exact route I took three years ago when I crashed and tore a ligament in my left knee. Because of all the relapses, I haven't been able to do this route since--Page Mill is a very challenging climb and my knee simply hasn't been up to it. I feel like I have to do this route at least once to finally be "over" my accident. But the idea of riding it rather terrifies me. I'm not sure if I'm ready, and I'm not sure if my cycling confidence is enough to get me down 84.

I'm sure I'll be fine, though, and I think it's important to push through this kind of thing. So if I can do those two rides, I'll be satisfied.

Mike and I continue to be quite happy together--which surprises and delights me; I thought I'd gone beyond cynicism on the subject of relationships. I'm very, very happy with how things are going. :-)

Off to bed; tomorrow morning's an early ride, 2.5 hours.

Beached SUV limo

Mike and I were having dinner at Goat Hill Pizza when a giant SUV limo appeared out of nowhere and promptly grounded out on the hill. I couldn't resist taking photos...

Why people do super-stretch limos in a city that's mostly hills I will never know.

Got one of my tapestries hung properly...

I got the burgundy tapestry hung up on the wall, complete with tapestry rods and a weighted rod at the bottom to straighten it out. It still doesn't hang perfectly straight, but it's a lot better than before...I'm working on the black tapestry tonight.

I haven't figured out what to do about the exquisite little purple table-runner that I'm hanging up on the wall between them. It's too small for the tapestry rods, so I'll have to find something else--perhaps a bellpull hanger?--to hold it up. I'm thinking carefully about the alternatives.

With the rug, I think I've decided to sew Velcro to the top edge of the rug, then take a thin piece of wood, attach Velcro to that, and then screw the wood into the wall. That should give me a stronger bond than just gluing Velcro to the wall (not to mention being a whole lot more removable), and should hold the rug up without damage.

Still exploring new hobbies...I went over to The Woolery (or at least their Website) and checked out their huge sale on everything, but eventually decided not to buy anything, even though there were a lot of interesting items. In accordance with my own philosophy of "traveling light", I'm not going to buy anything I can't see using immediately, which rules out stocking up on, say, undyed wool yarn that I might use eventually for dye samples, or merino wool that I might use for learning Paula Simmons' one-handed spinning method.

One thing I've realized is that stocking up at sales rarely pays off, unless you really use your entire stash--which almost never happens. It doesn't matter that it's cheaper on sale; the stuff you don't use usually outweighs the discount. As an example, if I succumb to a sale and buy 10 skeins of yarn at 20% off, but only use eight of those skeins before getting bored and starting another project, I might just as well have bought eight skeins at full price--I pay the same price for what I'm using, either way. The only upside/downside is that if I buy it on sale, I now have two extra skeins of yarn sitting around. If those skeins of yarn get used eventually, then great--I've benefitted from buying it on sale--but while they're sitting around, they're a waste of space and money. Every spinner, knitter, etc. that I know has bags of wool, yarn, etc. that they haven't/aren't going to use. It's extra $$ you have sitting around in bulky, space-hogging materials rather than cash.

(Not to mention that I have way too many hobbies to be able to afford stash and space for every hobby...! Just this week I've been playing around with origami, cooking, home decorating, cycling, and handspinning...if I built stash around everything I'd be broke and with no space whatsoever in my house! I like to keep as flexible as possible, so I prefer cash to stash.)

Been reading through Madeleine Kaufman's The Making of a Chef tonight, and have decided that I like it better than Julia Child's Learning the Art of French Cooking. They're both good books on the basics of cooking, but I find Kaufman's to be more detailed and more catering to the gourmet chef. Its only drawback is that it's huge--probably double the size of The Art of French Cooking. Of course, they're both excellent books, you can't go wrong either way.

Spindlicity Shawl contest

Just heard back from them--I'm one of the finalists! I have to send my shawl in to them by May 12. I'm going to the UPS store to post it, either today or tomorrow.

I'm psyched! I don't expect to win the contest--the shawl has a flaw in the knitting--but am hoping to be one of the four runner-ups. It's a gorgeous shawl, regardless, and I'm honored to be one of the finalists. Tonight I'm going to write up a card explaining the symbolism of the shawl.

Meanwhile, I've ordered copies of James Beard's American Cooking and The James Beard Cookbook. I've been needing a good general cookbook, and was impressed by the first book when I read it at Mike's.

Bike is in the shop today for a badly-needed tuneup...waiting impatiently for it to finish!

Sponsoring me...

Hi all,

Forgot to mention in the last post (thanks for reminding me!) that you can sponsor me here: https://www.aidslifecycle.org/donate/form.cfm?n=1918
Also, if you want to know more about the San Francisco AIDS Foundation's excellent AIDS programs, you can find out on their website: http://www.sfaf.org .

