The Century Ballroom in Capitol Hill offers a wide variety of classes. The new sessions started in the beginning of January, and I eagerly scanned the offerings. Swing, salsa, Lindy Hop, and tango, each with several levels. I read the descriptions and knew Intro to Swing was for me.

Now swing dancing, particularly Intro to swing dancing, is an efficient gathering of all my known Issues in one place. Let's see, getting up in front of 25 people I don't know and looking like a fool. Being touched -- intimately -- by strangers (!!!!). Generalized social anxiety. And arriving at a venue to which I've never been, to do something I have no knowledge of, without someone else to guide me. Screw therapy -- this is baptism by fire. Sign me up.

I can blame 90% of these issues on genetics and social conditioning. You may remember 8th grade. (Try as I might, I shall never forget it.) It's widely known that girls mature earlier than boys by a year or two. So imagine my delight when I started school that year, thirteen years old -- and six feet tall. Being six feet tall as an adult is challenging enough. But with all the boys still a scrappy five feet, my height was downright freakish. And one of the first things we did in Phys Ed that year was ballroom dancing.

I don't know why they wanted to torture us. In retrospect, it falls under cruel and unusual punishment, for everyone involved. While I was picked first for every basketball team, a desired dancing partner I was not. So as much as I loved to dance, and as urgently as I wanted to, dancing became a source of heart-crushing anxiety. Whichever small-fry was forced to be my partner made sure I knew just how unhappy he was, and just how abnormal I was.

It doesn't help that in our culture, women are required to be smaller than men. Even our signage on roads (school crossing, for example) and bathroom doors tells us daily what size we are supposed to be. We should be slight, and feminine -- and feminine means small, preferably weak. There hasn't been a time in my life when I could have been accused of being slight, small or weak. I am long-limbed, athletic, and strong. I take up space. Lots of it. Were I living in the country of my heritage, I'd be hauling aspen trunks through the snow with my bare hands. With a grunt, my Nordic suitors would grab me enthusiastically by the waist: "Guh! Big. Strong. Woman!"

But alas, I was reared in the coastal Northeast, surrounded by a throng of Long Island Jews and their diminutive offspring.

I've learned to smile when someone says, "Gosh -- I wish I were as tall as you." I no longer bark, "You should try shopping with me sometime, bitch!" And I good-naturedly tolerate each person who says something brilliant and original, like, "How's the weather up there?" as though it's the first time I've heard it. I don't mind being tall anymore, and I'm no longer bitter. So in response to, "What are you up to?" I often say, "Oh, about six one." That's something my mom used to say, and I loved her breezy way of dismissing her hulking German stature. But it's a lot of pressure to be the first person everyone sees when they enter a room.

When my old roommate Peter threw a party and invited his slew of Danish friends, I realized I needed to relocate. The great Danes were all enormous -- "strapping" comes to mind -- seven feet tall, sturdy, broad-shouldered, blond. When they saw me, they swooped in on the dance floor, eager to spin around a girl who wouldn't put a crick in their necks. I loved them. All of them. Intensely.

Back on the Swing circuit this winter, my anxiety began to mount when I imagined a descent back into eighth grade. As adults, the commentary on my altitude would be more cordial, borne from a perceived need to break the ice by addressing the obvious. I don't recall any hurtful dialog in the past decade. But it's tiresome to repeatedly entertain silly observations, and I already endure at least one daily. I knew in the Swing class that we'd rotate through partners, so as not to "develop any bad habits," as it says on the web site. I wouldn't have to submit to a line-up, and everyone would be forced to dance with me whether they wanted to or not, which I found oddly comforting. Still, I wished I could just avoid the issue altogether.

Then I saw the most brilliant offering ever: Queer Swing. Being a Capitol Hill establishment, Century Ballroom offers an array of classes for "our gay and lesbian friends, and their friends." What better environment in which to be unconventional -- in appearance or otherwise? People well-versed in shaking up gender roles! Gay boys unfazed that I tower over them! No pressure to be cute and a stunning dancer. Nobody there would be looking at me, that's for sure. I imagined a roomful of gay men preening themselves and staring at one another's butts, like they do while cruising Broadway. I feel invisible on Capitol Hill, where everyday is Pride Day. What better way to learn to dance than to be invisible on the dance floor?

