August

It would be convenient for everything over the course of the last year or so to have a more or less linear narrative flow, to be some logical progression of events that make sense from one to another. Life unfortunately is not obligated to make sense, and sometimes the narrative is just a plotless recounting of a bunch of incidents. Or that's how it feels right now.

Said past year has been mentally and emotionally dominated by an ultimately unsuccessful term teaching at one of the private schools on the Upper East Side, and the less said about it the better. Suffice to understand that pedagogical skills that are appreciated on the postsecondary level don't necessarily work well in a high school, and my traditionally questionable senses of fortune and destiny situated me with a department head with whom I could barely communicate, never mind connect. By the time I was able to get a sense of what was going on and how to run things the powers that be had made their own decisions, and so enough about that.

The followup situation is in an increasingly frustrating holding pattern. Yes, I'm scheduled for at least something this fall, but a flock of applications sent to what seemed like certain full-time situations continues to decompose and fail piece by piece with few viable new opportunities becoming evident. Wait and see.

Said waiting and seeing means that any number of other potential situations and developments are also getting pushed back or sidelined, and that lack of certain initiative along with the effects of the inevitable entropy of life is taking its toll.

So the Passat is gone, donated to some charity organization after not really running for a year and being allowed to turn into what would have been a classic B5 money pit even with a recently rebuilt front suspension because the electrics were starting to get very troublesome. The Jetta is gone, thirty-six months marked one payment at a time, capped with both the realization that I have no idea if I even will need a car in all its burden and frustration in the City anytime soon and the very real idea that for its acquisition cost of about ten thousand dollars I am very able to buy something with much more spirit and character (and much better throttle response). Action on that front waits to be informed about the commuting situation when it is resolved.

On top of all that then there's the case of Schrödinger's Honda.

So yes! On a rainy but still sublime April 22nd of this year I finally, finally, finally became an honest-to-God-and-Mike-Hailwood motorcycle owner and rider. Some twenty-eight years of waiting and wishing and reading magazines - all the way back to Motorcyclist's December 1990 upcoming model-year special! - and the MSF course and cringing at bank statements and those aforementioned senses of fortune and destiny finally bowed to an indomitable strength of will (and a fully paid-off credit card) and the availability of a last-year's CB300F for well under MSRP at New York Honda-Yamaha. (Great folks, tell Chris I sent you.)

I'm sure I've mentioned before about how I tend to take things entirely too seriously, so having Everyone's Official Choice For Best Starter Bike as my first just seemed like the way to go. Except in this case it actually was, given how anything with any more power would have made my little idiot newbie mistakes into something much more damaging. Would still love to know what combination of brake and throttle and weight transfer got me into that very unintentional monster hoik of a wheelie while splitting along the Queensboro Bridge a week or so into the whole program, but I remain glad that none of the witnesses were carrying badges.

It was great for commuting to school once I learned to sprint up the West Side Highway and exit at 96th then head across the park, because nothing made me question the whole idea of having this thing like waddling through an endless series of dementedly sequenced red lights. It was pretty good on the Interstates, although I think the rear tire needs to run at slightly higher pressure and the preload needs to be cranked up a bit to feel more stable. Not a ton of power, but enough for right now. Super-neutral handling, zero tendency to fall into corners or misbehave under braking, pretty good seat. Just a nice all-around small bike.

It was stolen off the street in the early morning hours of May 24th, so just over a month and about 530 miles after I got it.

It was impounded by the NYPD a week later when some absolute moron was caught riding it downtown, ignition wired open, no license plate. Said operator also had no driver's license, which just makes the whole thing even more special. No clue what happened to the front brake disc, last seen by me as I was attaching a decently stout Abus disc lock.

No clue what shape it's in at all, since it remains in the possession of the normally very anti-motorcycle New York Police Department. I've already testified before the grand jury in the state's effort to bring the aforementioned moron up on felony possession of stolen property charges, and am apparently waiting for said moron's defense attorney to either exercise or waive her right to inspect the bike for whatever reasons she may deem appropriate for her case.

I'm all for due process, but it's been more than two months and I want my damn bike back. This was supposed to be the summer that I spent learning how to ride decently well, heading up to Harriman and Bear Mountain a few times a week just to get onto some twisty roads and have some too-long-deferred fun.

Jack Baruth remains a saint for offering use of his CB550 back when this first happened, although that's still a responsibility beyond what I think I can handle especially given how this happened. As it is, if this isn't resolved soon - the case isn't likely to go to trial before October at the earliest - I am considering buying something else just to make the regular trips to Bridgeport or wherever both more convenient and emotionally fulfilling. But just getting the CB300F back would be fine.

So I'm still a motorcycle owner, even if I'm not immediately now a rider. Which somehow isn't out of character for this year.

Other stuff is in a sort of frustrating purgatory too. Waiting to see if I'll have time to get back to contributing to CarsDirect, trying to figure out if I can effectively expand into more freelance work like I've been telling anyone who I can corner for more than five minutes that I want to do. Certain issues at home remain just as simultaneously portentous and deeply uncertain as anything else - probably more so, actually - although home itself has been and is wonderfully stable and comforting, at least.

I want to do more. I should do more. I should go more places, be with more people, put it all into more words. If there's anything to take from the tragedy around Davey Johnson, both him as inspiration and the effect on everyone afterward, it's that both the collective we and especially I need to seriously push forward into the shoulds and coulds with a simple sense of purpose and openness.

Yes, I know too well from everything above; the push gets blunted, the purpose and openness diluted by the everyday and the incalculable. I'm still waiting for others to decide in a very real sense how I will do some of this.

Do what can be reasonably done, I suppose, then do what comes after. There's enough other stuff going on that deserves consideration, as well.

Still waiting to see if and when this all makes sense, although like everything else in the world that's not a given.