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medium pimping: Next Week Tour de France
›comments[4] ›all comments ›post #75 ›bio: raquel ›perma-link ›4/19/2004 ›12:44 ›archives ›first post ›that week formerly 'le vie c'est tres droll' Category List
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Last Saturday, I learned how to ride a bike. You heard me. I used to tell people that I knew how to ride one, but I just forgot. 70 degrees out in Prospect Park. I've got a bright pink monkey sweater on my chest, a hot tomato red bike with stripes from my boyfriend under my ass, and a 6-year-old smack in front of me, which is not exactly a safe place to stand quite yet. Her arms are crossed. "I know how to ride a bike. I started out on a 3 wheeler, and then I moved up to 2 wheels." She taunts me. "Really? That's cool. I think my folks tried to teach me when I was your age too." I volleyed back. "I learned how to ride when I was 5." (Big fucking whoop.), I say in my inside voice. My outside voice booms, "Oh, wow! How old do you think I am?" "30." Damn! I'm already sweating and embarrassed, being the only adult that ever learned how to ride a bike in Brooklyn, at least in the humiliating broad daylight. And now even a six year old can accurately approximate my age? Exquisite cruelty. I am 31. My boyfriend steps to my defense, also exhausted having run alongside me up and down the length of a block at least 100 times holding me upright on the tomato. "She's doing really well! She just learned today!" The little girl looked at him non-plussed. Then back at me. "Wanna see me ride?" I proffered? "Sure." She replied, unsmiling, chin thrust forward, not budging. "Well, you might want to take a few steps back then, cuz I'm not that good yet!" Finally with my boyfriend/expert cycling professor's assistance, we backed her 6-year-old smart ass self up and I took off sailing down the block with both of them yelling after me, "Pedal faster!" "Keep going!" And I did. I rode down the path, turned smoothly and came back around towards them, almost hit our new six-year-old friend and stopped. I did it. Even under the pressure of such a tough, little, pouty audience. I haven't felt that free in a long time. Or that sore-assed. People who had seen us before, at the start of the afternoon when I was leaning heavily on my teacher's chest and jerking the handle bars around like I was getting a grip on a mechanical bull going full speed, came over to congratulate us. "I can't believe you can do it already!" "That was so fast!" Well, even if I do forget how to ride a bike, at least I know I'll never forget learning to ride one. And with that, the Medium Pimp is back. 
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