n e n i e

No, I'm not going Katherine Harris on y'all, this is a shameless plug for Kurt's new store.

I really should have mentioned this a while back, but in my laziness I never really got around to it. So, yknow, sorry Kurt.

The store is a gallery/boutique on the North Side of Chicago (4308 N. Lincoln) and it's the culmination of a life-long dream, whether its owner realizes that or not.

Since he announced he was doing this, folks have been pitching in as best they can and since I'm a few thousand miles away this is what I can do- alert peeps to its existance. So, here I go- it exists, The Razor's Edge Boutique- serving Chicago with the finest in ceramics, glass, painting, photography and wearable art since next week.

I'll have more info on the Sept. 8 grand opening in a few days, but for now, Kurt needs art to sell. So, if you're an artist, or you have a friend of a friend who's an artist and they're interested in putting their stuff in a consignment boutique...give them the above URL and have them contact m'boy.

Word.

Posted by nenie at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So this morning I woke up and said, "where are my pants?"

No, really. I woke up and I wasn't wearing my pajama pants. I was wearing a shirt, which means I HAD to have been wearing pants when I went to sleep.

I woke Nena up and asked her what she'd done to my pants.

"Huh?" she asked.

"My pants, what did you do with them. I was wearing them when I fell asleep and now I'm not. Woman, did you take them off in the middle of the night and have your way with me?"

"Huh?" she replied.

I spent the better part of half and hour looking for my pants after I got out of bed. I mean, pajama pants don't just disappear do they? And if I'd taken them off in the middle of the night they'd be in plain view when I awoke, right?

Nothing.

Then I pulled the sheets off the bed.

My pants were UNDER the bed. They were partially wedged between the box spring and mattress on at the foot of the bed.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is my life right now. I wake up to discover that my pants are gone and they've been hidden in a location so bizarre yet so simple and plausible that, well. What can I say, only me right?

Posted by nenie at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Fuck Kansas.

Dear LAWD am I ready to be done with that place.

So we get an email from our new Realtor(tm) the other day...

(Whom I like, he's a good guy, knows his shit, understands how communication works. In three weeks of working with him, he's already called and/or emailed me more often than in the four months we had the other one.)

...apparently LTown's population DECLINED last year for the first time in 30 FUCKING YEARS. As a result, housing prices have slid back to 2004 levels. So, for those of you keeping score at home, the housing market in LTown is so shitty, that my house has LOST VALUE since I've owned it. As a matter of fact, the price of my home has gone back to WHAT IT WAS WHEN I BOUGHT IT.

(Which means its lost value since the Realtor(tm) commission...)

Yup, I'm done with that place. Yes, we had some good times there; yes we learned some really valuable lessons about ourselves there. But, there are times I think it wasn't worth it.

Oh, and apparently renting isn't really an option, because everyone and their nana is trying to rent a place.

In all the unpacking we've done over the past few days Nena and I have run across pictures of us back when she lived in The Minny and I was in MO. Guess what? We look a lot younger and happier in those pictures. Moving to Kansas aged us too quickly, kicked the shit out of us too hard. I don't regret living there, I don't regret my time at KU or buying this house. But dammit, if I'm not just a touch bitter. I used to be cute and boyish. Now, I'm just wrinkled.

What the hell more does that evil place want from us? I wish I knew, so I could just let them have it and move on.

Posted by nenie at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

This will probably be funny to like, three people. But when has that ever stopped me before?

Right.

So, anyone else think it's funny that the second hurricane of the season is Hurricane John?

Dr. Hassett does.

Posted by nenie at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had the strangest dream last night.

I was aboard the Starship Enterprise (E, if you must know) and we were doing something I can't recall on some planet that isn't terribly important.

Anyway, I'm on the ship and Dr. Crusher turns to me and says:

"Manifest Destiny's working out a lot better this time around."

Then I woke up.

Man, I love my dreams sometimes.

Life's been pretty a'ight since my last actual update. The bike thing is going well (I may have an update on that in the not too distant future) and we're settling into our groove.

I've been working at The Minuteman and that's going well. I like my co-workers and they seem to like me well enough. Or, rather, I'm a non-factor in the best possible way. Which is totally the best you can hope for at this stage of the game.

Oh, and this gig is TOTALLY better than working at DAS ÜBERBÜY. Cuz, I don't come home from work loathing myself. Actually, I come home from work liking my life. So, yknow, that's good.

Thanks for all the people who've sent emails asking how my storm is holding up, I appreciate it. It's funny, the emails have changed in tone over time. The first day or two they were all "Heh, there you are, rock me like a hurricane."

Then they were all, "don't kill people."

Then they were all, "Dude MY storm was TOTALLY hardcore. What's wrong with yours man, it's a pansy."

Now they're all like, "I hope you don't minorly inconvenience me."

Yup, that's life.

What else...This weekend we went to a wedding down in The Q. It was really freakin' gorgeous, and the reception was at one of the local indian casinos. Nena got toasted as per normal at these things and I had to drag her out of the casino as she yelled "COLONIZERS!" at ever white person she saw.

It would have been cute, had I not been in total fear that she was gonna say it to some biker who would then kick my ass.

Since then we've been finishing the unpacking. To date we have almost ever box emptied and Nena's job while I'm at work tonight is to clean up the extra bedroom so we can actually host overnight guests! Yeah, it's a long time coming, but I'm really excited about it.

Yup, that's the update, crappy though it might be. I'm in a funk today and I just don't know why. I'm tired and listless and just, blah. I'm not even feeling like getting on Black Five. Though I think that's cuz my quads are really, really tight right now.

Word.

Posted by nenie at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

My Tia Julia had a stroke Friday afternoon.

And I'm incredibly confused by this.

Right about now, nearly all of you- regardless of how well you know me or how long we've known each other- are wondering the same thing. "Who?"

(No, not the Tia some of y'all might remember from Carleton or my wedding or hanging out at my parents' house. The other one...who?)

Which makes sense. Since my father met my mother thirty four years ago my mother's elder sister has been a controversial figure. In the beginning, it was because of her unabashed dislike of my father. Chief amongst my father's transgressions was being, like my mother, an immigrant. From the moment she set foot in this country nearly forty years ago my tia has been on a never ending quest to become "more American."

The ways in which she's attempted to do this over the years are myriad and not worth recounting save for one- in insisting that her sister, whose care she was charged with when the Allende coup left my mother stranded in Chicago, marry an American.

Regardless of what my father is today, thirty four years ago, he was NOT what my tia wanted her sister to be dating.

This is when the war began.

My tia sought out new and creative ways to drive a wedge between my parents, eventually going so far as to create an elaborate lie about my father, that he had a wife and child back home that he was supporting.

When my mother refused to believe this lie the ultimatum was handed down. My mother was forbidden to see my father while she lived under my tia's roof.

So my mother moved out.

With time, that wound was healed and sins forgiven, such is the way of an immigrant family. We don't have enough family, enough support system to go throwing them away over something as silly as lies, misinformation and deceit.

Eventually my parents were married. I can't remember if she made it to the wedding or not. I want to say not to the church, but a token appearance at the reception, hosted by my future godparents.

A few months after the wedding a new skirmish cropped up. Namely, me.

For the first half of my life my tia was one of the most important figures in my life. She existed in the same pantheon as other luminaries as my aforementioned godparents...and the other two godparents as well.

Being that she literally lived down the road from me, we saw quite a lot of Tia growing up. She was always there, birthdays, Christmas, random Wednesdays. I remember putting together a swing set in her back yard for her grandchildren and watching Swan Lake (my introduction to ballet) with her in her basement (On Bravo, back when it was a really pricey premium channel. Remember that?) And sitting out on her deck with her, wondering when my parents would ever have a yard as nice as hers.

Then, without warning, she disappeared.

This wasn't like the time my father forbade her to see me when I was three years old and she, distraught by how repressed I was since I was such a quiet and well-mannered child, taught me how to pull curtains down and knock over furniture and create a general mess of my parents' apartment.

No, this disappearance was different. No words were said, no requests made. She just, *poof* went away and was rarely, if ever, heard from again.

The second half of my life is a series of missed events. She wasn't there for my high school or college graduation- though I did get a really nice check for $18 for the HS graduation in a card during Winter Break of my frosh year at Carleton.

And then there was my wedding.

After swearing up and down (via her daughter) that she'd be there with bells on and to save a dance for her, she never even responded to her invitation.

That was it, I was done with her. A few weeks after my wedding when my mother asked if I'd heard from her I told her I didn't have a Tia by that name. And I meant it.

