a different design
A classmate turned to me yesterday and asked:
"Okay, is the tie terrible?"
He was dressed in a dark gray suit and white collared shirt with dark blue stripes for a job interview. The tie was an olive green paisley kind of affair, and was honestly really, really ugly.
"I mean, I know it's bad," he said, "but is it like interview-losing bad?"
I gave my honest opinion that it was pretty bad, but he probably didn't need to run home for another one, before realizing that he was talking about the state of the tie, not the color or design. He had gotten it wet earlier. Oops. I played it off like that was exactly what I was talking about before retreating behind my laptop. I know, I'm such a bitch.
It's not like I'm one to talk, either. I show up to school these days in a mish-mash of whatever looks like it's going to keep me insulated and warm. And while I knit a red hat a few years ago to match my Patagonia jacket, that's the extent of any color/design/brand name coordination. I'm sure people are giving me points for creativity, or for the boldness involved in wearing heinous outfits, but like split kits that can give rise to Twitter battles, I worry that I'm doing it all wrong.
Granted, I can put a half-decent outfit together if I had to, but the thing is that cycling doesn't seem to track the fashion world very neatly. It defies that old adage that one should always take off two accessories before walking out the door. Instead, I feel like I'm piling them on: Rapha Winter Collar, Outlier cap, my own knit hat, gloves, an extra set of clothes in my bag, layers of Underarmour...a massive silver Ortlieb bag, white helmet, and dark green bike on top of it all. Everything clashes.
Add to this the fact that I'm mixing brands. Not that it would be obvious to the untrained eye, but given the fact that the gentlemen of Rapha only seem to wear Rapha, can their gear be feasibly combined with Underarmour? Is that as tacky as wearing Chanel and pairing it with Coach shoes and a Louis Vuitton bag? Or as weirdly unsettling as seeing an Asian girl dressed up as a cowgirl? Even with all the neutral colors that bike gear comes in, is there some hidden "omg-she's-trying-way-too-hard" when you end up wearing all the gear you own at once because it's just that damn cold?
My classmate left in the middle of class for his job interview, and I wondered if the tie was really going to affect his chances. Not negatively, I hoped, because although he didn't seem too interested in the job in the first place, even I'd feel bad if that happened because of the tie. But taking off my Outlier hat at home so I could pull the Rapha Winter Collar over my head, and feeling a tad self-conscious about it all, I remembered a quote from none other than Coco Chanel:
"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."
I can live with that. I can definitely live with that.
[Yay Friday! Yay Rapha! Yay Rapha Scarf Friday!]
how i roll
Back when my mother was still deluding herself into thinking I had some musical promise, she would send me to weekly piano lessons. I don't actually remember being presented with the concept of "choice" in this decision. I was supposed to learn how to play piano. End of story.
I was maybe six or seven at the time. In the living room of my piano teacher, I would alternate between awkwardly trying to navigate the stretch of white and black keys and sitting in a chair, writing out the rhythm of whatever my teacher would play. And while regulated to invalid-child-with-epilepsy status, I absolutely could not sit still.
It was one of those days where I was supposed to write out rhythms when it happened. I was seated on a wooden chair but had tucked my legs underneath me so that I was perched on my shins. My toes stuck out of that narrow space between the seat of the chair and its back. I was fidgeting, and as I shifted in my seat, a heel got caught in the back of the chair. I panicked, pulled and struggled. The chair wobbled as I fought it, then fell back, me stuck to it, and the back of my head smashed against my piano teacher's glass coffee table.
She totally freaked out.
A few stitches later, I was fine. I actually remember wondering why we weren't just continuing the piano lesson.
Two decades later, I've come to terms with sitting for long stretches of time, but that doesn't mean I don't hate it. And a 12 hour school day means that while I'm not on my butt the whole time, by the time I get home, the only thing I want to do is eat something decent and be horizontal for an extended period of time [preferably for more than 6 hours].
But yesterday, I came home, peeled off restricting clothing, and hopped right back onto a bike. With the weather turning positively freezing and the heat turning my apartment into a sauna, unlike the true road warriors who are shunning the indoor trainer at all costs, I'm hiding inside, rolling happily. Ironically, the stacks of books smothering my desk and every flat surface in my apartment, along with the "to do" list that never ends, is pushing me into higher gears [literally]. The mental image of that adorable Phil Wood 12T cog helps, too.
So after a make-up class that ended at 7.15pm last night, nursing a headache from incomprehension of corporate taxation, starving, and exhausted, I rolled for a little bit. And despite the sweating, I realized that it doesn't burn so much on my increased gearing. I actually might be getting used to it.
I stretched properly for once afterwards, and because I like cylindrical things, even rolled out my IT bands with my new favorite toy - a giant foam roller. My legs felt happy, even if I couldn't wait to dive into bed a few hours later.
And in case you were wondering, I slept like a baby.
collaring perfection
It's only human nature to be sort of resentful of people that make everything look effortless. They accomplish things ordinary mortals somehow can't; they look good the second they wake up, they glow with the kind of charisma that's reserved for the truly cool, and everyone thinks that everything they do is either awesome or adorable or both.
They're so goddamn perfect, they make you puke a little in your mouth every time you think of them.
