Me and my technicolour dream skin

Well, it's sunny this lunchtime, Simon & Garfunkel's live concert from Central Park in the late 70s/early 80s is playing, and I'm feeling good. All that despite having my most spectacular mountainbike crash ever yesterday afternoon.

I think I actually flew. It's difficult to be sure because I was riding on my own and hence there were no witnesses. However, I reckon I must've been airborne for two-to-three seconds. I think I somersaulted though, so figuring out which way up I was and which way I was pointing is kinda difficult. It all happened pretty quickly too.

I should've known it was coming. I'm still tweaking the front changer/chainset set-up and I managed to lose the chain off the smallest chainring as I was climbing earlier on in the ride. I couldn't 'ride' the chain back on and eventually ran out of momentum and had to unclip my feet and stop. It was only when I started to fiddle around with the gears and try to wind the chain back onto the chainring that I realised I must've ridden through the largest pile of dogshit known to humankind.

It was mustard-yellow, stank to high heaven, and had managed to get everywhere. The largest blob was on one of the cranks, but it had also spread all over the bottom bracket assembly, one of the pedals, the down tube of the frame, and even one of the handlebar grips. Somehow in the process I managed to get a small chunk of it on my left glove too. I'll try not to slip into a tirade about irresponsible dog owners...again...but what the fuck?! It's disgusting! Not to mention extremely unhygienic! I had to wheel the bike uphill to the next suitable dense clump of wild grass so I could clean the shit off my glove first of all. That's crucial because the water pipe from my Camelbak routes over my left shoulder, and I use my left hand to remove the dustcap from the mouthpiece whenever I want to take a drink.

Can you imagine happily riding along, using muscle memory to remove the dust cap and take a drink without even looking, and then suddenly realising you have dogshit in your mouth? Fuckin' YUK!

After that I made a point of riding through as many puddles as possible from those I encountered. When I dropped back into Taylor Creek Park I also rode at the perfect speed through one of the fords to give the whole bottom half of the bike a good rinse.

Blurk. Just the smell of it.

Anyway, I've been eating better lately and felt stronger as a result. I'd eaten a banana just before leaving the house too, and had a Camelbak chinking with ice cubes. As a result I wasn't necessarily fast on the South bound riverside trail, but I was expeditious. Smooth. The chainring got stuck again on the gravel hill at the end but I managed to reroute it by hand onto the smaller chainring, enabling me to battle the technical Northbound trail.

The technical stuff was pretty smooth too. I even saw a Raccoon en route. It looked at me with a bored expression on its face. As it wasn't going to do anything exciting anytime soon, I rode on. The rear mech is set perfectly now, so I zipped up and down the freewheel, through the three downhills from the Loblaws parking lot corner, over rocks and roots, through mud and shingle, in and out of the saddle. When I'd finished, I zipped across the parking lot and entered the harder set of technical trails, choosing, "Instant Gratification" over "Catalyst".

I chose it because the last part of the loop takes you back over the river, and a new bridge/obstacle has been built over it. I'll have to get some pics of the obstacles so you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, you climb in a gigantic wiggly clockwise circle for about two kilometres. It's not even though - there are dips, dog-legs, bridges, planks, stumps, concrete lumps, roots, off-camber sections, and water obstacles to navigate. All this and it's overgrown because of the rain and brilliant sunshine we've been having. It's taxing, and there were a couple of uphill switchback bends I couldn't take without having to put a foot down. Or two.

The top gets you above the tree line, and a construction site becomes apparent on your left as you break through into relatively open space. The trail gets much sandier - there's no tree cover or mulch to protect the soil there. Someone has built a couple of jumps out of wood, and with a couple of bends you're at the peak. I took the right hand trail, which takes you along the top of a ridge for a while, until a brisk, technical, and challenging descent.

The perplexing thing is that I've ridden this section before. With some aplomb, I might add. Yesterday my mind was distracted as my bike turned downwards like a submarine seeking depth. I picked up speed quickly, and the ground was dusty and rooty so it wasn't long before the back wheel was locked up in a permanent, writhing, jerking skid. I was OK at that point. Usually though, a lock-up means an eventual slow-down. In this case I picked up speed. Five or six seconds later I still hadn't arrested any momentum and a switchback right-hander was coming up. It followed the ridge too, so a straight line from where I was going actually ran out of ridge to ride on.

This is when one might most appreciate dual suspension. The back end was jerking around and, try as I might, I couldn't absorb all of its spasms with my legs so my vision began to blur with the violent juddering of the bike as the bend rushed towards me. By the time I'd realised I really had to lean the front wheel over to the right, it'd already been thrown from a root onto the left-hand lip of the ridge. By the time I realised I was still going too fast for my ability to cope with such a severe turn, I was at the point of no return. There was no longer any point in trying to actually ride the bike - it became about damage limitation.