For close to two years there wasn't a peep out of South Florida. None of us heard from her until this past spring I received a (late) birthday card in which she apologized for spacing out on my wedding and asking for my forgiveness. But, after all those years, after all those broken promises to be there. I'd given up on her. I thought that I just didn't have the time to waste on forgiving someone who had made a habit out of letting me down

And now she's in the ICU, having suffered a serious stroke that's since been complicated by pneumonia and everyone is freaking out.

Myself included.

I don't know what I did to cause her sudden departure from my life, and last night, I realized that all of the animosity I've built up towards this woman stems from this one issue. I just don't know how I drove her away and I've spent a lot of time blaming myself for something that is more than likely not my fault. I'm beginning to understand why I have such contempt for someone who used to be one of the most important people in my life.

But, I'm human and she is my tia. So, hearing of her illness I feel...something that conflicts with everything else I've been conditioned to feel. It's a mixed bag of emotions that I just don't know how to cope with at the moment.

Yeah, it's taken me two days to write this and it's still not right. But, I think that's really what this was about. Yknow?

Posted by nenie at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: Four
Days Until Registration: 22
Days Until Race: 31
Miles Riden: 8.0
Notes: One Mechanical Breakdown

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: Five
Days Until Registration: 21
Days Until Race: 30
Miles Riden: 8.0
Notes: NO! Mechanical Breakdowns!

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: Six
Days Until Registration: 20
Days Until Race: 29
Miles Riden: 0.0
Notes: Rest Day.

I figure that at this point, condensing my journal entries every few days makes more sense than complaining about the same stuff over and over again on a daily basis, yknow?

The past few days have gone really well. I've had to stop along the way to hydrate and rest, which means the current training plan is to keep doing this particular distance until my heart and lungs are at least not angry with me.

Really, my cardiovascular situation is what's holding me back. Yes, my arms are still killing me two miles in and their soreness compounds the CV situation, but it's a manageable thing. Yup, it's all about my heart rate, because at the end of every ride my legs are asking me why we're not still going, which is perhaps the most encouraging thing coming out of this first week. As soon as I get my wind up, my legs will carry me forward.

That said, I'm starting to have my doubts about being ready for the Tour in time. I don't know, I was expecting my wind to be, well, better than it is right now, I completely underestimated how out of shape I really was. Again, upside is that I'm better than I was and not as good as I'll be. I'm still going to try and get ready for the Tour, but...if I don't I need to get myself psyched to be doing this just to do it. Which, I'm getting better at all the time. Being out on my bike is fun for fun's sake and I'm slowly altering my lifestyle to include this type of exercise.

Thursday was a good ride. The switch to shorts paid huge dividends, though it was perhaps the hottest and least cloudy ride of the week. By mile three I was burning up, and I had to take my helmet off to help ventilate my head. Then, I had to walk the bike the last half mile cuz the final uphill was just too much to deal with.

On the way down, I had my inevitable mechanical issue. I've figured out that the problem occurs when I shift too much. Willy's suggestion to look at my H and L Limit Screws made a lot more sense as I flipped Black Five over on the trail and rehooked his chain. Yeah, mental note, check the H and L Limit Screws tomorrow.

Before heading out Friday, I thought I'd look at these Limit Screws I'd read so much about. When I started out playing with the screws the way Willy's online manual had suggested I was skeptical, then I was enraged. In twenty minutes I'd managed to screw Black Five up even more than he'd already been screwed up. After twenty minutes, I'd lost all my gears except for wicked high and the mere suggestion of shifting into something else caused my buddy to freak out and derail. I was not happy.

After a quick, cleansing conversation with Gunder I re-read the manual and went back out there. Within five minutes or so I'd come to terms with the fact that my Limit Screws didn't look or sound much like the ones in the manual so I was just going to have to reverse engineer the instructions. Once I did that, Black Five was shifting like a champ and I was out on the road.

I start out by going out my driveway, down my street and onto the sideroad that leads to the main drag in this part of El Capital. I'm on the sideroad for maybe two blocks and it's the only time that I'm actually on the "road." As I approached the stop sign at the main drag, I saw a woman who was older than my wife, younger than my mother on a nice little mid-range mountain bike pedaling along on the bike trail.

She wasn't in full regalia, though she was sporting racing shorts and shoes, and she was going at about my pace. Perfect, a pace biker.

I followed her at about four bike lengths of distance up the hill. It was nice to have someone in front of me giving me a cadence. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not much more than a kid who used to ride to the park/college commuter biker. This whole biking for distance and exercise thing is totally and completely new to me. After about a mile, mile and a half my pace biker had to stop for water and oxygen so I just kept on going. By the time I got to two and a half miles I was dying and needed my own water break. She nearly caught up to me before I remounted Black Five and headed farther up the hill. That was the last I saw of her until about half a mile after the turnaround. She was still coming up the hill and remarked that I'd beaten her up the hill. I smiled and said something insipid and got ready for my rocket home.

I carefully shifted into a mid-gear that would allow me to actually do some pedaling on the downhill, but in the interest of not derailing the chain completely I didn't actually shift all the way down the way I needed to. Oh well, one thing at a time, right?

All in all, a great ride. My return time was sub-30mins and my uphill time was sub-45 minutes so I'm definitely getting better. Today (Saturday) is my day of rest so I'll let everything heal up a bit before going back out there tomorrow. I'm going to start timing myself, if only because I have an ever increasing desire to know how long things are taking me (really.) So, yeah, that's what's up.

Posted by nenie at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been waiting for today all year long. Yes, I know Maddenoliday was Tuesday, but today is BIGGER than that.

I know it's tacky and really insensitive. And for that I appologize. But, for a kid who grew up longing to find one of those silly license plate keychains with his name on it...this is huge.

What am I talking about?

Click to enlarge.

Posted by nenie at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: Three
Days Until Registration: 23
Days Until Race: 32
Miles Riden: 8.0
Notes: One Mechanical Breakdown

Yeah, another day, another breakdown on the side of the road. Yknow, I'm starting to wonder what the real issue is here.

Before heading out on today's ride I took some advice from Willy, our team mechanic, and ziptied the chainguard in place. It worked so well on the broken back end of the chainguard that I decided to remove the loosening front bolt and ziptied that bad boy down on the front end for good measure.

Confident that I'd be good to go, I hit the road. Fifty feet out of my driveway the chain stopped dead in its tracks, the chain had come off the freewheel and wedged itself between the freewheel and the frame pretty good. Back on the porch, I repaired the damage with a little help from Nena's Leatherman and I was back on the road.

I know that these journal entries are very quickly becoming one long complaint about all the little things that hurt when I'm out on my bike. I also know that looking at the comparatively short lengths of these rides I'm coming across as a right wanker. But, well, my theory is that in getting all these complaints out of my system after riding and not letting them fester in my head unadmitted to, I'm empowering myself to forget about them when I'm actually on the bike.

Yknow, admit you suck when you're not doing what you suck at so you'll forget that you suck at it when you're actually doing it.

Or, at the very least, I'm not letting the poison eat at me until I'm no longer motivated to keep going.

Right, so my butt hurts. I know pro riders get saddle sores and all sorts of bad shit below the belt, but I'm a recreational rider who's having ass issues two blocks into his morning ride. This really can't be good. Can it?

I don't think I can keep blaming my seat, either. I spent a great deal of time this morning groping Black Five's seat and it feels pretty cushiony to me. Plus, I remember my old BMX and its hard plastic seat, that never really hurt me that bad and I used to LIVE on that bike. As a result, I'm having a hard time convincing myself that a new seat is going to solve the problem and that the ass pain issue is gonna have to go in the suck, deal column. Yknow?

Otherwise, today's ride went pretty smoothly. Willy's low gear, high cadence suggestion was a pretty good one and I find I'm going at a decent enough speed. I just, yknow, miss the POWER of the higher gears. But, I figure that once I get used to biking around here I'll be able to use a little higher gear on the "flats" such as they are to get my power fix.

And, if I don't stick to the low gears right now, I won't be riding long enough to really take advantage of the power down the road, right?

Today's goal was to go on the eight mile ride I'd scheduled for this past Monday. I recovered from yesterday's ride quickly enough that I figured I'd be able to go the literal extra mile today before turning around and heading downhill towards home. However, as I hit mile 2, I started to remember that the strain on muscles is one of those cumulative things, which meant that I was going to be mentally prepared to go 8 today, because it wasn't going to be a physical piece of cake.

Mmmm, cake.