So forgive me if I sighed a little in exasperation when a familiar Fedex package greeted my return home a few days ago. I may have even rolled my eyes a bit. But between you and me, that's mostly because handling anything Rapha makes me feel [even now] sort of...frumpy.
Because Rapha is polished. Almost blindingly so. And what's worse is that polished perfection actually delivers.
Which explains even Competitive Cyclist's inability to fully criticize Rapha. Even with the excessively stylish way in which Rapha riders apparently change a flat, and the prevalence of the word "gentleman" in their events [but then again, the Rapha Ladies' Club would sound either like a geriatric brothel or a really skanky male strip club], somehow they're not completely out of touch with reality. That's not to say they're perfect - until they get a women's line in production, even I won't give them that - but given their fairly large range of products, there's almost a surprising amount of thought instilled in each piece.
But lack of a women's line isn't the reason for my frumpy feelings. It's like being lined up next to a supermodel; she can be the nicest thing in the world but she's still a goddamn supermodel. It's not her fault that her biological luck makes me feel depressingly self-conscious, but it still does. So when I opened my presents from Portland to find a Winter Collar and a sick bottle opener from Rapha's "Stars and Watercarriers" event, my first thought was:
"My giant Asian head is not going to fit through this [Winter Collar, not the long chain the bottle opener came with]."
It actually did, though. Quite easily, in fact. And Rapha apparently being scarily clairvoyant, yesterday morning was cold and rainy; the kind of weather where cotton bandannas or silk scarves simply do not cut it. Puddled around my neck, peeking out from the top of my jacket, the Winter Collar's silky wool is about 5 million times better than a heavy, slightly suffocating wool scarf and about 10 million times better than zipping my fleece jacket all the way up and then having the zipper jab that part where my head connects to my throat and consequently feeling like I'm a few sensations away from choking.
But the inadvertent discovery of the Winter Collar's best feature was all courtesy of the annoying rain pelting my face. Out of habit, I pulled up whatever was around my neck to cover the lower half of my face, and if it wasn't for the morning traffic, I would have stopped to gape and caress.
Because unlike the fleece balaclava that I formerly could not live without, the elastic of the Winter Collar doesn't crush my nose - an extremely important fact when you spent your childhood with a clothespin on it to make it as pointy as possible. That might have been enough to win me over completely, but there's more. The almost-sheer weight of the wool means that breathing though the fabric doesn't result in the lower half of your face becoming a suffocating sauna. And unlike that now-detestable balaclava, even pulled over half my face, the collar keeps neck and collarbone protected from the elements.
I almost didn't want to take it off when I got to school, despite the self-consciousness involved in wearing Rapha. But checking Twitter, I came across the latest tweet from shitmydadsays:
"That woman was sexy...Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won't screw you, don't do it for them."
If Rapha wants to be involved with my neck, maybe I really shouldn't question it...
an empire state of mind
I never believed in taking "breaks" from a relationship. When friends would tell me that they were "going on a break" from their [once] significant others, it always just sounded like they were "going on a [really drawn out path towards] break[ing up]."
Of course, it takes falling in love really hard to finally see that periodic absences are sometimes a good thing, and that any intense kind of soul-wrenching love will, at a certain point, get slightly suffocating. Not that it's not hard; but a little time away can make the heart grow fonder...or at least fond enough where quirks are once again charming as opposed to annoying, and you can politely laugh at not-so-funny jokes, instead of rolling your eyes.
So when I arrived in NYC and had to climb five flights of stairs with an Ortlieb bag that weighed almost half my weight and the tractorino that is my bike, I almost gladly used it as an excuse to take some time off the bike. For a full weekend.
Incredible, right? Even I was amazed. But I somehow told myself that this foreign concept of walking more than 20 feet a day was going to be good for me. I'll be using muscles that I just don't use when I'm sitting on my bike or sitting in front of my computer or sitting around with friends. I'll see things that I'll zoom past on a bike. It'll be like riding my bike for the first time to school, I told myself, except slower, and I'll be working my pathetically weak core...!
I wasn't totally wrong. My legs were dead by the end of each day, and climbing those five flights of stairs multiple times a day worked my thighs and glutes harder than my rollers. I realized I could still walk several miles without my legs falling off, but also, how much easier/faster/more efficient/less painful it is to ride a bike.
But I also saw things that I wouldn't have seen on a bicycle. A peculiar man wrapped in some knit garment, hanging out on a crowded corner by Union Square, my legs fully covered in proper pants [not leggings], and despite the bike-friendly reputation of NYC [at least as compared to Boston], walking into Stumptown coffee was way easier sans bike.
Still, I missed the love of my lifey. Or at least riding her...which, given my sometimes-rocky-always-schizophrenic relationship with my bike, is enough to have me jumping back into the saddle. I love New York - and oh the pounds I'd shed if I lived and walked there! - but for today, I'm a little bit glad to be headed back to Boston, where an empty fridge means an excuse to spend that much more time with my two-wheeled wonder.
Sometimes, we all just need a little time away.
i'm sorry scarf friday
I know, I'm using this "busy" excuse again...
[And yes, those are two scarves. Just because.]
I'm sorry. Forgive me, please. I'll be blogging my little fingers off properly next week. I'll even post on Columbus Day.
Have a good weekend!