I was energized and inspired by my new discovery. It was the best plan I'd ever had, I was sure. I called JJ to tell her all about Swing classes. JJ was so excited about the dance class that she wanted in on it, too. She's a lesbian, but she said she didn't care whether or not we took the queer class. She thought I was suggesting it for her benefit. But this was all about me and my childhood scars. I signed us up -- JJ as a "Lead" and me as a "Follow."

Visions of gregarious, flamboyant queers in dance shoes filled my head as we made our way to the Century Ballroom. This was going to be the most fun I'd had in a long time. When we arrived at the ballroom, I was floored by the beauty of the space. It was absolutely decadent. The 20's were perfectly preserved in burnished wood floors, red velvet curtains, the ornate mezzanine decorated with tiny lights. Breathtakingly beautiful. I wanted to dance, ASAP.

We were the last ones to arrive and when the instructor called us out onto the dance floor, my heart sank. I shook my head as though to clear my vision; I couldn't believe what I saw before me. The dancers filed out onto the floor and lined up. I stared, mouth agape. There I stood in my perfectly orchestrated plan, immersed in a sea of twenty miniature dykes.

It wasn't just all women. These were all little women. I have never seen such a strange convergence of short people in my life. The lesbians pooled around my waist and I walked through the crowd like an Amazon queen in a field of pygmies.

There was one man in attendance, and he stood on the edge of the dance floor, nervously wringing his hands. I felt a sudden kinship with him.

I didn't have time to dwell on this state of affairs. The class began immediately, and moved fast. I had to concentrate or miss the steps. After five minutes of instruction, they threw on the music and sent us dancing -- with partners.

When it came time to do turns, I knew I was doomed. Each woman tried desperately to allot me enough clearance so I could spin beneath her hand, but her arms were never long enough, and we entangled in an awkward limbo. I wanted to cry.

Some of the moves were simply impossible to do. I was supposed to keep my hand on their shoulder, elbow down, but my lanky arms were too long to hold that posture on a partner 5'2" in cowboy boots. The butch Leads took my size as a threat to their image and let me know it. When I got to the one guy, my skyscraper beacon of hope, I skipped a couple rotations and kept him as my partner, giving my back a chance to stretch out.

I focused on the steps, on learning the steps, on doing the steps. That's why I was there, I reasoned, to learn to dance. The partners were irrelevant. But with their forced witticisms, they were hard to ignore.

At the second class a week later, we were missing a few Leads, so the two instructors rotated through the Follows. I got to dance with the bite-sized, adorable instructor Ricki in pink Converse sneakers. After a minute, she said, "I know you're trying to make it easier for me to turn you, but don't compensate for your partner's lack of height." I loved the way she put that. Their lack of height. Not my excess. "What should I do, though? When I'm dancing with someone like you who's a foot shorter?" She just smiled and said, "Let them worry about it. It's not your problem. Own your height. Own it," she said emphatically. I loved her. Intensely.

I got through the second class unscathed and managed to at least appear to be enjoying myself. I was relieved when it was over. It had been a successful class; I showed up, I learned stuff, I danced. That was the main point. I told JJ how badly my plan had failed and I laughed until tears came out of my eyes and I couldn't breathe. Meanwhile, JJ had her own tales of woe. As a femme Lead, she got more flack than I did. The whole thing was hysterically, undeniably ironic.

The two of us headed home, a ridiculous pair -- the six foot tall Follow and the lipstick lesbian Lead, denouncing the foolish gender boxes people try to squish us into.

And of course we're going back tonight for round three. Who could resist?

So I was coming up the stairs a couple of days ago and stopped to talk to my neighbor and pet his soaking wet Bichon. He asked if my gortex scooterskirt kept me dry and I told him "more or less." Then he told me he was moving out at the end of the month. "You know, my garage is going to be available," he said. My eyes grew so wide they nearly popped out of my head. "How much do you pay for it?" I asked him. "I pay $60 a month since I've had it for five years, but he's bumping it up to $100." I groaned. So much for that idea. "But it will go really fast so you better tell him if you're interested."