By mile 3 I was dying. My heart rate was starting to get up above that zone gym teachers the world over tell you is best for an aerobic workout and the heat was starting to get to me. It wasn't much over 70 degrees at that time of day, but all of that exposure to the sun was starting to add up. Which reminded me of one of my biggest roadblocks to physical fitness: attire.

I know, I know, it sounds really ridiculous, but I can't count how many times freaking out what to wear to the gym has stopped me from actually going to the gym. I started out on this particular project by admitting to myself that looking like the rest of the bike riders out here with their full-on spandex was a bad idea, so I struck a compromise. Tshirt and warmup pants. Why the heavy warmups? Because, it's normally 70 degrees when I set out and that's a cold assed breeze that flows into my windows at that time of day.

But, the past few days has shown me that once I'm on my bike, it gets really warm. So I think I'm gonna go with shorts tomorrow.

But that's not really what's really important. What is important is that my legs were really pissed at me come the three mile mark and my arms weren't much happier. One of the things I like about the style bike that Black Five is is the rider geometry. I'm a fat guy so I want to be riding as upright as possible so as not to have to fight my panza while pedaling away. But if there's one thing that the past three days has shown me (and there's totally been more than one) it's that I'm putting too much weight on my arms when I ride. I'm not upright enough and Black Five's handlebars are too stiff for someone with as little upper body strength as myself.

I'm going to have to play with the rider geometry. I think the seat needs to come down a bit and maybe the handlebars need to come up.

As I approached the four mile mark I was overjoyed. I could see the marker just ahead of me and I tried to accelerate into my turnaround point. It was at that point that I was reminded of how big a putz I am. An old man, riding a sweet Trek mountain bike in full regalia, yellow helmet, yellow bicycling shirt, black Pearl Izumi riding pants called out and passed me on the left. Yeah, he was sweating and had at least half the body fat I did. But I'd still been schooled by Greg LeMond's grandfather.

Ego bruised I reached the turnaround and took off.

The total upside to the way the topography works with (and against) me on these rides is the air conditioning I hit as soon as I break for home. After all the heat and grunting and sweating, the air feels really good. And as I rocketed towards the five mile mark I realized that not once today had I gasped for air. I'm not going to say I managed this ride in total comfort, but the gasping for air, heart in throat thing has gone away. And that's a good thing.

But, this happiness was shortlived, as just after I hit the five mile mark, the chain came off...again.

I managed to coast back for most of a mile, pedaling just to keep my legs working and I was really surprised at how much momentum I'd built up. But when Big Mo left me, I dismounted and flipped Black Five over to see what the damage was. Near as I could tell, there wasn't any. Unlike the previous repairs I'd made there was nothing obviously broken to point at. Near as I can tell, the deraileur didn't like something and messed up the tension on the chain causing it to come off the crank.

Two minutes later the chain was back on and I was back on the road, sad to have lost all that momentum.

By the time I could see my house the music had finally hit its stride (Neal Diamond, Hell Yeah followed by Bob Mould, Always Tomorrow) and I was feeling good.

Though the temptation to expand this out to 10 or 12 miles in the next few days is pretty severe I've decided to rock the untimed 8 mile ride until Sunday when I'll begin timing myself on this run, trying daily to beat my time.

Then, next Friday or Saturday I'll throw down the gauntlet gunning for 10 or 12 miles on a new course. I think I'm going to stick with this 8 mile route and tack on the extra mileage by going away from my house in another direction. This way, I can cheat a bit by using the 4 mile downhill to catch my breath before starting another ride.

Yeah, it's cheating, but so long as I admit it's cheating...right.

Posted by nenie at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: Two
Days Until Registration: 24
Days Until Race: 33
Miles Riden: 6.0
Notes: One Mechanical Breakdown

Yup, you read correctly. Two days of training, two bike issues. This is not a good sign, is it?

After yesterday's fiasco I decided I should do a few things:

1) Not time myself until I'm doing the same distance with enough regularity that timing myself makes sense. I get the feeling this is gonna happen around the 10 mile mark or so.

2) Carry water with me.

3) Carry my cell phone with me, just in case.

4) Rock the messenger bag to carry this stuff.

5) Set ever-increasing goals for myself that will get me to ten miles by next Monday.

With that in mind, I was going to reach for six miles today. It seemed like a doable distance considering how far I normally rebound after a disappointing first day. Once my body and mind get over the fact that I'm not as good as I think I am, I miraculously make a huge step forward. I was counting on this.

I got on the road and at about a mile my body starts protesting. It's really not too thrilled with what we're doing, my seat isn't that comfortable (which I knew was going to be an issue when I decided to do this on Saturday) and my arms are killing me from how rough a ride this is turning out to be.

Suck, deal.

Thankfully, the major physical lesson I'd picked up yesterday was to focus on and regulate my breathing. I hadn't paid any attention to it yesterday and as I result I was winded long before my muscles were tired. If being an overweight wannabe athlete has taught me anything, it's so long as I keep my breathing steady and my heart rate "down" my muscles will survive. They'll get what they need to keep going, and I'll manage to do what needs to be done.

So at the one mile mark, I do a self-check. How's my breathing? How's my heart? Yup, not winded, heart rate is up but not racing, I'm in good shape to keep going, my muscles just need to keep going.

Mile two, sure enough I was right. I'm in something of a rhythm and suddenly eight miles seems like a really good idea.

Mile 2.5. Did I forget to mention that I live downhill from just about everything? I do. Any direction I bike in, I'm gonna be going up hill. At this point, the near constant climb I've been on begins to really take its toll and I have to control the panic that wants to kick in telling me that I'm never going to hit the 3 mile (turnaround) marker. And since I've never ridden this far, only scouted it in Maxi, I start to make up things about the terrain ahead of me. There's TWO steep inclines ahead of me, there's all that winding crap, there's no way I can...wait, that's the stop sign! That's the 3 mile mark. At the top of a really short, really steep incline.

Next thing I know I'm on top of the hill, hugging the stop sign that marks 3 miles from my house, and rinsing my mouth out and drinking a bit of water.

The ride home is pretty awesome. Since the return ride is a downhill I'm FLYING down the hill. I pedal my way through it, keeping up with the speed and in some stretches even managing to accelerate down the hill.

When Nena saw this house, one of the things she loved was the paved bike trail that goes along the main drag in this part of town. The one problem here is that the trail is intersected at nearly a dozen points by unpaved roads. Which, when combined with all the rain we've been getting, means there are a few really rough curb jumps along my training route.

Mile 4.5. I hit one of the really bad curbs at something approaching 25MPH. There's a cracking noise and then a rattling. It's not a good rattling. I try and shift and half of my gears are gone. Shit, I think. It's my derailer. Fuck. I can't see the problem, and I don't want to slow down or get off the bike. So I keep going. Trying to take advantage of this downhill, using the few gears I have to maintain speed as the slope gets a bit more gradual.

Mile 5. The chain comes off.

I dismount and check out what the problem is. Thankfully, it looks as if my derailer is OK. No, my chain guard, the one that the movers bent up, is loose. Looks like when I jumped that curb the bolt on the back half of the derailer snapped off completely. As a result, it was loose in the back and managed to de rail my chain.

I spend five minutes or so getting the chain back on and making the basic repairs I'm able to make without any tools. Satisfied that I'll be able to get home like this I remount and start moving.

Mile 5.5. The chain comes off again.

Yeah, not gonna happen. Making matters worse is the damage the chain guard took on the front end in the move. It's so bent out of shape, the geometry of the situation is really limited. I'd tried the only position that kept the loose back end and the fixed front end off their respective lengths of chain.

Defeated, I walked the bike the rest of the way home making a mental note to fix Black Five tonight and get back on tomorrow. Tomorrow's goal is to attempt 8 miles. I think I have a pretty decent shot at it. I think.

Posted by nenie at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Tour de Acoma Training '06
Day: One
Days Until Registration: 25
Days Until Race: 34
Miles Riden: 1.2
Notes: One Mechanical Breakdown

Today's training started with a task I'd been putting off since Memorial Day. Fixing Black Five. For those unaware, Black Five is my bike; a black 1964 Schwinn Collegiate with original, matching black fenders. This bike is my baby, it replaces Green Five my mint green 1967 Schwinn Collegiate with original CHROME fenders that was stolen while I was at Carleton. Which was a replacement for the bike I'd had since I was in junior high...