Check out my homepage at http://www.aidslifecycle.org/1918. It has more on why I'm riding, as well as a very cool photo of me from AIDS Lifecycle 1--totally exhausted, totally triumphant, joyous in a windburned, sunburned sort of way. Sponsor me for $10 or more, and you can leave a note on the site!

Thanks!

Tien

T minus 5 weeks and counting...

We're getting closer and closer to the Ride, and I'm getting more and more confident about my ability to complete it. I wasn't sure if I'd have the mental stamina to keep riding, but after Day on the Ride, I'm pretty sure I will. That's good--I lost a lot of my mental strength during my last fight with bipolar disorder (or rather, it got used up struggling to survive), and it's good to feel like I'm recovering.

"Day on the Ride" was Saturday, a 77 mile ride designed to mimic an actual day on the Ride, complete with pit stops, costumes, sweep vehicles, and a clearly marked route. It was a brutal day, with probably about 5000 feet of climbing (about double that of any day on the actual Ride), but at least the weather was nice--started out foggy, then cleared up into a warm sunny day.

I had a lot of trouble with Day on the Ride. I had been struggling with lower back pain (stiffness) for a few weeks, and it started out bad and got worse through the ride, starting at about mile 30. Towards the end I was having to stop every few miles to stretch out my back, and rest several times up each hill, to stop the pain. Finally, at mile 68, I said "Fuck this," popped two ibuprofen, and kept riding. The ibuprofen killed the pain long enough for me to finish out the day, and I got a nice backrub from Mike afterwards.

I started out the day with very little energy, having to stop several times up the first few hills, then got more energy through the day. Unfortunately, the gain in leg strength was offset by the back pain, so I kept having to stop regardless. On the whole, it was a difficult ride.

So why am I encouraged by this? Because one of the big questions in my mind was whether I'd have the willpower to push through physical pain. There are lots of people who can finish the ride without physical suffering, but I am not one of them. Both times I've ridden, I've had substantial pain of some sort or another, usually several different kinds, by the time Day 7 rolls around. If I don't have the mental wherewithal to stand pain, I won't finish the Ride.

So it was really reassuring to me to know that I could deal with lower back pain, stop or slow down as I needed to in order to take care of myself, but keep on riding regardless.

I did call my coach after DOTR to talk to him about the lower back pain--he said it was a fitting issue, and to raise the handlebars by 1/8". I did that, and presto, no more lower back pain on Sunday. It's amazing the difference a minor change in bike fit will make.

Sunday I went out for a 2.5 hour ride, and felt stronger than I had on Saturday--which is also reassuring. I think I will be able to deal with multiple days of riding.

So on the whole, at T minus 5 weeks, I'm feeling pretty good. I have one rest week (this week), then two more weeks of serious training, then two rest weeks before the Ride. But I think that if I had to, I could do the entire Ride today and still have a good chance of finishing.

So that's all good.

I should maybe say that I'm not being stupid about pain: there's pain that comes from pushing yourself, and there's pain that comes from being injured. I stop instantly if I feel I'm injured, because continuing on with an injury is very dangerous. But the physical discomforts that come from riding eleven hours a day, seven days in a row, are something else entirely--mostly muscle soreness, saddle soreness, lactic acid building up in the muscles. All stuff that can be pushed through in pursuit of the final goal: riding 585 miles, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, to raise money to fight HIV and AIDS. It's a worthy goal, and worth a little pain.

Between this ride and my past two rides, I'll have raised over $14,000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. I'm proud of that, probably more so than having bicycled from San Francisco to Los Angeles twice. Anyone can ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles--if they train--but to raise money for AIDS services, that is something. I believe AIDS is the great issue of our time, and we've only forgotten it because, here in the U.S., we've mostly dealt with it. (Mostly: infection rates are increasing, and the fastest-increasing infection rate is among teen girls--a sobering thought. AIDS is not and never has been "a gay disease", but it is definitely spreading into the heterosexual population.)

But in the rest of the world, AIDS is death incarnate--wiping out an entire generation in sub-Saharan Africa, and poised to do the same in Asia and India. We've gotten complacent because AIDS is a slow disease--it spreads slowly, and by the time the infection rate has reached the point of alarm, it's too late--it's reached a tipping point where it is very hard to control. I met a lot of great people in my travels, and spent some time talking to AIDS authorities in Southeast Asia. I think a bunch of the people I met are going to die of AIDS, and I think it's a mortal sin that we in the U.S. are mostly standing by and letting it happen, because we've forgotten about AIDS. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation hasn't forgotten--they do international work through their Pangaea program, and advocacy at the local, state, and national level--and raising awareness is one of the big reasons I ride. Because AIDS is not yet over, not in this country or in the world, and a LOT of people are going to die before it's over.

So I want to know that, when it comes my time to answer for what I've done, I'll be able to say with a clear conscience, "I did my part in the fight against HIV and AIDS."

Fourteen thousand dollars. Now that is an accomplishment.