Sex on a Bike?

It's here! I finally know it's here...today, 4/6/09, and it showed up. I was on my bike ( I love how most of the best things in life occur while I'm cycling. If only I could figure out how to have sex on a bicycle I could die...right then and there. But if I survived it then I'd know that life would only be a hollow, empty experience living in the shadow of that pinnacle. So maybe it's better I don't looking for that high. Plus, if I really think about it, sex on a bike would probably just be awkward and uncomfortable with all the sharp, pointy bits of brake handles and gear shifters and seat posts and...jeez, this isn't what I wanted to write about today...at all. To think about? Sure. To write about? No, so sorry) when it hit me. I had already limited my clothing to only a pair of cycling shorts and multiple layers up top. No long tights today. For the first time in several months my ghostly white legs were shining proudly with no worries of frostbite. The first steep hill of the day had me pulling over half way up and pulling off my long sleeved fleece sweater when I noticed sweat dripping down my crack (another issue of sex on a bike that I hadn't considered). But that wasn't the tip off as I've been sweating under 4 layers of jackets all winter. It was the smell. I was coming down the backside of that hill rounding a bend in the shadows of a thick stand of fir trees when a faint earth smell insinuated itself into the miasma of thoughts that I constantly try to ride away from. The faster I ride from them the harder I bump into the ones in front of me...like a stiff head wind (get it..."head" wind, HA!). Anyway, as I came out of that corner and into a straight patch of full sunlight the subtlety was gone and I was punched in the nose with a thick rich smell of earth, of budding pine trees, of green growth, and of life...all mixed in with a hint of salty Pacific ocean air. I was hit with the first taste and smell of SPRING!!!!! A giddy laugh escaped me. Not the maniacal laugh that accompanies getting over a grueling pass and racing downhill at 40mph in 30th gear. That is the laugh of accomplishment and congquering known by men like Lance Armstrong or Genghis Khan. I'm talking of that silly slipping-out-of-your-soul-when-you-least-expect-it laugh...more of a giggle really...known by all 1 years olds.
Maybe I'm over-reacting to the sun a little but damn it's been a long and cold winter! And I hadn't smelled warm earth in 6 months and forgot how amazing that smell is. How can dirt smell so clean and fresh? Also, I have been so anxious to get out on the road again and travel to hot, sweltering places. The bug has bitten and all I want to do is RUN (cycle really) for the border where I can ride all day and complain about the heat and rashes and stinky smells and the thoughts that rule my head. And that is what all this sun today has done to me... reset my brain and reminded me that there are other things in life than fluorescent bulbs and sick people and videos on long winter nights and fleece and long fingered gloves and snow covering my gardening tools. Those thoughts are starting to fade and old warmer memories are coming back to me, of Hawaii and Indonesia and Cambodia and Thailand and everywhere else that sweat has rolled down my crack. Like it is right now, sitting outside of Starbucks, drinking one of my favorite corporate created coffee drinks and getting caffeinated before work...and dreaming of travel.

ps As I rode to work from Starbucks I passed a bank that flashed between the time and the temperature. All my excitement and gushing over a 59 degree afternoon. Dammit.