Anyway, Black Five was damaged in the move to New Mexico. The genius movers we hired put my buddy at the bottom of a pile of stuff. As a result, the chain guard was bent up a bit and they managed to completely derail the chain. Which was frustrating since I had Black Five tuned up in April (or was it March?) and got him a new chain since I suspect that the one that was on there was factory original.

Right, so since we unloaded the truck Memorial Day weekend I've been dreading fixing this particular problem. I don't know why, maybe it's because I felt that if I left it like that I'd have an excuse for not taking Black Five for a ride, yknow? Well, with the Tour de Acoma coming up I had to get off my ass and fix the bike.

A few broken nails later the chain was remounted and I was ready to rock and roll.

Since moving into this house I've toyed with the idea of riding my bike to the grocery store (Comersh). It's a four mile trip and this spring I was rocking three mile trips with no issues so the idea of an eight mile round trip to the Comersh made sense to me. Plus, that'd put me a third of my way towards my goal of being able to do 25 miles by the early registration deadline.

Unfortunately, I forgot a few things:

1) I've gained weight since April.
2) I'm not in as good of shape as I was in April
3) As hilly as LTown is, it a'int Santa Fe
4) There's actual oxygen in the Kansas air

As a result, a few blocks into my ride my lungs were screaming for air, my mouth screaming for water, and my soul screaming that there was NO WAY I'd be ready by the deadline, only 25 days away.

But, I sucked it up and kept going. That's when the headwind kicked in. I looked up and there were some of the most menacing storm clouds I've ever seen. Seriously, I wish I was making this up, I wish this was some sort of overly poetic Fassbinder-esque deal with scenery reflecting my inner mood.

But no, the monsoon was coming and the winds were pushing me backwards.

Suck, deal. Right?

Keep pedaling, keep going...until I reach my first turn around point. Yup, time to turn around. I go back home, this time being pushed by the wind that was keeping me at a standstill seconds earlier. My heart rate was WAY up, I was sweating a ton and my mouth felt like I thought New Mexico's air was supposed to.

I pull into the house, defeated, tired and sweaty. This was going to be a LOT more difficult than I thought.

Better luck tomorrow, right?

Posted by nenie at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife. My wife is so judgmental that she even judges people in her dreams.

It's been an interesting dream weekend for us. Sunday morning I had this dream that I was hanging out with Nena and Drieg when Drieg turns to me and says, "dude, you're wife's water just broke."

So we take Nena to the hospital all calm and shit and after we get there there's no one at the ER doors and the ER is like a million miles from the doors to the ER and I run around looking for a wheelchair cuz Nena's not moving so fast. I find one, strap her in and RUN LIKE HELL all the while freaking out cuz I didn't know Nena was pregnant and how can she be pregnant and I CAN'T BE A FATHER!!!! Then, in the dream, I realize that it is a dream so I chill out and go with things.

No, Nena's not pregnant. Don't worry.

In other news, I have a job. Our long national nightmare has finally come to an end. It's retail, it's not what I wanted and I will be referring to it as The Minuteman. If you think real hard, it'll make sense. Also, thanks to CK for coming up HUGE on the reference scene. Apparently he was the only reference who returned a phone call to the GM at The Minuteman at all. It got to the point where my new boss called me up and said "Hi Nenie. I want to hire you but I NEED another reference to call me back. I've only spoken to CK, who loves you. Give me some phone numbers..."

So I did.

I start Wednesday.

I got the call while down in The Q on Saturday. Nena was in Cruces for a baby shower and I'd spent the morning campaigning for Antonio and the afternoon at a Carleton New Mexico Club thingy getting career advice from people where were amazingly less than helpful a few months ago over email.

Seriously, do they understand how much better my life could have been had they offered to take my resume around to their bosses in APRIL when I ASKED THEM FOR THAT!

No, I'm cool. I'm chill.

Anyway, I was bumming around the world's most poorly designed commerce-o-plex (I-25 between Montgomery and Jefferson) looking to kill time in case anyone in town decided to call me back with plans for the evening (no one ever called back) so I popped into REI to look at hiking boots I tell myself I'm gonna get in the spring so I can, yknow, hike more since I live in the mountains.

Anyway, walking into the store I see something out of the corner of my eye. It's a poster for the Tour de Acoma, a bike race across the Acoma Reservation next month. I read the poster and see that they have a 25 mile race and a $30 entry fee. Now, I know I'm not a bike racer, BUT I've been meaning to get Black 5 out of the garage and onto the road since I moved out here, and he's all tuned up and ready to rock. So, why not, right? I can get into shape for a 25 mile, paved run across the Rez in a month. And it's not like I'm looking to win the thing. I'm just looking for an excuse to get into better shape.

So, I'm training. Starting today. If I can DO 25 miles by the pre-registration deadline, I'll enter the race. If not, I'll train for next year and do the 50 mile. Right? Right.

Also, I'm starting my own cycling team for the event. Dixie Bar Cycling- We're always doping, cuz we're so dope. I'll be designing shirts for the event. Anyone interested?

Posted by nenie at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been collecting things for my .sig file on my outgoing emails for years now, but I hadn't really been rotating them until, well, a few days ago. This got me to thinking, maybe I should put them all out here...so here they are.

//. . .please, that's all you had to say.//
-:ck:

//What? I did that? Really? Damn, sorry playa. Wow, I totally deserve all the bad shit that's come down on me if I did that.//
-:ck:

//I asked you for a KILLER, not some little bunny that needs to be babysat.//
-:Cruz Caceres:

//Yes, on paper. But life is not lived on paper.//
-:Cruz Zamorano:

//You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.//
-:Every Prospective Father In Law:

//It's tragic that extremists co-opt the notion of God, and that hipsters and artists reject spirituality out of hand. I don't have a fixed idea of God. But I feel that it's us - the burning, the questing - that need God, a lot more than the goody-two-shoes do.//
-:Mike Doughty:

Posted by nenie at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last weekend we went up to Chicago for CHUCKGUNDER's baptism. Every time we've managed to get away for a day or two we've said that it was something that we really needed and it's been true every time we've said it. When we got away for our anniversary, we needed time away from everything. This weekend, we needed time with our familia.

With that in mind, we headed out to Cubero Friday. Nena's parents are in California at the moment so it was nice to see the familia but not have to actually spend a lot of time with them. Plus, it was a great chance to drop off surplus boxes and kitchen stuff.

Seriously, if you need utensils or dishes or small electrics or something, drop me a line. I could cut you a nice deal on stuff we just don't have the space for anymore.

We were also there to drop off a new mix I made for the cousins. It's a Back to School mix and I was a bit nervous because I hadn't made a mix for the cousins yet. But Nena, her officemate and I like it, so if the kidz don't think it's cool...umm, yeah. They know where they can go with their uneducated, non-quality musical tastes. If they're not ready for DJ Slim Mochachino, then they're not ready. Orsomething.

We flew out on Saturday and made our way through security without much of a problem. If I'm left with one major impression of the new security procedures it's that they don't actually make us that much safer, but they make us FEEL a whole lot safer. That is, unless you stop to think about it. In which case it makes you feel worse. Right. But that's another story for another day.

Saturday was spent lounging around the Palais with the 'rents and Sunday Fesser came over before we headed out to the baptism downtown. If you haven't been to Old St. Pat's before, you really should do yourself a favor and check it out. The place looks amazing after its renovation. Looking around the place I started to wonder why churches don't look like that anymore. It's not that the place is ornate, because it's not. I've been to any number of Cathedrals or Basillicas more ornate than this place. But this church is beautiful. It reminds me of a time I was never a part of, when building a church, creating a community of faith meant something. It reminds me of a time when people didn't have to hide their faith the way we have to now. It's a momument to deeds meanins as much, if not more, than words. It's amazing.

I'm CHUCKGUNDER's Godfather (cue the appropriate music) and I don't think the magnitude of the responsiblility has hit me yet. Maybe it's because my own Godfather(s) have been such an amazing influence on my life. I honestly don't think I can imagine what my life would be like without Uncle Sal or Uncle Jim around. And while i don't talk about my faith very much, it's an amazingly important part of my life and I have these two amazing men to thank for that. I don't mean to shortchange my Godmother(s) or my own parents when I say this, it's just that at the moment, I'm caught up in hoping and praying I can live up to the example set for me in this one area of life.

Oh well, I guess the next few decades should explain this one to us pretty well.

Posted by nenie at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

White Guy Doesn't Understand the Issue, film at 11.

Basically, this Senator from VA saw a non-white person in the crowd, knew this non-white person in a very white crowd was working for his opponent, pointed out the person in the crowd, denies that the name he made up for the non-white dude was racist.

