a perfect law and order

Sometime around 2003, I became addicted to Law and Order.
It wasn’t my gateway TV series into bad TV shows [that was probably CSI] or law school [that may have been Ally McBeal], but that may have been because I believed so strongly in the reality of the characters themselves. I believed that in a particular precinct in New York City, you can find Detective Elliot Stabler[‘s muscles] and that Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter and his questionable ethics are running after judges in the district court. The show never got the law wrong [at least not in the episodes I’ve seen], and the endless hours I spent with Detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson rendered them that much more real. To me, it wasn’t just a show; more like a mini documentary series.

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But like most perfect things, though it took me a few years, I recently noticed a small flaw: in Dick Wolf’s world, a detective’s salary can apparently fund a very roomy apartment in New York City. I understand giving the main characters some relatively nice living arrangements, but the generosity is spread out across the board. Suspicious military couple? They somehow can afford a giant two-bedroom. A victim’s sister - a young 20-something right out of college? Huge one-bedroom in Manhattan with a kitchen that isn’t crowded into a corner of her large living room [and yes there was a door between the living room and bedroom]. Depressed and unemployed victims have spacious studios with kitchens bigger than mine. As much as I love to consider Assitant District Attorney Connie Rubirosa a fellow alum of my alma mater, this glaring detail doesn’t correlate well with what I know.
And what I know is that shit in New York City - apartments in particular - is expensive. My sister once paid an arm and a leg for a doorman and a unit the size of my futon. If my sister wanted to use the bathroom and I wanted to leave the apartment, we had to squeeze around each other while navigating two doors that couldn’t open at the same time. A few years later, my sister collected some sanity and a few roommates for something with a living room and windows that didn’t face nowhere, but that also came with the discomfort of knowing that she was never quite alone. My sister eventually waved the white flag by moving to Brooklyn, but I suspect the idea of living in Manhattan remains romantic for her. But by now she knows better than to expect Law & Order-esque living arrangements on anything less than a banker’s salary.

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Reality is always disappointing like that, the sting of betrayal smarting that much more when the source was someone you trusted [Dick Wolf, I believed in you...!]. The “large apartments in Manhattan” fantasy of L&O was a reminder of this consistent failure of the perfect, but that didn’t keep the demolition ball of dismay from swinging through me when I was informed that several crucial moving parts that I’ve been relying on are currently breaking down. Mostly all at the same time.
It’s not so much that I didn’t know better, but like my blind faith in L&O storylines, I chose not to admit the inevitable. Until multiple people pointed out my glaring denial regarding my chain [“it’s really stretched out...”], tires [“...there’s a lot of stuff in these...and they’re getting squared off...”], and brake pads [“you might want to change those soon”]. I responded with shock, while friends that probably think I should know better tried to ease the shock. “That’s good, it means you’re riding your bike,” they said every time as I fantasizing about violently shaking a personification of my IF. “But you said you would last forever,” I imagined screaming to my frame and fork, “doesn’t that apply to all of your other parts?!”

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It doesn’t, of course, but that didn’t keep me from feeling cheated as the predictable parts wore down, the purchase of replacements bleeding my bank account drier. It’s not like I wasn’t familiar with the fact that all things worthwhile require care, love, and maintenance. I simply chose to forget that a measure of realism as to their perceived perfection is also required. But like TV shows that involve the likes of Forensic Technician Ryan O’Halloran, it’s easy to forget when something so pretty is involved.
I still - passive-aggresively, perhaps - have yet to replace those brake pads. It's stupid, I know, because stopping is important, and brake pads aren't exactly going to break the bank. I keep putting it off though, telling myself that they'll be fine for another few rides or another hundred miles. It lacks reason and logic, but those worn down pads also serve as a reminder: that perfect things should always remain [and always will be] a little bit imperfect.

of romance novels and road rides

Recently, like most women my age who are somewhat unemployed but can cobble together a coherent sentence, I’ve entertained the idea of trying my hand at writing a romance novel [or ten]. This may be part of my continued counterintelligence operations against the parental institution, like how I am currently refusing to even linger on the idea of having children, getting married, or otherwise leading a stable life with steady income of my own. But it may also have something to do with the fact that I have a pen name picked out, a plot that can too easily turn into a series, and a willingness to watch enough porn/read enough romance novels to be able to write a sex scene in my sleep. Not that kind of sleep.
In my mental databank, I have a slew of plotlines involving sexy, alpha-male neo-pros, a few beta-male mechanics, the Spring Classics, sweaty bib shorts and chamois cream [because, of course, my novels would involve cyclists]. There are dramas involving embrocation and bad boy messengers, spectacular crashes and consequent rescues, and possiby a three-way with bi-curious podium girls. But at the end of the day, everyone would get either a diamond ring, a future spouse, endless phenomenal sex, or a similar form of guaranteed happiness.

