I like this time of year. Daytime is warmer so I can wear shorter skirts and fishnet stockings, but not so warm that I have to abandon the armor my thick furry coat provides. Just the bare knees for now and the scantest chain mail keeping my skin from his hands.

I like wearing less and tighter. Problem is, I’ve been relationshipping these last nine months or so and have expanded into a size too uncomfortable. Now I feel exposed in clothing, having lost control of the display.

Recently I started triathlon training and the difference a couple weeks makes is muscle memory somaticized, clean lungs returned.

The schedule allows two rest days the first week and only one every week thereafter. Swimming and running are often combined and getting the logistics of the transition worked out has been a problem. The best way to do it is to swim at the gym, get out of the pool, then put on my running clothes without showering. The last time I did this, I ran out into the downtown flow, dodging business commuters and the itinerant, red circles pressed around my eyes from the goggles and my hair in a braid that dripped onto that florescent green shirt I bought in London. (The shirt was tight before and now it’s worse. If they didn’t notice the boobs coming before, now it’s all they see.)

Then there’s the biking. My bike, which has barely 100 miles on it, is still unknown. I’ve ridden it enough to know the saddle is uncomfortable though. In Portland I traded in the Specialized saddle I bought with the bike for a Terry. It cost me $50, but that’s half the price of the seat without the trade-in. When my REI dividend came I promptly ordered Sugoi capris to replace the 7-year-old Hind shorts. And finally, I replaced lost sunglasses, which I think were left in San Francisco.

Everything is ready to go, except for me. Complications put my body to resting again and now I’m waiting out the healing.

Amon Tobin is the surprise favorite. When I listened to this album two years ago I wouldn’t have thought I could drive to it, straight through for each next song. Like this, driving home from gma’s
  gma
  gma
  gma
  gma
 ...It’s not just your going being mourned, but all the history I know and have ever read about. That sign hanging from the sky directs me to tour the chronology of your life. As I drive on, I think I’ve bypassed you and everything else; I fear that when I travel through that crossroad again the sign will not be there to point the way home. You’re the proof the past existed and suddenly I’m stuck only with the future.

And this time it’s all about you and not something that’s happening to me. It came while driving home that the difference between then and now is I’m not powerless this time. I can do things for you; for me. Is this what it’s like to lose a parent as an adult? I want to rush home and call the friends who have recently lost their parents, and ask.