He's probably right, he wasn't racist, he was ignorant. When he told the guy "welcome to America" he was pointing out and capitalizing on white privilege. The real issue here, and one that CNN is incapable of grasping, is that the Senator succeeded in making his opponent's volunteer feel like less of a human being.

But I don't think the Senator is capable of grasping the concept of being made to feel sub-human. I wish there were a way to make him understand it. I really wish there were words capable of making him feel worthless. Because "cracker" and "honky" and "Chauncey" just don't do it. And they never will.

Posted by nenie at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yknow how I'm always talking about it's a dry heat out here?

Yeah, I was lied to and as a result you were lied to. Mistakes were made, I blame Rumsfeld. Not that it's his falt, but because he's a lot better at finding people to blame than I am.

It's been raining here. Daily. For weeks. When the rain started it helped to break a "killer" heat wave we were having. Yknow, mid 90s every day, low humidity...yeah, then the rains came. First it took out The Dixie.

(Which is actually turning out to be somewhat salvageable. Details to follow when there are details other than "it's not that bad." Again, I was lied to...this time let's blame Cheney.)

Then it just started to add up. Because it was raining too much to actually let it all evaporate up. As a result, things are wicked green and things labeled as having had water in them at some point in human history actually have water in them again. It's crazy, there was actually water in a laguna out at Laguna last weekend. Who've thunk?

Now, it's more humid in The Q than it is in Chicago. Though, thankfully, it's not as bad up in El Capital.

The rains have become so consistent that all I want to do is drink coffee and listen to Nirvana all day. I think I gave all of my flannels to Goodwill a few lifetimes ago so I'll have to head down there today and see if I can't have it paid forward unto me. This is how bad the situation has become people.

This morning I looked out at the front yard and I couldn't see the Sangre de Cristos through the fog. The fog was so magical I wouldn't have been surprised to see an elk, a buffalo, Sam Spade or a Starfleet Shuttlecraft come out of it. Seriously, we're talking fog somewhere between a western and a noir. Craziness.

Yeah, well that's life. I have a few interviews for retail jobs in the next few days, so the hemorrhaging of cash should end sooner rather than later. I'm not thrilled about this, but it's something until such time as I can land a big kid job. Yknow?

Posted by nenie at 11:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

First off, happy birthday nenie.net. It was three years ago today that I started this blog as a way to mark my last year as a bachelor. I started this site up a lifetime ago and it's waxed and waned as life has demanded. But, well, happy birthday nenie.net.

Second, you seen this? SamJack will call people for you. Freakin' brilliant.

It's been a bit of a crazy week out here. As I mentioned last week, we didn't renew our Realtor's contract and I spent the first part of last week looking for someone new. Damn, did that suck. After that experience I'm convinced that it's entirely too easy for any idiot to become a Realtor. Seriously, what special abilities do these people have that I don't?

In all of my conversations last week I didn't meet a single individual who'd done more analysis of the Lawrence realty market than either Nena or myself. It was ridiculous. My favorite moment was when a Realtor told me that I was asking too much for my house to have appreciated a single dollar in the two years we've owned it.

Ugh.

Now, we have a new guy in charge and he's busy running around getting bids on repainting the place. Apparently the colors are just too bright for this market. So we're gonna try this and going with a new lawn service. Hopefully this helps us out.

In other news, fantasy football season is around the corner and the Lawrence Fighting Vonies (GO VONIES!) have moved to Santa Fe and been re-christened the Santa Fe Stormin' Shepards. A prize to the person who correctly guesses the team logo I'm ripping off in this design...Cody?

I'm optimistic about this season going better than last season did. I mean, the Vonies started out well but just tanked at the end. I think I have a better handle on the draft this time out, so I'm more likely to do things like take into account who my players play for and such.

Also, the league (which has been renamed the Federation of Associated Liberal Artists' Football Enterprises League or F.A.L.A.F.E.L.) is much less pass-dependent. We've upped the points for running and catching, so things will be a little more predictable this year.

Or, I think they'll be more predictable. No real way of knowing what this is actually gonna mean.

The job front is what it is. No bites yet. At this point I'm starting to wonder what's wrong with me that no one seems to want to interview me. Oh well.

That's life, yo. We're headed up to Chicago on Saturday and I'm busy trying to unpack this place so we can, yknow, live. Big fun, yo.

Posted by nenie at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

8.10.04:8.13.04/Glenwood Springs, CO/
8.14.04/Glenwood Springs, CO to Lawrence, KS/

Our first morning in Glenwood Springs, Nena asked me a question that'd been burning in her mind ever since I picked Glenwood as our honeymoon destination.

"Why here?"

As I switched off the day's edition of Sportscenter OldSchool and we walked downstairs for breakfast I realized I couldn't keep the truth from her any longer.

"Because this town has my favorite rest area in all of the interstate system."

Before you either write me off as a liar or insane, hear my out this story is not only totally true, it's also totally not insane. See, three summers ago, my parents and I drove from Chicago to Utah to see Drieg who was performing with at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Rather than recount the entire epic here, I'll just say that we drove 740 miles from Chicago to North Platte, NE on the first night leaving a decent 830 mile drive over the Rockies for day two. 415 miles into the trip we were all a bit stir crazy and in sore need of a bathroom and a little leg stretching. The only problem is that, as I've already mentioned, there isn't any place to stop when you're crossing the Continental Divide.

That's when we saw the exit for the Grizzly Creek rest area.

The place is amazing, I mean, I know it's a rest area, but it's a rest area right on the Colorado River, on the floor of one of the most beautiful canyons I've ever seen. You can walk along it for miles, wade into it or sit on the rocks and watch the rafters float by. As I stood there in the river and washed away the morning's drive I vowed that If I ever had an opportunity to stay on the western slope for any length of time I'd stay in the nearest town to this place and explore it.

As I piloted the Maxima back onto I-70 I kept my eyes out for the next exit, wanting to see where we were. Next exit? Glenwood Springs, home the largest natural, outdoor hot springs pool in the world. When we arrived in Utah, my notion of returning there was reinforced when one of Drieg's good friends couldn't stop raving about how amazing the town was. Yeah, I had to go back.

"Right," Nena told me as we walked downstairs, "but we're still here because you liked the rest area?"

After breakfast we climbed into Will and I drove her out to see the rest area, in a desperate bid to save our marriage, to convince her that I wasn't crazy. As we pulled into the parking lot and wandered down to the river's edge Nena smiled, turned to me and said, "OK, you're crazy, but not for planning your honeymoon around your favorite rest area."

Beyond this, there are so many memories associated with this trip, too many to really cram into here in any kind of detail. Where do I start? With our adventures in trying to find a place to eat dinner at 4p when all the restaurants open at 5p and eventually finding a hole in the wall Italian place that seemed incredibly out of place in the middle of the Rockies? Our amazing dinner out at The Rivers or soaking in the world's largest outdoor hot springs pool?

There was the impromptu round of mini golf in the shadow of the majestic Hotel Colorado and the amazing side by side massages at some random place in town that Nena dug up when she planned out the whole trip. There was a lot of walking through the beautiful downtown, popping into small shops and picking up random coffee drinks and smoothies at the various touristy coffee shops that dotted the landscape. But by and large the honeymoon went like that first morning did. We'd get up for breakfast, talk to Peter, our intrepid innkeeper over his latest amazingly brilliant breakfast about what else we needed to see in the area before we set off on foot to explore the town. We ate when we were hungry, took naps every afternoon and availed ourselves of everything the town had to offer.

The two best parts of the trip, however were having our cell phones off for the duration of the trip and the B&B itself. It was amazing to be totally out of touch with our family and friends for a few days. To not have our phone ringing, or email to check, to be free and able to really spend time with each other was something that we've vowed to do every so often for the rest of our lives.

And then there's the B&B. The Lavender and Thyme Inn is owned by a really nice couple who decided to retire to Glenwood Springs and open a B&B. The house is a beautiful Victorian from the turn of the last century that's an incredibly comfortable place to call home and Peter makes some of the most amazing breakfast you're likely to have. The man uses buffalo sausage. BUFFALO SAUSAGE, how amazing is that? I don't think there are enough superlatives that Nena and I can pour on this place. It was that great a place to be.

But, we did have jobs to get back to so we left Glenwood Springs in the rearview mirror and made a break for Lawrence, 720 miles away.

