Day: November 27, 2007

Sorry!

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g has learned to be Sorry. she did not learn it from us, but i’m pretty sure they taught her at daycare. sometimes on the daily report when there are tales of biting and hitting, the teachers note that they make G go say sorry to whomever she has attacked, or vice versa. i thought the teachers’ writing that they made her say sorry was bullshit that they tell parents lest we think its a Hobbesian war of all-against-all in the 1’s room, but clearly that is not so. She understands that you say sorry when you upset someone — its still not clear to me that she understands how to hurt someone or upset someone or when something is disapproved of. but for sure once it is clear to her that she has done wrong, out comes the sorry.

the fact that this can be taught is yet another instance of how well socialized daycare helps G to be. and it makes me question so many ideas such as if not hurting one’s own kind is nature vs. nurture? Is empathy learned, unlearned, or simply natural? when to introduce kids to skills so that the skills develop and flourish putting her always ahead of where she might otherwise be? are popular people popular at an early age cause they know how to socialize, or are they just all really hot?

this morning i was dozing and she was jumping on my head and pounding me with toys and ramming her giant baby head under my pillow to go “helloooooooooooooo”. mostly i let it slide, since after all i was trying to sleep off 4 days of partying in Mexico, and it seemed quite white trashy to take it out on G; sleeping late was white trashy enough. but when she smacked me in the head with her plastic dog, i barked at her. Sorry! Then again and again the rest of the moring and evening – when she spilled, when she threw food, when she took all the clothes out of the dresser.   Sometimes she is sorry towards inanimate objects.   She will apologize to the cabinet for banging into it, and the dishes from dropping them.
sorry is such a loaded word, and G such a novice to the art of tone and reflection, that it always comes out funny. Sometimes it sounds earnest, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes very small and sometimes very confident, sometimes very perfunctory, sometimes very false, and sometimes so soulful that i want to weep and forgive her whatever her sins. except when she attacks me with her giant baby head.

geronimo!!

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i am tired. i did not want to ride much, but have to cram in whatever i can Tues and Wed cause we are traveling again this weekend. did i mention i was tired? and bloated and unmotivated and still possibly hungover, behind at work, behind on fixing things, i am even somehow behind on Heroes as it went from Season 2 Episode 1 to Episode 9 fuck fuck fuck!

i am determined to take advantage of the weather, my work locale while it lasts, and to break up horrible workdays with riding when i know the workday will be horrible. G helped me buff the scrapes in my fork stanchion this AM, and not much to her displeasure, so the Heckler was ready to go.

On the trail by 3:40 not bad, armored up because now i have em and feel like i gotta use em, and a bit ornery. i just didn’t exactly want to hit National again. after a ride where you take your falls but learn stuff, sometimes its better to fall somewhere else to let all the learning sink in. Up Javalina steadily and began to clear my head, at which point i decided what i really needed was to stretch myself on Geronimo. cool, some excitement and challenge to fire me up, put some of these skills to use and make baking in these pads worth the climb. What a great idea!

What a terrible idea! I hadn’t been on Geronimo in 2.5 years since coming back from Moab in ’05 all sharp and skilled. Yeah i knew on paper it was just a tad harder than National and i was a far better rider on a far better bike, but what kind of idiot feeling sluggish just on a lark rides a DH trail by himself in fading light when no one knows where he is going?

the kind of idiot needing motivation and a scare, to force himself into improving. So that was the theme for the next hour as I worked up Mormon and up National. I committed to my lifts, and got all but the very last tiny lift on the Upper Waterfall in one stretch (and i get that all the time, i was just tired and didn’t fight hard enough flush with my success thus far). I thought about calling Beckie or Byron so someone would know where i’m going, but that seemed annoying, and after a short stop at the saddle above BV to put my sunglasses away, too much effort to dig out the phone again.   the pressure was good.

So off i went, and it was not bad. It was easier than i remember, and while i was a far better rider on a far better bike, i tried to just get comfortable and not let fear even creep in. when the comfort zone expands, the fear stays out, and riding gets easy. but sometimes you have to fake it, and more importantly, sometimes you have to practice and earn it. this was good practice, and fun. i just rolled in control and stayed off the left brake if it killed me. though not as fun as National – it rolls and creeps, down mild slots and staircases, but nothing really ass-over-the-back-of-your-seat or freeride fun. its steady with some challenges and switchbacks, and at the end its a long stretch of rockface best not to stop let alone fall, as you will skid down the rock slots, but i handled it all well. i never really let it rip cause i was on a DH trail by myself in fading light when no one knew where i was going, but following someone would have been faster for sure — i was comfy! be cool honeybunny. I dabbed on several switchbacks, a combination of riding conservatively and not being sure what was around the next bend, but on the whole a very good job i should likely clean it all next time.

on the ride back i was inspired to work on my yurination:

yurination
— noun

  1. stringing together ridiculously local sections of knowledge to avoid cars and have a great ride.
  2. a route that assembles aforementioned sections.

Yuri and his pals likely have a better phrase for this, or more tease-worthy uses of this phrase. But until i am so enlightened, it is so dubbed in recognition to the still-warm feeling i have from that fun day and the fine gentleman who put it together, and its continuing mileage as a source of punnery. a back street through the Boy Scout Camp to South Mountain drive to 28th St., then a canal til about 42nd. There is better canaling to do cars were not on the north side near the office, and i think i can get back on Javalina at 46th St…another goal for the next time on this route!

Happy 21st Birthday!

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I scored a pair of suite-level tix to the Sun-Knicks game on 11-3, and since G is under 3 she gets in free. We had attented the Sun-Cavs game a week earlier, in the 10th row just spitting distance from Jerry Colangelo’s seats, courtesy of Cox Communications. For that game we left G at home. But in the box, there is room to run and people are pretty mellow about comings and goings. on the whole we likely were a bit of a distraction to the other suite-goers, but not to the point that i felt bad about it. a little bad, but not too bad.I got the tix about 1:30, so we planned quickly to get home and get to the arena. It was hectic, but worth it. No photos and no beer for G, but a good day was had.

Watching the Suns twice live so close together was great. It is so much more amazing being so close to the action, and these games were early-season without much intensity. Steve Nash is a fucking phenom up close, his speed is amazing and not just fast legs but fast hands, arms, feet!   The vision and touch is also incredible.   it made me want to watch more games up close. Colangelo absoltely has the best seat in the house.

G did not drink (in public), so i celebrated 21 enough for both of us.   Sweet suite beer.