He didn't have to tell me it would go fast. Having a private garage in Capitol Hill is like having a private garden in Manhattan. People have been killed over less. His garage also included an off-street parking space in front of it, which easily doubled the value, and could be used to negotiate with car-driving friends who are pissed I live on Broadway.

But $100 a month? That would put my rent well over a thousand bucks, a figure outside my comfort zone. I growled. I slept on it. I played with my Excel spreadsheet. I growled some more. And then I decided to forget about it.

But I'm not good at letting something go. So I contacted my building manager and told him I really wanted the garage to store my You Know What but that I couldn't swing $100 a month. I made him another offer that I could afford. He said, "Sure. I'll drop the key by on Monday."

I jumped up from my seat and danced around the office, limbs flailing. I have a garage! I have a garage! I never thought I'd get this excited about 150 square feet. But imagine the possibilities! I mean, a real garage! I can get grimy and grubby and store large shiny boxes of complicated tools! I can paint! And as suggested by Roger Tango, I can host a garage-warming party with Helmet Bucket Chili and a bed-sheet screening of Roman Holiday.

Then in June, when I get my new GTS, she can share the safe and cozy garage with the You Know What. There's definitely room for two.

Maybe I'll even lend a professional touch with a shop poster featuring a scantily-clad vixen straddling a Sito Plus. Yeeeeow.

In New Haven I had the Daily Caffe -- the Original Coffeehouse as far as I'm concerned. Tall black booths, unbelievable Granitas, and you could smoke. A lot. The head barista there gave me Stevie Ray Vaughan mix tapes, a black Rickenbacker guitar, and taught me how to play.

Last year, when I lived on Queen Anne, Caffe Ladro became my hangout. The front of the cafe had shop windows with round tables on elevated platforms, and I liked to perch up there and gaze down onto the sidewalk. Gus was my barista, and he's the one that got me hooked on quad iced americanos. I still drink them now, even in winter. One morning he said, "I bet you could use a bonus shot today." I nodded, and promptly deepened my caffeine addiction. I'd stumble in pre-dawn and he'd hold up a clear plastic cup and four fingers, eyebrows raised. I'd nod. Gus had an endless wardrobe of indie label shirts. Sub Pop, Barsuk, Loveless, Saddle Creek. He alternated them with local band shirts -- The Long Winters, Death Cab, Thee Emergency. His daily goal was to get me to take off my chunky headphones and listen to whatever CD he'd put on in the cafe. The challenge started one morning when I was writing in the window, and in between songs on my walkman I heard a familiar violin filled with longing. I pulled my headphones off to listen and he looked up from the espresso machine he was scrubbing with a white rag. "You are not playing DevotchKa right now!" I called out in disbelief. He smiled and continued cleaning. "You approve?"

And so when Meadowlands or Burn the Maps failed to get a similar response, he dug out the bootlegs of the Frames playing at the Iron Horse, or an unreleased EP the Wrens had put together in college. We chattered excitedly about the monthly Neumo's line-up. Then I moved to Capitol Hill and Gus moved to Italy.

For me, it was back to the mothership -- Victrola. My first day in Seattle I sat outside Victrola in the June sunshine drinking iced coffee. The girls to the right of me were detailing the previous night's band showcase at the Crocodile, and the boys to the left were debating the validity of various John Vanderslice side projects. I was giddy. This was why I'd moved 3,000 miles.

That year I spent mornings at Victrola in the huge open windows with the sun splattered across my quickly-filling lined pages, submerged in the heart of this city. I didn't need headphones. When they ran out of perfect CDs, they put on John in the Morning on KEXP. I'd gush excitedly -- "It's John in the Morning -- in the morning! In the cafe! In Seattle! I live here!"