The midwesterner in me sees time and distance in a very specific way. A way that expects me to clear over 60 miles for every hour I drive. Only, when you have to cross the Continental Divide, time doesn't really work like that. The constant ascent and descent for the 157 miles between Glenwood Springs and Denver took us a lot longer than the three hours I'd mentally allotted for the trip. I'd done it before, but for some reason, I just didn't remember it taking so long. Perhaps it was because we were so much closer to our destination, perhaps it was because we didn't start the day in the western slope, but whatever the reason, the day started off with the kind of brutality more at home in a Sam Peckinpah movie than the end of a honeymoon.

But the drive was beautiful. Through Vail, the Eisenhower Tunnel and under Loveland Pass all the way to Denver, when the real brutality began. The Great Plains, by car, after you spent all of your energy getting out of the Rockies.

I don't think I've ever been on a longer drive in my life. This includes the one day, 15 hour drive from Cubero to Lawrence, or going from Atlanta to Chicago in a day enduring all of Indiana in an afternoon. There's something about the end of the best vacation of your life and a long drive through Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas.

Much like our earlier drive through Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado I was at a loss to see what was really all that different between the two states, only this time I was testing Norm Yetman's axiom that a marble dropped in Denver would roll all the way to Lawrence.

It wouldn't. It'd give up and pull over at a truck stop long before it made it to Lawrence. That's what we did, stopping every chance we got. Arby's in the middle of nowhere? Sure, we'll stop for lunch. The only Starbucks in Western Kansas? You better believe we're stopping there. Though, I will say this about the only Starbucks in Western Kansas- standing there on the plains, watching the semis roll in and out knowing that you have another four hours of this ahead of you- a chai has never EVER tasted as good.

Eventually, we reached home. 17 days, 6 states, 3000 miles and a wedding later we were back home. I changed in innumerable ways over the course of this trip and I've tried to document some of the events that have altered my life. Hopefully I've succeeded and hopefully you've enjoyed reading your way through it.

As I carried Nena over the threshold upon our return I smiled and thought of all the adventures this new Nenie was now equipped to deal with. I can't wait to get started

Posted by nenie at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

8.9.04/Cubero, NM to Glenwood Springs, CO/

The original idea was pretty easy, drive 480 miles from Cubero to the Western Slope of the Rockies. But, this was 480 miles mostly off the interstate, through the mountains and up over Independence Pass. As we loaded up the car, we the sheer amazingness of the drive that we had before us began to click.

But before we could go on an amazing adventure, we had to deal with money. We'd been given a decent chunk of cash as wedding presents and we figured it wasn't a good idea for us to travel with all this cash on us. There was just one problem, our bank had no branches in New Mexico. No problem, we thought. Nena still had her bachelor account, and while that bank had no branches in Kansas they sure as hell had branches in New Mexico. Sure, we'd just hit a branch on our way out of Albuquerque, deposit our checks and deal with everything when we got home to Kansas. Simple, right?

Wrong.

See, a lot of the checks had been made out to us jointly. What's the issue with that? Well, apparently if a check is made out to more than one person then all of the people to whom the check is made out to have to have their names on the account you're depositing the money into. Even if both people countersign the check? Even if both people countersign the check.

Through a mistake in the "Proof God Loves Us and Wants Us to Be Happy" Department we ended up with a trainee at our window. When they looked confused the teller next to him started to tell him what to do, in a manner that was actually going to help us. But then, the Queen of Albuquerque Banking saw that the trainee was being given advice by someone other than her and that just couldn't happen on her watch.

Butting into the conversation she reversed the original ruling on our checks and only took the checks made out to Nena alone.

After putting what money we could into that bank we headed north. Up I-25 towards Santa Fe then on through Nambe before hanging a hard left missing Taos and ending up in Hispañola taking US 285 to Colorado. The miles rolled by outside Will's windows and we finally got the point of going on a honeymoon. It gives you a chance to spend time with someone you love, yet have had no time to hang out with in a long while. It's funny, all of this commotion about how much we love each other and spending the rest of our lives together, yet we'd had so little time together over the past week that it would've been entirely too easy to forget why were were doing all this running around in the first place.

Our drive wound through the New Mexican countryside, climbing higher and higher past the Sangre de Cristos and into the San Juan mountains, along the way crossing through small towns just large enough to have a restroom that seemed frozen in time. Whether this time was 50, 100 or 150 years in the past is almost irrelevant really. What is important is that they're there, they're continuing onward into the future, just off of US 285. Eventually, we crossed into Colorado, leaving the small town of Los Pinos in our wake.

To say that southern Colorado is noticeably different from Northern New Mexico is to be a liar. Were it not for the sign letting you know you were crossing a border there'd be no clue as to what state of the union you were in. Drives like this are the kind that make me see how constructed our notions of statehood really are. Not to say that there aren't differences across larger distances, just that here, on the point of the border there really isn't much of a noticeable difference.

As we climbed northward the browns that had been our constant companion for the previous week were replaced by various blues that heralded the reemergence of moisture into our lives. With the music blaring, we followed the San Luis River across one of the last plains we were going to see for some time. Eventually we hit Villa Grove and steeled ourselves for the rest of the drive, the one that would take us upward and onward over the Continental Divide.

I'd crossed the Divide by car on two previous occasions. Being that both times were in my parents' Maxima on I-70, I'd actually tunneled through the Divide just underneath Loveland Pass. As we drove up towards Independence Pass's 12,095 foot peak I suddenly understood why the interstate wasn't made to cross Loveland at 11,992'. Nena did her best to stay calm as her lifelong midwesterner husband piloted their Honda Civic past mountain lakes and through tight switchbacks that lead to small two lane roads carved out of the mountains.

At some point in New Mexico we'd turned off the AC and opened the windows and sunroof up wide to take in the incredible air that was racing past our car, but was we climbed ever closer to the Divide we started to shiver a bit and were forced to roll up he windows and turn on the heat, in August. The sound of the heater running in our little car made us even more anxious to get to the Divide, to peer out at the continent from 12,000+ feet. In our anxiousness, we made a crucial tactical error, we didn't stop to go to the bathroom. We passed small town after small town each time opting to forgo the bathroom stop that we both so desperately needed. In retrospect, this drive would prove to be a major learning moment in our marriage: had either of us communicated the degree to which a bathroom stop was important, we would have realized that we both really had to go.

We passed Twin Lakes, the last town on the eastern side of the Divide and began to climb. Upward and upward I drove, trying to take in the view as best as Nena would let me. Having made my previous ventures through the Rockies on I-70 where a premium is placed on not stopping and admiring the view this really was my first experience with these mountains and I was incredibly torn between my desire to stop and look and my desire to get to Glenwood quickly. Eventually, I managed to score a happy medium as the roads became impossibly narrow and the dropoffs ridiculous.

Then it hit us, out of nowhere, we had reached a point where there was no more up to go- we'd hit the Continental Divide. As I stood there and took in the scenery I realized that driving up and over the Divide is something that that everyone should do at least once. Standing there in the three-quarter sleeves of my trademark "Westside" wiffleball tee I realized for real how much the temperature had dropped since we last exited the car, about 4000' ago- the temperature had dropped at least 20 degrees. Gone was the oppressive heat of Kansas, the still heat of Chicago, the sun on your neck brutality of Cubero, here it was perpetually cool and moist, with snow blanketing the landscape around us. From the pass the top of Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado was visible; its 14,433 feet of altitude seeming completely at home and immanently reachable from the pass.

We stopped for a few minutes, took pictures that I sadly never had digitized and took in the sheer beauty of what was around us. We were almost literally on the top of the world. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life, and completely worth the serious hour of driving that I'd just performed and that Nena had just endured. However, there was one slight problem. We both had to use a bathroom really, really badly and there are no restroom facilities at 12,000' and I wasn't about to take a leak off the Continental Divide.

Though I did spit off of it to see which way it would fall. The Pacific won two to one.

And like that we were back in Will, trying to warm up and racing down the Pacific side of the Divide towards the first sign of civilization. Nena's never really been all that great with maps, but you should have seen her, studying our detailed map of CO 82 looking for something, anything that showed a bathroom in the 16 miles from the Divide and Aspen. In the end, it took us a little over 30 minutes to descend the mountain into Aspen and by then, we were desperate for a bathroom. The plan was simple, stop at the first gas station we found.

Only, finding a gas station in Aspen is a bit like trying to find a Cartier in Lawrence. Yeah, we think God was seriously having fun with us. There was nothing, NOTHING public for the first ten minutes of our Aspen experience. Finally, in the middle of town, there was a Shell station that looked more like a ski chalet than a gas station. Laughing at the ridiculousness of running into a Shell in Aspen to abuse the bathroom we got out of Will and sauntered into the station. Looking over their fine selection of wines and cheeses we crossed the gap between the front door and the counter before asking the attendant if they, yknow, had a bathroom we could use.