The hard, dusty rubber of the tyre sank purposefully into the soft earth on the lip of the trail, and no turning of the handlebars made any difference. The front end of the bike twisted like a spatula in cake mix. Five centimetres further was a 20% gradient downward slope for twenty metres to another, lower trail. In-between were dozens of slim trees, overhanging branches, leaves and mulchy, muddy forest slope. The bike began to soar over the lip as, still with my feet clipped into the pedals, I grabbed at a two-inch thick, green branch slightly above my head.

I can't tell you exactly what happened next. For some of the time my eyes were closed, and it all happened very quickly. Suffice to say, the branch snapped in my hands but the arresting force was enough to peel me off the back of the bike, and my feet from the pedals. I must have travelled through a bit of dense undergrowth because - some time later - I noticed the various wounds I'd received. A deep scratch to the back of my right knee, that filled the pit of my leg there with sticky bloodstain. An impressive, 12cm gash was carved into my left thigh like scraping a tent peg through wet mud. Not very deep though. Oh - and as a friend attested to the next day over dinner, three large patches of road rash on my back and two more circa 4cm gashes to my ribs. I had a throbbing zit buried somewhere in my left eyebrow too, but I had that before.

My bike landed but I flew for another four feet or so, and I'm grateful for that. While the smaller branches did graze me like a brillo pad as I flew through them, I still landed in the underwgrowth with soft, well-irrigated mud beneath it. If I'd have landed upon my bike it would have been a great deal more painful. There was some slipping and sliding as I tried to get back up to my bike, and even more as I dragged it by the back wheel onto the trail again. To be honest, I didn't even have the wind knocked out of me. I was sore and stiff though.

On reflection, I congratulated myself on having the foresight to realise I was beyond the point of no return, and making a grab for the branch. The fact that the branch, twice the thickness of a cable remote control, broke away wasn't something I could have predicted, and had no control over. This is an important thing to remember as someone fighting back from GAD who, in the throes of symptoms, would assume it was their fault they picked the wrong branch.

I shit you not.

I got straight back on the bike too, though the rest of the trail was still a less-steep but just as technical downhill through more switchbacks and ultimately to the river obstacle which, regrettably, I ended up walking the bike over even though I have ridden it before.

But I did carry on riding.

To be continued...

Holidays...yuk...

A quick note to say I made it through the Canada Day holiday and avoided falling into the chasm of depression.

I hung out at a friend's place with the intention of watching a movie but we ended up chatting for hours instead. I cooked Moroccan Stewed Chicken, which turned out quite well, though the cayenne pepper gave the dish a life of its own somewhat. That spice appears a little unpredictable from time to time!

I think my shrink will say that it's good I anticipated a downward turn, fought not to be totally engulfed by it, managed to think of a contingency, and also managed to 'reach out' to somebody, as they say. Good stuff. Shame there's nobody around to give me my medal though.

That said, I'll be working my butt off for the next week or so because I'm now behind on my writing. Depression takes its time, even if it doesn't take its toll.

Phew!

OK, I have an out. I'm off to a friend's place to eat, drink, smoke, and get both stoned and - more importantly - distracted.

It'd be nice to be able to lead my life without needing this every time a public holiday rolls around.

Fuck, I need closure big time. One way or the other, anything is better than being left to speculate. It's like rolling out the red carpet for the cognitive distortions. I may have to contact the invisible woman just to force her to commit one way or the other, but not today. I'm just not up to it. Gotta love mental illness. It's true when they say the mind has power over the body...

Know thyself

Well, kudos to me, because I can feel a depressive bout coming on. It's true what they say when they remind patients like me that alcohol is a depressant. One minute I'm happily relishing a cold beer on a sunny day, the next minute the alcohol has taken effect, reduced the efficacy of my mind-altering prescription, and I suddenly feel like crying again.

I guess this is what PMT must be like.

I really hope my social plans come together this evening. I don't want to be alone, to end up consuming as much beer as there is in the house until I'm at the point of falling over.

At least I can tell it's about to happen so I at least have the slim window of opportunity to do something about it. That's actually a step forward. I even know that I'm abnormally sensitive and affective at the moment, thanks to my invisible woman escapades, but I will actually have to do something if I'm to avoid going over the edge.

Fingers crossed...

Latin name: Canadiana hysteriana

So, in the words of Wikipedia, today is a, "...federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the 1 July 1867 enactment of the British North America Act, which united Canada as a single country of four provinces."

As a result, all women below the age of 50 who weigh less than 300lbs are obliged by federal law to wear the national costume (see right). Thankfully it doesn't apply to men - those bikini bottoms look like they'd chafe.