The newness has barely lost its luster as I find myself at the same cafe three years later. Upon hearing the rumble of my scooter as I arrive, the barista has my quad iced americano -- extra ice -- waiting for me. I stumble in, soaking wet, shaking water from my feet like a cat in the rain. But I am smiling; it's my favorite part of the day. A luxurious hour or two imbedded on the page, at my little wooden table with the cool slate top. There's a couple that comes each morning and ties their Labrador outside the window and I watch him, shiny eyed and glossy, wait attentively for their return. At 8:00 the barista takes his morning break with his beautiful blond girlfriend, and they share secrets quietly on the red velvet couch. By the end of the second album, I'm sucking the last drops of espresso from between the ice cubes and it's time to wrap up whatever I'm writing. The rhythm is soothing. It holds me together.

This week I'm back on foot again, and Victrola is 8 blocks from my apartment, uphill in the opposite direction of work. Going there would add half an hour to my already aggravating commute. So I've been going to Grand Central Baking Company, which is on the way. GCBCo has free refills going for it, but in the winter it's drafty and loud and feels like a factory. This morning some suit was having a business meeting in there, talking so loudly that I couldn't even drown him out with my music. I moved to get away from him but found myself sitting by the door, which opened frequently, letting in blasts of damp, icy air.

Having my morning routine usurped makes me crabby. I felt like an actual crab, gnashing my claws and scurrying about, looking for someone to pinch. I still wrote, but had a similarly irritating experience yesterday morning. Looking forward to repeat performances of this variety does not coax me out of bed at 6 AM on these cold, dark mornings.

It wasn't this cold last year, was it? I don't remember it being this cold. Maybe that's because I had a car. I must admit that it's infuriating to bundle up for the freezing rain and leave for work to see the car that is no longer mine parked in front of my apartment. Boy Former now lives a few blocks away and often stations the Golf on my street. My clownfish still on the dashboard, my PAWS sticker still in the window, the keys no longer in my pocket. It's maddening and makes me bitter.

This morning, a friend of mine told me about this author who floundered around for years before her first book was published and she became a successful author. Reflecting back on the fruitless experiences and struggles of her youth, she no longer viewed them as frustrations, but as research. As many a writer will echo, "It's all copy."

Here's to a stockpiling a lifetime of writing fodder.

Instead, I waited over an hour for a bus that is supposed to run every 10 minutes. The last straw came when three (THREE) #49 buses went by in the opposite direction, in a row. Not even a car in between them. I watched all three stop at each bus stop. Then, at the sixty minute mark, a #49 finally came, but it was too full to allow any of the 20 people waiting onto the bus. I was so pissed I decided to walk.

Not a single stretch of sidewalk from Broadway to Fairview was shovelled, sanded or even salted. Sometimes I had to step out into the street, which was less precarious, but was met with an angry blaring of car horns. Then there's the areas totally without sidewalks. The stairs through Colonnade Park end abruptly in a cul-de-sac with nowhere to walk except the middle of the street -- unless there's ice all over it, of course. So I climbed down the hill through blankets of ivy, which provided both traction and a landing strip, should the traction prove inadequate. The sidewalks are closed off all over South Lake Union due to Kondo Konstruction® -- so you need to leapfrog back and forth across four lane roads just to get anywhere. I made it to work fine, but pissed off as all get-out.

It infuriates me that there's no direct route by bus or foot down from Capitol Hill, which is one of the most populated areas in the city. The Powers that Be claim to want to encourage the use of "alternative transportation", but the list of punishments for doing so is dizzying. FlexCar auto sharing is now is taxed twice the amount one would pay if buying a car. And scooters... the roads are damn near un-ridable in some spots, with knee deep pot-holes and tons of slick metal plates everywhere. Instant heart attack? Just add water. Few of the traffic lights operating on a sensor register a scooter, so we are left to run red lights and pray for the best.

There is little designated motorcycle parking, and when I do find it, there is often a car parked in it. Parking between cars at a meter will get you either ticketed or crunched. Scooters, which take up one-sixth the amount of space of a sedan, have to pay the same dollar amount to park on the street where there are no meters.