Yeah, just one stall.

Yes, between Twin Lakes and downtown Aspen there is only one public restroom stall. I would have laughed about it if laughing wouldn't have made me pee all over the very nice gas station.

Well, we were married, right? Being married means having to share right?

Nena and I have shared a bathroom at the Shell station in Aspen.

Much happier with the situation we perused the underwhelming selection of refrigerator magnets before deciding that as much as we wanted to buy something at the Shell station in Aspen, there really was nothing for us to buy at the Shell station in Aspen. Thanking the attendant for their help we exited the station and booked for Will. We were still 40 miles from our final destination and we really wanted to be there before it got dark.

As we drove past Snowmass and towards the north, the sky was beginning to develop the streaks of color that announce that the sun is about done with this particular day. The miles ticked by and the colors grew more and more intense as the sun dropped behind the mountains, backlighting them in such a way as to make them glow yellow and orange eventually giving way to the blues and purples the usher in the night's sky.

Glenwood Springs was in the shadowy grasp of twilight when we pulled up in front of our B&B, a cute place on a corner a few blocks from downtown. The innkeeper was happy to see us pull up and showed us to our rooms before we headed out to find a late dinner at the local brewpub. We watched some football as we munched burgers and decided to call it a night after a few extra beers. We'd made it, arrived at our honeymoon destination we had. But walking back home that night I realized that arrival didn't signal the beginning of our honeymoon, it was only another stop along the way.

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8.8.04/Cubero, NM/

My first morning as a married man didn't start all that differently from any other morning ... only I was in a casino in the middle of nowhere next to a sleepy, sleepy Nena.

The first thought that went through my head was, "damn, I think I'm going to like this whole being married thing."

The second thought that went through my head was, "damn, Nena's going to make me help her clean up after our wedding."

Guess what? I was right on both counts.

After getting up and checking out of the hotel we headed over to Casa Fria to help her parents with the considerable set strike they had on their hands. Before that, however, we needed breakfast and the gift orgy.

One of the most amazing sights at any wedding is the Post-Nuptial Gift Orgy. You know what I'm talking about, that event, normally held on the day after the wedding, normally at the parents of the bride's home where the happy couple opens up all of the gifts they've been given. If you've never been to one of these before, you really, really need to see them. It's like a never-ending Christmas morning.

I know I sound really shallow in my description of this event, but, well, there's really no other way to discuss what goes down at this thing. It's amazing.

We feasted on the traditional Casa Fria celebration breakfast of waffles and opened some amazing gifts that put to shame the vast majority of things I've ever given anyone else for their wedding. The gift opening went on forever, Nena and I opening presents, my familia oohing and ahhing and MamaNena carefully writing down who'd given us what- starting the unenviable task of writing thank you notes. Eventually, however, there weren't any gifts left to open, Nena and I had figured out which gifts were coming with us right now and which ones we'd have to come back for at Christmas and it was time for my familia to head on out. They had a long drive back to Chicago ahead of them and the figt orgy had already kept them much longer than they had any right staying, so with the few tears we had left in, we bid them all goodbye as we stood watching them pull out of Big Papi's driveway.

I think this was the final time that it hit me- I'd actually gotten married and the first time I realized that I was married. Just as waking up to find my parents gone from our home in Chicago a few days ago announced that I was on my way to my own wedding, watching them leave Casa Fria announced that I had just gotten married and that I had one of the most interesting and unpredictable chapters of my life ahead of me.

We spent the rest of the day intermittently relaxing and taking down Christmas lights, picking up luminaria and tending to other issues one has to deal with the day after they get married. While taking down the Christmas lights Big Papi and I had one of the funniest exchanges I think we're ever going to have.

We were up in the rafters of the garage and tent cutting down the Christmas lights that my crew had zip-tied up there Friday morning. Being my friends they'd completely over engineered their solution to this particular problem causing Big Papi to turn to me and say, "Wow, never let really smart people put up Christmas lights. Damn, you'd think these friends of yours were engineers or something."

"They are." I said.

"Oh, really? Wow, it's like they sat down and planned out the best way to put up these things ."

"They did." I said.

All Big Papi could do was stand there on his ladder and stare at me. For the first time ever he'd realized exactly who'd married into his family, a geek, with geeky friends.

Overhearing this conversation and sensing Big Papi's loss for words MamaNena decided to interject.

"Oh Nenie, your friends are just so sweet."

After a full day of unwinding and takedown we sat out on the porch and drank wine as the sun went down before eventually crawling into bed. Nena and I had a big Monday planned and we needed to get a lot of sleep before it started.

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8.7.04/Cubero, NM/

When one fantasizes about their wedding, you never spend any time speculating about the mundane details. You know, those little things that have to get done, like waking up, showering and eating, that spell the difference between reality and fantasy. I guess that's the key, then, isn't it? The wedding of your dreams is fantasy, that is- reality with the mundane excised in the name of art. The wedding of your reality is much less poetic- it requires waking up next to your high school roommate in a hotel on The Rez.

Yes, none of the fantasy scenarios of my wedding day involved waking up next to Fesser at the Sky City Hotel/Casino in Acoma, Nueva Mexico. As I sprang out of bed and surveyed a suite full of high school buddies in various states of consciousness it hit me- either this was a brilliant beginning to a story about a wild night in Vegas ... or I was getting married in a few hours.

Slowly but surely the suite began to come alive. This was our tradition, one hotel suite to house all of us single members of a dormitory floor from a far away time in a far away place- a high school 7 years and 2000 miles away.

I am the second to undergo this right of passage, the second to spend the night before their wedding hanging out with men who'd seen me through some of the best and worst times of my life, men with whom conversation didn't always make sense or feel needed. Yes, I was the second who had to spend the night in a bed with Fesser.

As Fesser and I stumbled over the carnage from the previous night we thought about going down to the restaurant to grab breakfast. Yes, breakfast sounded like a great idea, but first we had a date with a hot tub.

I'm a sucker for a hot tub, especially when said hot tub is outdoors and the weather is beautiful. After last night's intense storm ripped through the area and gave the rehearsal added theatrics, the air at the base of Mount Taylor was cool and calm and the hot tub was calling me.

I don't know how long I sat out there holding court, the warm water relaxing me and the sun baking me. The hours ticked by undisturbed as friends filtered through the courtyard on their way to do something before my 5p wedding. I was in my element, talking to folks who'd heard from the rumor mill that the groom was holding office hours in the courtyard below, taking shit and letting the warm sun and warmer water relax me. I was floating, in spite of a wee headache that crept up on me and eventually made me think that a shower and food might not be a bad idea.

As I went through the process of showering and dressing my headache proceeded to worsen. Taking stock of what I'd done to my body in the previous 24 hours I deduced that my blood sugar's rapid decline must have been the culprit so I assembled the crew and wandered downstairs to the restaurant.

This is what I was talking about, in all of my daydreams about this day, I never once stopped to think about what I'd eat or where I'd eat, these mundane details of living always seemed trivial to me. But, as my headache worsened, I realized that the mundane details of living still had to be dealt with on your wedding day.

In the restaurant I ran into my Godparents who were happy to see me well rested and calm a few hours removed from my wedding. The conversation with my Godparents extended what would have been a short meal into a longer more relaxing one, seeing as how were were completely and totally underwhlemed by the food options. After lunch, the crew dispersed to get ready for the festivities. I checked into my hotel suite and went up to shower and change for my own wedding.

It was 2p which gave me two and a half hours before I had to be dressed and at the church. With time to spare and the cool darkness of the honeymoon suite calling to me, I crashed on the couch to grab a few minutes of rest. Rest, that I thought would cure the headache that was now raging between my temples and making it difficult to see straight.

An hour later I woke up to the sound of Paulb and Freesia pounding on my door.

"Shit dude, you look like ass." Freesia said, Paulb agreeing with her completely.

Which is totally not what you want your best friends to be saying two hours before your wedding. I told them of my headache and how lunch didn't fix it. "Man, you're dehydrated." Paulb blurted at me, "I'm gonna run over to the truck stop and grab you some water, Frees' you in?"