Like xmas though, national holidays such as these can be a bit of a pitfall for GAD and CD sufferers. For me, it seems like everyone I know has something better to do and, more pointedly, has a family to visit. Cue lane-to-lane traffic jams on the 400 and 401 highways as everyone tries to get to somewhere else at the same time, wall-to-wall packing of cottages everywhere in Ontario with relatives, and carnage in every liquor store for the preceding 24 hours.

The stakes were raised this year by a potential LCBO employee strike that might've resulted in a dry Ontario for the country's birthday. I got to my local LCBO store yesterday afternoon and it was like the January sales at Harrods. I think the longship-ful of vikings must have just left before I arrived. The shelves were raped, the staff looked pillaged, and there was an air of thinly-disguised panic as people guarded their stashes of booze like their lives depended on it. I managed to get out alive with my MEC rucksack totally stuffed with wine and beer. I wish I had scales somewhere in the house 'cos I'd have loved to know how much the rucksack weighed.

Anyway, as a result of a quick e-mail I sent last night I have succeeded in my objective of ensuring I'm not left alone today. There'd be nothing worse. Being alone is fine, but being alone without having a choice in the matter tends to be a bit of a trigger. Again, as I think about the invisible woman and her alleged daughter, I imagine them ensconced in a big family get-together. Kids running about squirting each other with water pistols, adults drinking beer, chatting, and barbecuing various dead animals. There's nothing like a national public holiday to highlight the fact that such family get-togethers are not part of my life, that I have no such obligations, that I'm neither needed nor wanted that way.

Ouch.

That said, I decided last night that I won't be talking about the invisible woman on here for much longer. The only reason to do so would be if there was some kind of epiphany or volte-face in terms of her behaviour, quality and quantity of communication, and maturity - assuming of course that the important bits she has told me over the last few months are really true. If I'm honest with myself then I have to say that, deep down, I hope she's been recovering, preparing, and gearing up for us to finally get together. If she could muster the courage to be honest with me, then I could certainly reciprocate with the patience, understanding, and integrity to forgive her. It's still top of my wish-list, and a rare occasion where I'd gladly have all my suspicions proved wrong. But it's unlikely. During all the time I've known her it's been me that has been making the suggestions. It's been me coming up with ideas, brainstorming, laterally thinking, trying to figure out a way to get her over the hurdle of that first eye-to-eye contact so we can put all the shite behind us and relish what is rightfully ours. It's always been me offering to meet whenever, wherever, and however. But as Aesop said, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink". In short I have had all power, control, and influence castrated. While I have tried every way conceivable to invite her into my life, and equally tried to get into her life however possible without terrifying her, she has tried nothing, risked nothing, explained nothing, and attempted nothing. It's one of those classic situations that is the arch-nemesis of the anxiety sufferer - where you have to admit to yourself that there's just nothing you can do. That it's beyond your power to change.

So, as in group therapy, talking out one's problems and issues is of huge benefit at the beginning. It's a relief to know you're not the only one suffering in the way that you're suffering. It's cathartic to be able to talk about how you feel without receiving the cocked eyebrow or having to explain what it means when you've had, "a bad day". But, over time, a different paradigm starts to apply. One reaches a tipping point when the best thing you can do is just put it all behind you, because reliving all the heartache and frustration just prolongs recovery rather than concluding it. That point is close - I can feel it.

All I have to do is accept that, if the majority of her words were truth, then it just wasn't meant to be. That her issues are greater than mine and without playing an active role in her recovery, there is no role for me to play in her life. Of course, if I could be sure she'd been telling the truth then I could wait for her but the only way I'm going to believe her is if she meets me - the one thing she insists she isn't able to do. Such is the cruel irony of the situation. Besides, all I have to show for this so-called relationship thus far is a renewed addiction to cigarettes, several anxiety attacks, an extended bout of clinical depression, and a massive amount of wasted time.

If she was duping me from the start then she did a brilliant job. I don't know what her day job actually is, but it would seem she missed her calling as a con-artist. She made me feel like she was tailor-made for me in so many ways it was - dare I say it - too good to be true. I don't know how she did it - there just isn't enough publicly-available information on me for her to have known me that well, and we have zero mutual friends. Equally, I felt I was tailor-made for her, that any physical get-together would be little more than a formality before taking the relationship to the next level. Strewth - it was literally hook, line, and sinker.

But all the above is a moot point. Regardless of which bits she said were true and which ones weren't, at the end of the day the only thing that'll keep me interested is actually seeing her. If she's real, but too busy sulking or brooding because of what I've said on here, accused her of, and admitted in terms of cognitive distortions...or still stubbornly insistent that she won't trust me enough or dare risk enough to meet me then it's over. If she's fake and can't meet me because she's actually married, a man, something other than what she's described, then it's over.

In short, the only thing I can hope for is that she either shows up here before I move house, or calls to say she's already on her way. Anything other than that and for me there is no reason to concentrate on anything other than self-preservation. Shame eh? 'Happy' Canada Day folks.