Where were you at 8pm tonight?

I was peeling myself from the sidewalk somewhere on Pike, north of Broadway. Crashed my bike, see, for the first time in close to 15 years. Nothing serious. I didn't even get to test the integrity of my new helmet. Some skin is missing from the palm of my left hand, my right knee, and that bend indicating genetic impurity on my little pinky. There is a hole in the knee of my jeans, which happen to be the only long pants I brought with me from Korea. Joy. I needed to buy another pair anyway.

It was the curb. I'm justified in blaming the curb. It was one of those new bulbuous additions to right angled sidewalk corners. It wasn't there before, is what I'm saying. If you've been around Seattle, you know what I'm talking about: those rounded sections creating literal bottlenecks at intersections. What the hell are they for anyway? Aesthetics? The economy has been booming the last few years so they decide to make the streets more pretty? Julie says it might be to improve water flow. (She's an environmental scientist.) I think it might have to do with preventing cars from parking too close to the end of the street.

The thing about the new curbs is that not only do they jut out into the street where bikers now have to swing into the midst of traffic to avoid them, but they are made of asphalt. That's right: They are the same color as the pavement on which we all ride. The actual curb is still a light concrete, but the filler is black. Black! Hard to see at night when I'm looking all directions for cars - things that might hit me - and only using peripheral vision to keep an eye on inanimate obstacles.

Good grief.

Earlier this summer I was with Tom when he actually plowed right over one in his car. It was nighttime then too and neither one of us saw it in the dark because, again, asphalt was used to build the damn thing and the artificial light just didn't distinguish it from the pavement on which we're supposed to drive.

I was having some kind of bad bike-riding karma tonight anyway. Just five minutes before, my lock had somehow jumped free of its harness on my rack, clanking to rest in the middle of the street. I rode around, got off the bike to pick it up when a car came whipping around the corner. I remember thinking that it was a close call, that I should be careful. I started on my way again and BAM! Curb.

I saw it before I hit. I had just slowed, readying for the turn. I looked to the left for moving hazards, then looked right - right down at a black curb. I predicted that my tire would collide obliquely, forcing it to slide out from under me and who knows what next? I guess I didn't get that far in the thought process before impact. I saw it. I felt myself go free. It was just like it always is in a crash-type situation: in the air forever. And then I landed. I thought I was done, but then I just kept sliding along that fresh asphalt. I felt the skin peel away.

Two women across the street called to me asking if I was OK. I said I was but they approached anyway, inquiring about the health of the bike, which I said was fine without even looking. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. You sure? Yep. Just fine. Yes, bleeding, but not so bad. I'm fine. Oh look! A hole in my jeans! That's worse than blood; I can grow new skin, but I have to pay for new pants.

Well, I was out riding around in the dark because Mary and Wayne had invited me to dinner and I didn't want to drive. Saturday I'd gotten a much coveted parking spot in one of the few sections of Seattle streets where there aren't any meters and there aren't any blasted "zone" signs. No way am I giving that up until I absolutely can't avoid it.

I got back on my bike, which seemed to work fine, and rode - bloody palm up - the rest of the way to dinner. Wayne patched me up while I sat on the edge of his tub feeling woozy from shock and thinking about how much of a wimp I must be because of it. Then they gave me a glass of wine with which I settled into the couch and watched some show on TV about cats.

(Dinner was fantastic. Mary loves to cook and she made some kind of excellent pumpkin soup and a mixed-greens salad with sugared pecans and dried cranberries.)

On the way home I stopped at QFC to stock up on bandages and Neosporin.