As quickly as they'd arrived, they were gone. By now, my head was throbbing so badly that I couldn't keep my eyes open in the dim light of the living room. Lying there in the darkness, I found myself panicking about the situation I'd found myself in. I was 90 minutes away from having to be at my own wedding, and I couldn't even open my eyes. The panic grew exponentially as I thought of Paulb and Freesia running through the hotel and across the parking lot in an attempt to save my wedding. Why do I say save my wedding? Because, if I didn't get bright in the next 90 minutes, things were going to get really, really ugly. My panic was so crippling, my helplessness so complete that all I could do was lie there and laugh.

Drieg hates the sound of my laughter. OK, that's overly harsh- he hates the sound of most of my laughter. OK, that didn't come out right either. What my dear brother hates are what he calls me "fake laughs." Laughs that lack the timbre Drieg deems necessary for a laugh to be authentic. Rather than debate the nature and meaning of authenticity, I listened to the sound of my own laughter, echoing out of the darkness, I found myself wishing that Drieg was there to hear this laugh. I get the feeling that he would have approved.

But why laugh? The easy answer is why not, but the real answer probably had more to do with the unintentional comedy and divine brilliance of Freesia and Paulb being the only ones who could save my wedding. Freesia who'd only made it to New Mexico because I'd cashed in my remaining favors with Jensen to score her a ticket she could scarcely afford. Paulb, who I'd felt guilty as hell about not making a groomsman, who'd always been like a brother to me, so much so that at various times it made my own little brother jealous. These two friends, these two definitive relationships of my life that occupy such a strange space in my life- their friendships overlapping chronologically in such a way that it was ludicrous that they hadn't met before yesterday.

Yup, they were the only thing standing between me and certain marital disaster.

"I'm sorry Nena, but your future husband is unable to stand due to non-alcohol induced dehydration."

I came out of my laughing fit to find Freesia and Paulb bursting through the door with a grocery bag full of cure; an enormous bottle of red flavored Gatorade and more Fiji water than I'd ever seen not on a shelf. I thanked them both profusely while slamming the Gatorade and heading off towards the shower to rinse the haze out of my head.

I stood in the shower and tried to make life better. I'd finished off the Gatorade on my way into the shower and I'd almost polished off a liter of Fiji stripping down in the bathroom. I stood under the water for a few minutes trying to untangle my temples and letting all the pressure off of them with limited, though crucial, effect. Eventually, enough haze had lifted for me to actually go about the task of getting clean.

I scrubbed every follicle on my head, every inch of skin with so much care that even in my altered state I could sense how ridiculous all of this was. I guess this is a by-product of not fantasizing about the mundane, right? You don't fantasize about showering before your wedding so when you actually DO have to shower and clean up for your own wedding you go to extraordinary lengths to make the experience memorable. It's as if you have to go to extraordinary lengths so as to stop yourself and say "Wait, I get dressed every day, why's today so special? Right. I'm getting married in a few hours."

Getting married is a slow process of realization.

Having scrubbed and buffed and shampooed, rinsed and repeated and having drank all the bottles of Fiji I'd taken into the bathroom with me, I walked out of the bathroom to find Freesia and Paulb getting ready. Having brought me back from the dead once, they weren't taking any chances with the clock running in the fourth quarter. They were going to make sure I got to my own wedding in one piece.

A few more bottles of water later we were all dressed and ready to collect my parents before assembling the rest of the crew in the lobby.

Within minutes we were all there, 10 years of friendships amassed on The Rez for my wedding. How many of us thought we'd ever arrive at such a point, my wedding. Of those liars that say they always knew they'd be at my wedding, how many of them imagined this place? Regardless of the answers we were all standing there, laughing and joking and posing seemingly unaware of what it was that awaited us later that day. Though, to look back at the pictures now, we must have had some inkling as to what awaited us farther up the mountain.

The church was filling quickly when my crew rolled up to the church. Walking into the church and saying hi to those who'd already arrived I started to wonder when was the last time Our Lady of Light had ever seen so many people at once. As I pondered this, I realized that my head had righted itself and all the hurdles between me and my wedding had been cleared- a new hurdle popped out of nowhere and blindsided me. The mariachis hadn't shown up yet.

When you're planning a wedding there are a lot of things you need to consider. The day after I proposed we agreed that we both wanted to have a full Roman Catholic wedding mass and that we wanted Nena's childhood priest, Fodder Dale, to marry us. This was the last thought we gave the service for a wicked long time, until it was time to hash out the music for the mass. I'd figured that we'd do as we'd joked about and pick our favorite hymns and have the church organist belt out a few good tunes. Only, Nena and MamaNena had other plans. They wanted mariachis.

I'd originally fought this idea on the grounds that I wasn't Mexican and MamaNena's familia swears up and down that they're not Mexican. As the discussion on the mariachi issue raged into its second month I realized how dumb it was to fight over something like wedding music so I relented and agreed to the mariachis. But now, standing at the back of the church as the clock struck 5 with no mariachis in sight, I started to wonder if maybe I should have fought a little harder.

A few weeks after Nena moved in with me I came to a really startling realization- I'd never be on time for anything else in my entire life. There's just something about Nena that makes her habitually late for everything. It got so bad this summer that I joked that if she was late for her own wedding I was going to have to reconsider marrying her; a joke that hit home because, unbeknownst to me at the time, Big Papi had made the same threat to MamaNena 27 years earlier. And unbeknownst to Nena at the time of my threat, the big difference our threats is that Big Papi actually meant his.

The big hand hit 12 as my parents and I stood in front of the church wondering where in the blue hell the mariachis were. In our impatience and growing sense of panic no one had bothered to stop and ask "where's the bride?" So when Tryst's SUV pulled up a block away from the church and started to honk, none of us interpreted it as Big Papi telling us to get the hell into the church so he could deliver the bride to her wedding on time. No, none of us had any way of knowing what it was the Big Papi wanted, so instead we stood there and waved at them for a while until it finally hit one of us; Nena was on time to her own wedding, but the mariachis were late, because Big Papi had given them Mapquest directions to a place that Mapquest didn't even know existed.

Anyone else get the irony here?

The crew eventually got the hint and retreated into the church to allow Nena to get out of the car. But there was one topic of discussion on all our minds as we stepped out of the New Mexico sunshine and into a quick huddle inside the church, "OK guys, what do we do if there aren't any mariachis?"

A few minutes after convening the huddle, we broke with everyone having their specific duties. My job was to walk over to the church organist, Nena's other mother, and inform her that she might actually have to go on with a list of songs that the rest of the crew was checking to see if they had in the Our Lady of Light hymnals. Yup. No mariachis? No problem- I'd give the assembled masses my favorite hymns baby. They'd all be there. "My Friend," "City of God," and so on. And just as I began to reflect upon how much ass my new music plan was going to kick- the mariachis pulled up. At the buzzer.

In a fit of clutch play not seen this side of Michael Jordan with a 103 fever, the mariachis walked right out of their truck and started playing as if they'd planned it this way. As the trumpets started playing and my emergency plan faded from my memory, I realized that Nena had made the right call. This was the first lesson I learned in my marriage- Nena knows what's up and I needed to trust someone else's judgment from this day forward.

The second lesson is that no one can cry when there are mariachis playing

The mass went off without a hitch and as it all unfolded in front of me I was startled by how normal it all seemed. I'd spent the day trying to make the mundane extraordinary only to find that sometimes the most amazing moments of your life announce their special status by being completely normal.

There is one thing, though. . .

I'd been told repeatedly since the day Nena and I picked a date for our wedding that everyone was going to roast during the mass. That Our Lady of Light was not built to house very many people when the mercury shot above 65; that we should expect our friends and loved ones to be passing out in the pews in the middle of our wedding.

As the mass progressed all I could think was "man, these people are wimps." I know I was supposed to be caught up in how much I loved Nena, and how happy I was to be here with those that mattered most to me in the world. But, well. It really wasn't that hot in there. Tryst had been complaining earlier about how warm it was in the church, a complaint Big Papi echoed a bit later on in the day. But as the mass wore on, I was thankful that we hadn't gotten married in a place with actual humidity. Because then, we would have really felt the heat.

Before I knew what was going on, the mass was over and it was time for Nena and I to lead a procession out of the church and to the reception. We'd thought about this particular part of the ceremony more than just about any other. Nena really wanted this part because it was one of those traditions that, along with the spanish language, fell by the wayside in the course of living through the 20th Century. Since we were bringing spanish back, she thought it only natural to bring the procession from the church to the bride's parents' home as well.

I just wanted to do it cuz it sounded really cool and was something that would set my wedding apart twenty years from now when the crew was sitting around reminiscing about each other's weddings.

As we stepped out into the sunset, the mariachis and their music accompanying us on