Then we get some moron journalist publishing an article about how it's "technically legal" to move a scooter if you want the parking space. So after paying for your parking space, someone comes along and puts your bike on the sidewalk, where you are ticketed for being illegally stationed. That's if the parking thieves are nice -- more than once I've had my scooter simply thrown into a median or knocked over into the bushes so someone could take my spot.

And our abysmal public transportation system falls short of enticing people to step out of their cars. I say this even though any public transport I wish to take (bus, ferry, SLUT) is paid in full by my employer. I was given an annual Metro Combo pass, and even for free I hate taking the bus. They never run on schedule, they take forever to get anywhere, you have to transfer at least once to get across town, they're often full during peak hours so you can't get on. And the routes don't make sense -- they all run parallel so you have to take a bus into downtown and then back out again. It takes me 25 minutes to walk to work, and 50 minutes to take the bus.

We talk and talk about how single occupancy cars are bad, yet we close the one sensible pedestrian path from the Hill to downtown to make room for automobiles. There's an essay on History Link about the removal of the central Hill Climb. My favorite quote: “Pedestrians, who are a constant hazard to city driving, are entirely removed.”

That's one way to put it.

I wish I had better mentors throughout the years. It's like I fell into some gaping black hole as far as education is concerned and nobody was interested in supporting me in what I wanted to do. The majority of college involved more penis-waving than guidance, support, or inspiration. It's a shame. I had one exceptional professor my freshman year who taught me how to take constructive criticism on my writing. He also told me not to turn into an alcoholic like him and wake up on a floor in time for graduation, wondering what the hell happened to the last four years. I took his advice on criticism, but elected to cruise his well-worn path to inebriation and facial rug burn.

Meanwhile, I had a journalism professor calling me the "photographer with a writing problem" and a photography professor telling me I should have enrolled "up the hill" -- alluding to the School of Fine Arts, as opposed to my chosen College of Communication (COM, or "College of Optional Math"). He thought I'd be better off with the black berets. Apparently my creative renderings of car accidents in response to his spot news assignments threatened his journalistic sensibilities. Nobody wanted me. I would have changed majors and gone up the hill to the art school to play with large format cameras, emulsion transfers and the like, but I was urged to be "practical" and focus on a marketable skill. So marketable is my photojournalism degree, in fact, that it climaxes with the previous post featuring snapshots of iguanas sunning themselves. Welcome to my $80,000 blog.

I applied early admission to my first choice college, Emerson, where I was going to major in creative writing. I was accepted to the honors program and was all but packing my bags when I was strong-armed into dropping my creative fantasies and accepting the more Practical road of journalism. I don't regret much in my life, but I struggle not to become bitter about that decision. In the end I would probably have landed right where I am now, discovering my passion and what I'm really good at (that is also marketable). I just would have saved a decade of strife.

Last week the instructor was going through the "requirements" of the course -- the intangibles, like rabid curiosity and the need to fastidiously arrange items on your coffee table. He talked about the necessity of "attention to detail," not in the flaccid overused criteria of job descriptions, but in reality -- examining your design right down to the individual pixel. Some of the students laughed at this perceived exaggeration, but I still had a crick in my neck from staring at lines of code all night attempting to fix the border of my #alpha-inner that was pushing the black line one pixel to the right of the top margin. That class felt like coming home to the mothership. I belonged there. It was an odd and thrilling sensation.

After the class, I thought angrily of a conversation I had junior year with my Design professor. I told him excitedly of my past endeavors with zine compilations, collecting writing and artwork and spending nights at Kinko's with a glue stick, xeroxing little books to distribute at coffee shops. I told him of my love of desktop publishing. He knitted his eyebrows together and asked with a snort, "What are you going to do with that in the real world?" My heart sank. I was sure there was something I could translate that desire into. He could have said a million other things to support me, including, "Hey -- there's this new thing starting called the World Wide Web -- I bet you could design sites." Today it's a logical jump for me to make -- the sites I've designed are the essence of digital zines. Why was that so difficult for him to see? Why was he so preoccupied with appearing Holier Than Thou from his sleek graphic designer throne? I ended my junior year with the realization that I should abandon hope for a future filled with creativity, color, or god forbid -- fiction.

