Two Very Different Organized Rides

Between Naked Bike Ride Saturday and Tour de Cure on Sunday, I rode about 80 miles in two days this weekend. I'm pretty convinced that I could do 50 miles a day for an extended period at this point. I was sore after the weekend, but those were two days of non-stop forty mile rides. If I rode 25 or 30 miles, took a leisurely lunch break, and did another 25 or 30, I think I'd feel fine. I could possibly go further than that even. So that makes me feel good.

On the naked ride, I bailed from the ride at the halfway point and headed back to Evanston. I was having a fun time, but not nearly so much as during the first two years. As we stopped for the halfway break, I decided that, with a really early day on Sunday (I was getting up at 5:30), and without the energy and thrill of prior years, it would be good to head home and get to bed. I did get an official photo taken with Danae's wonderful bodypaint; I should be able to find that and share it soon. I would like to do it again next year, but only, I think, if I can find someone(s) to ride with. That would be a blast! But otherwise, I guess I just feel like I've already ridden through downtown Chicago and up through Boystown butt naked three times now; it's nothing new. I think that without the novelty, there's much less appeal; instead, I want to seek new experiences.

Tour de Cure was a good experience, and I want to again thank everyone who donated and helped make it possible. I feel deeply positive about helping fundraise for something that's not only an objectively important and valuable undertaking, but also one that's deeply personally important to me, since my father has been diabetic since he was a boy.

The supported ride was a fun experience. Having food and drinks after each ten mile leg of the route was pretty awesome. It was also not a surprise, but still made me really happy, to see that the rest stops had things like sharps disposal containers and alcohol swabs for people who need to inject. There were also groups of people congratulating arriving riders and thanking them for riding. Lots of feel-good stuff! Apart from that though, it was basically a forty mile bike ride. The route was really pretty and wooded in parts, and wound through large farm fields in others, and it was a lot of fun to see the different sights. But generally speaking, if I want to make a forty mile ride, I can just go up to the Botanic Gardens and back on my own schedule. The additional parts of the organized ride didn't really give me a thrill. I like the idea of doing fundraising work, and I might do that again when I'm in better headspace and can be more organized about it. But doing large organized rides for their own sake seems to be another thing that, unless I have people I'm doing it with, isn't really worth it to me. Anyway, I did the forty miles in about three and a half hours, mostly finding another group of riders around my own speed and traveling along with them. I liked the brief bits of chatting I did with other riders. Maybe if I'm feeling more social I could manage to make some ride-long friends at least at these things.

Selling a Bike

I'm selling a bike! If you know anyone who might be interested, please feel free to pass the info along. (I'm also selling a hydraulic trainer for $80.)

It's a vintage 1980s Japanese road bike. Make and model are Takara Advantage. It's got a lugged 4130 cro-moly steel frame. It has 27" steel wheels. They will take 700c tubes but not tires; you could also replace them with modern 700c wheels. It's a 12-speed geartrain with stem-mounted friction shifters. I adjusted and lubed them, but they might need new cables sooner or later. It probably needs new brake pads too; the ones on it work but aren't very grippy.

It's a really pretty bike. All red and white, with white-wrapped drop bars. It's the prettiest, sportiest bike I've ever owned, and I kind wish I had room to keep it. Let me know if you're interested! I'll get some pictures soon, hopefully this week. I'm going to put it on craigslist soon too. I'm looking for $100 for it.

Thanks!

Exploring motivation and emotion

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my experiences and feelings to date regarding relationships, dating, and play. As I've written about before, they are areas that I'd really like to expand my experiences within. I've been putting off serious exploration of such things for years, with various distractions and responsibilities. I'm finally in a reprieve from those distractions and responsibilities. Still, this does not seem to be a good time for that exploration.

It's really hard for me to say no to people. Especially people who I feel any personal connection to. This has put me in situations where I endangered myself in real and significant ways, emotionally and physically, rather than say no. Beyond that, I feel very strong obligation to make people happy, even at the expense of significant time and effort, or in ways that are contrary to my own feelings once I figure out what they are, usually at some later time. It also means that I very rarely, if ever, feel confident in asking for things that I want from a relationship, or an individual experience. Sometimes I can't do it at all.

I also have a hard time figuring out how I feel about people and situations. If someone expresses an interest in me, I typically have never really given a thought to how I feel about them in that context. Evaluating such things is a complicated and time-consuming process for me, but I feel on the spot to respond right away. So I instinctively respond in a positive, and perhaps encouraging, way. I don't want them to feel bad, and my need to not make someone else feel bad becomes my most powerful motivation at that point. Other stuff, I work out later.

It also seems like I have a pattern of rationally constructing a model of how I should behave, and of what kind of relationships and experiences I would like to have. Then I disregard, or subconsciously/deliberately misinterpret, emotional states that are contrary to that model. That has led me to decide to do things that I told myself that I should rationally want to do, even when I felt very uncomfortable about them emotionally.

All of those things together suggest that seeking new romantic partners or play partners is more problematic and more potentially dangerous for me than it is for most people. (Because let's face it; these things are always potentially problematic and dangerous.) Danae has said that, given my need and obligation to please people I know, it might even be safer for me to play with strangers than with friends. I think I agree, which feels really strange for me to say since I don't really care for the idea of playing with strangers. And even with strangers, I don't trust myself to stand up for myself in ways I might need to to keep from feeling used or objectified.

I have strong motivation to figure this stuff out for myself. It seems like most of my adult life that I've wanted to be a part of these communities, and I sometimes wonder whether I ever will. Its frustrating and sad. But I don't think I can do it in a safe way at present.

I also think that a lot of this is connected to some difficulties in making decisions that I have in a lot of areas of life. That it is potentially a factor in my choice of masters program, for instance. I've said for a while that I may have made that choice more out of obligation than personal preference, and I have some interesting ideas now about where that obligation might have come from, at least in part.

But that's another post.

So that's some of the stuff I'm going to work on in therapy.

I'm fortunate in having a wonderful partner who is loving and supportive through all of this. As I've told her, there is no one I would rather be monogamous-by-circumstance with!