How old were you when you learned how to ride a bicycle? Five, perhaps? Maybe eight, or ten, if you were a slow learner. How old was I when I learned how to ride? Um, nineteen. How old am I now? Twenty. You know that cliched adage that people sometimes throw out - “x is just like riding a bike - once you learn, you never forget.” I’ve always hated that adage. It doesn’t really seem to apply to people who never learned in the first place.

You might ask why I didn’t learn. It was probably a combination of things - the fact that I lived on a dirt road, and my mom told me at one point that she didn’t want to give me a bike for fear that I would fall and scrape myself on the sand; or the fact that my sister and I were giant pussies about things like that (my sister, as far as I know, still does not know how to ride a bike). Whatever the reason, by the time I decided that I wanted to be like the cool kids and learn how to ride, I felt like I was too old. I was in middle school, a mortifying enough time without having to worry about being caught on a bike with training wheels. The ability to bike ride remained on my list of things that I had never learned how to do, such as play chess and add numbers in my head.

The boyfriend, however, wouldn’t stand for that, and taught me how to ride last year. I must have looked incredibly ridiculous, on a bike too big for me, helmeted and padded and looking like an enormous third-grader in my overalls. I certainly felt like an enormous third-grader; little kids with their parents zipped by me as I struggled to get on the stupid thing. Balance is not my strong point. I learned, sort of, and then forgot, as I didn’t have the money to get a bike of my own. Fast-forward to yesterday, when I got a bike for $20. “Great,” said the boyfriend. “Let’s go ride.”

Amazingly enough, that cliche is true - I still knew how to ride (well, sort of). We rode around campus with my roommate Kristen, cheating and taking the elevator when we came to a major uphill point. It’s not true what they say about Kansas being flat as a pancake; 50% of them just happen to be concentrated on and around our campus (the rest being the Flint Hills, of course). I did fine, despite the fact that I panicked every time I saw a car and hopped off the bike. Oops. Also, I managed to hit every pothole and bump in the ground - not because I didn’t see them, but because I panicked so much about hitting them that I ended up steering towards them. Again, oops. My bum really hurts now from riding, and I’ve got wicked monster mosquito bites from riding around at twilight. But at least now I can affirm that I know how to ride a bike - and therefore, am able to do something that my sister can’t (take that, Claire!).

This title feature, while cool at first, really just serves as a reminder of my creative bankruptcy. I don’t want to turn it off, though - that would be giving up. I think after this, I’m going to start using randomly generated words and stick them in.

As for this weekend - I told my friend Jess about the disappointing turnout at Bloomsday, and lamented the lack of whiskey and enthusiasm in the reading of Ulysses. Whereupon Jess came up with an idea - “I know! Let’s have a party at my place on Friday night, and we’ll get trashed and read James Joyce!” The theme expanded to become a drunken Irish poetry reading, and the boyfriend and I headed to the creepy library to check out books for the party (we are, indeed, that nerdy). It’s not so creepy when there’s other people with you, thank goodness. Anyway, we ended up only reading one poem, and spent the rest of the time just drinking and talking. I’m not much of a bar-fly; dancing is fun, but not when people spill beer on your cute shoes, and drunken frat boys come and accost you. Just drinking with a few friends is nicer; I had a lot of fun that night. And a raging hangover in the morning, might I add. I spent the rest of Saturday recuperating, for the most part.

Yesterday I went with the boyfriend to look for apartments in the fall. We drove by a place that had a “for rent” sign, and also a garage sale. It turned out the place wasn’t for rent, but the people were really nice - they’re leaving in a month, and are basically looking to get rid of their stuff. They said, “Name a price, and we’ll give it to you.” I ended up getting a bicycle, helmet and lock; a DVD player; and an office chair, for $35, all the money that we collectively had on us. Score. And all of this was cheaper than a haircut at Beauty Brands, too (bleh).

Thursday the boyfriend and I, along with another girl who we don’t know very well, are driving up to St. Paul/Minneapolis for an environmental conference called “Bringing the Church back to the Earth.” I’m going, despite the fact that I’m agnostic, because I’m the ecojustice coordinator at my local volunteering center. Hopefully they’re cool with that (they should be, if they’re progressive Christians). I’m excited, of course, because it’s Minnesota and that’s how I hooked up with the boyfriend in the first place (on a drama trip, which is a long story for another time). I’m a bit terrified, too, cause I’ve never even driven to Kansas City, let alone Minnesota. As long as we get on a nice stretch of highway, hopefully empty of people and deer, with cruise control, I should be fine, right?