The first day of Communication 101, the dean showed his infamous video of a newscast to the entire freshman class -- 400 of us. A reporter was interviewing a woman whose son had been decapitated by a freight train moments before. She was in hysterics, and the reporter was ramming a microphone down her throat. "How many of you in this room would interview this woman right now?" he asked us. Three or four students raised their hands (they probably work at Clear Channel now). He said, "The rest of you can leave. You'll never be journalists."

I've got a laundry list of examples like these. I don't understand these cocksure white males and their bloated egos. I won't even go into my Literature professors. Professing nothing but their entitlement and superiority to a roomful of impressionable, hopeful kids. What a waste of four credits.

These days, if I detect the presence of a naysayer in my life, I snuff them out instantly. I cannot be surrounded by people who are afraid to dream big, or who think that happiness and success is something that happens to you -- if you're lucky. I know I create my own experience in this world, and I intend to create a great one. I won't work in a windowless corporate office wearing sensible shoes forever. There is not a reason in the world I cannot do exactly what I plan to do -- get show-stoppingly awesome at multimedia development, buy a bungalow on the beach on Alki, adopt an Australian shepherd to play Frisbee with, and work only during the rainy season. No boss, no dress code, no 9-5. Only one name on the business card: mine. I have the ability to make that life a reality, and I intend to. So when my new instructor said on Thursday that he was running his own design business before he even finished taking the program (which he now teaches), I knew I was in good hands.

I am the obsessive geek reading SEO books way past bedtime, or digging through my templates in search of that errant pixel. I get embarrassingly excited about stylesheets. I have images begging for music. I am hungry to master PHP understand MySQL. I want to learn the skills I need to make the pictures in my head visible to the naked eye. I can do this. I might even be good at it.

In short order, I will have sand between my toes and a Frisbee in my hand. I'll save you a seat on the beach.

The houses on the waterway are enormous and owned by famous people. The boat captain rattled off the occupants of each mansion along with its market price. Bruce Willis' $11 Million Key West villa complete with 110' yacht. The dude who started Wendy's restaurants and his $8 M glass-fronted abode. I think this running dialog was intended to impress us, but it made me uncomfortable on several levels. I have never felt so white trash in my life, with all these people hanging their heads over the side of the boat and taking digital pictures of people's living quarters, all "ooohing" and "ahhhhing". It was... tacky.

Being a Pisces and former Mermaid, I went on the journey to experience the waterway, which reminds me fondly of the Seattle houseboat community I used to be a part of. Based on Ft. Lauderdale's nickname, I guess the waterway would have reminded me of Venice had I ever been there.

The weather was outstanding and the landscape lush and verdant. I wish I had headphones on and could listen to big guitars while slipping quietly through the green water. The iguanas dozed on sunny fence rails. Palm trees were wrapped in red and white lights like giant candy canes sticking out of the baked earth. Stained glass windows, floating gardens, alabaster mermaid statues lined both banks of the channel. These sights make my heart skip.

I couldn't give a rats ass that J-Lo paid $14 M for the platinum-roofed palace she enjoys once yearly. It seems to me the money could be put to better use, and if they can't come up with anything good, I've got a few ideas.

I don't get the point of spending $250,000 on slate stepping stones salvaged from the fall of Rome, shipped across the world via carbon-belching freight liners. Especially when you have to tell everyone who treads upon them that they are imported stones at $8,000 each, and not just low-class shale from Home Depot for a buck a pound.

That kind of lifestyle is exorbitantly wasteful. I'm all about comfort, and quality, and hell -- a little luxury never hurt anyone. But the funds frittered away on diamond toilet seats just proves how out-of-touch with the world one can be, given enough fame and fortune.

I guess it takes an evolved soul to find your own definition of "enough" and dwell there, putting the remainder of your resources towards goals loftier than bar stools made from endangered whale penises (true story).