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Like J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series, these future best-selling ideas came to me randomly, between soft-pedaling to the grocery store and sipping my usual Americano at Cafe Fixe as I blankly stared out the window. The latter may have been the subtle impetus, as every Tuesday night [back then], from 5.30 in the evening, clusters of Lycra-ed cyclists would spin their way up Beacon to the Cassidy Field parking lot for the Landry’s Tavern Ride. As a modern-day damsel - but one that was not yet capable of distress on a bicycle - I sighed wistfully as I watched them, realization of speed and power still a vague concept confined in my fantasies.
Over two years later, I had a road bike, but remained the vigilent stalker of the Landry’s Tuesday night rides [which had by then turned into the Greenline Velo Wednesday night rides]. I watched the procession up Beacon Street on those Wednesday evenings, my IF safely tucked away in my apartment. Like a deeply self-conscious cross-dresser, I chose to pull out the tools of my fetishized hobby only in towns that were a safe distance from the one in which I lived. I happily rode to Lexington to get my legs ripped off early Sunday mornings but when Wednesday evenings came around, I could be found in yoga pants and a t-shirt, concealing revealing tan lines. And, you know, casually watching the group ride gather in a totally non-creepy way.

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But every stalker has his/her breaking point. Though this usually manifests itself in some violent act against the stalkee, I chose to tamely come out of hiding. I slapped on some chamois cream, bibbed and zippered up and headed out toward Cassidy Field a few Wednesdays ago. If worst came to worst, I told myself, I had a cell phone, enough friends that could probaby pick up/tell me how to get home, and if need be, an excuse to sputter out between retching up my afternoon snack. In this worst case scenario, where a ride leader might be stuck caring for me, I’d explain between heaves that I was a “writer,” and hope that the implication of being mostly deskbound would relieve me of any obligation to be “athletic,” or otherwise capable of hanging onto a medium pace ride. If Bill Strickland came up, I figured splattering a little vomit on the mentioner’s shoes should be enough of a distraction.
Yes, me of so little faith and so many excuses. All over a sub-two hour ride that, to be honest, wasn’t nearly as terrifying as I’d imagined.
The ride is a 24-ish mile loop with a few fun climbs and a crap ton of descending. Everyone separated into smaller groups by speed with 3-4 Greenline Velo team members leading each group [it’s a no-drop ride in the sense that you’ll get picked up by the group behind you if you get completely dropped]. With a morning ride already under my belt that day, I stuck to the 16-19mph medium pace group and expected to just barely hang on. To, in fairy tale speak, play the role of the helplessly persecuted princess who needed saving [mostly from herself].
I didn’t realize the irony of my mostly-white IF stallion, or that I was riding it, as opposed to being captured somewhere and crying. I believed - and still do - that my legs are generally ineffectual. But when we hit our first climb, I felt a surge of uncharacteristic faith; some sort of hope that maybe not all my friends were lying to me when they said I wasn’t such a terrible climber.

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Besides, when you’re on a bike and the road suddenly turns upwards, there’s not much to do but clip in and dig in. I got to the top, didn’t fall over and immediately die, require resuscitation, or otherwise embarrass myself. My lungs were in a bit of distress but not to the point of princely rescues and/or swooning. And just knowing that I could haul my weight around with a group of strangers who were probably less forgiving than my friends was pretty awesome.
No longer the classic damsel in distress, I tried not to wheel suck too much and closed gaps without someone else leading the way. Because while being helpless can be fun in that it absolves you of responsibility, it will never teach you how to exist outside fantasies of royal co-dependence. Or how to hang on to a group ride.
This realization saturated hopes of a career as a romance novelist as it slowly dawned on me: I’m not sure I will ever understand the desire to mold relationships into the ideal where happiness comes in the form of a diamond ring and offspring. Which, in romance novel terms, means my future books may not be bestselling successes.
...but hey, who said that I couldn’t do research every Wednesday night?