I didn't intend for the entry to go down this road, but here we are. I simply wanted to post some pretty pictures. It's just hard to walk down my street and see men and women sleeping in doorways under a cardboard box -- while a mile away Bill Gates walks on his private beach made from imported pink Hawaiian sand -- and not wonder if there's something wrong with this world.

You can click on the thumbnails to enlarge if you like. I would have put them in my gallery, but they're just silly vacation snapshots taken with the heavy hand of a Dramamine-drunk tourist. Enjoy.

This is our Fearless Leader, Doc, on his pink Stella, about to lead us off on the fabulous New Year's Day Lost Ride. It takes a man very secure with his masculinity to ride a pink bike while wearing a scooter skirt!

The mountains were out -- all of 'em. This is one of my favorite places to shoot from -- the top of 14th Ave. E. on Capitol Hill.

And... a stunning shot of the 'Tella cowl:

I did ride this morning -- first to Victrola and then to work. I was extra careful in the rain, which made me realize that I am *always* extra careful. And even though I feel like I was pressed under a steamroller today, the ride yesterday was well worth the price of admission.

Once we were good and lost, snaking through serpentine corkscrew roads, the whole pack of us entered a narrow unpaved alley. I probably should have taken a detour as soon as I saw that long stretch of loose gravel. But alas, we pressed onward, attempting to navigate a sea of mud and circumvent enormous potholes filled waist-deep with black water.

I white-knuckled it through and when the end was in sight, the scooter in front of me slid to a stop at the mouth of a cavernous hole, and I tried to defy physics by braking with my front wheel turned. This may sound familiar, as it's the same stupid mistake I made on the wet incline when I wiped out a few weeks ago. But my choice was either hit the shiny new Vespa in front of me, or hit the pavement. So down I went with a vengeance. I actually heard the Frankenstella groan, "Oh Christ. Here we go again."

I landed in the aforementioned wading pool, breaking my fall with my left hand, and breaking the scooter's fall with my left ankle. Good thing that limb has a reinforced platinum core from the last time I broke it. I got a mouthful of mud and a rock imbedded in my palm through my glove.

After the three second shock delay passed, I got up and shook myself out. Nothing broken, no (visible) blood. Celeste, not so lucky. I lifted her back up from the mud that had swallowed her left cowl, hearing the cha-ching of cash registers in my head as I surveyed my paint job and mangled front fender.

Hairy helped me get the scooter back upright and collect my scattered belongings. She started on the first kick, which was pure luck, as the engine often gets flooded when the bike goes down. I know all about that "getting back on the horse" philosophy, so soaking wet and muddy, I remounted and picked my way carefully through the gravel pit to the solid road ahead.

At the next stop sign, I checked my rear view and noticed we were missing half the group. A few minutes later, they were still missing. And then they came up the hill behind us, with Stella #2 covered in mud.

I would like to bring these statistics to light: 50% of the Stellas on this ride crashed. Fortunately, Mary's bike was already put down twice on asphalt and the mud simply performed a mild exfoliating facial on the orange paint job. Here's a photo Orin took of our twin mudbaths (I broke my camera when I fell on it):

We arrived at the playground for a well-timed snack of hot cider and cookies, and I tried not to cry as I noticed the "S" from my emblem had broken off, and I was now riding a FRANKEN TELLA. This is Eleste, my Tella:

But Hairy to the rescue: he had retrieved my S from the mud and presented it to me with a flourish. He is part of the non-crashing 50% Stella Nation, and we kids try to look out for one another. I did feel quite a bit better. It's the only emblem I have left on the stinkin thing after somebody swiped the one from the right cowl when it was parked on the street last spring.

One of the best parts of the ride was definitely the Coconut Curry Soup at the Honey Bear Bakery, where we had lunch at the end of the ride. After I ate, and my wounds thawed, and Doc bandaged my bloody hand, my bones began to feel the aftermath of my collision with unfriendly ground.

It's a quiet defeat. I crawled home, into my hot tub and velour jammies. I just might walk to work tomorrow.

Happy New Year. It can only get better from here.

{ Thanks again to Scootin' Old Skool Orin for the photos. Does anybody have any duct tape?! }