Princess of the World

I am clumsy. This is because I am a girl. SCIENCE.

Along with my floppy ankles (aka medically validated clumsiness), I also just do stupid stuff. I have sliced into my finger so many times I almost have no fingerprints left (Woo! Life of crime!), and bang my head onto kitchen cupboards so regularly that one day THEY’RE going to break due a life of stress fractures from my skull. I also burn myself with fantastic regularity.

When I was about 6 I snuggled so close to the kerosene heater that I burned my ass on the metal cover, burned a big Z into my butt. My mum told everyone she knew and called me Zorro for months. I once got so excited at an episode of Australia’s Funniest Home Videos that I jumped up from my bean bag (!) with a large bowl of 2 minute noodles, filled to the brim with boiling water, in my lap. The boiling water really pooled up nicely in my lap as I fell back into the bean bag and nothing says funniest home videos like a crotch covered in red, fleshy blisters (people, never trust a cockatoo, they do funny shit that can cause DANGEROUS BURNS).

About a week ago, Graeme was busy doing that very annoying thing where he stands watching me cook (in frilly knickers and Louboutins, obviously) and flinches and winces and gasps as he watches me chopping vegetables, as if the mere act of being close to a knife is a sure bet I’m going to lose a digit. My feeling about this is I cook every night and of course sometimes you lose a finger here and there, who HASN’T secretly enjoyed their broccoli with a whisper of blood? (Also, if it’s going to cause him such terrible emotional angst I suggest that he just cooks us dinner instead, gender equality isn’t just about waxing ya know). I took on that particular tone of voice that partners take and told Graeme that it had been WEEKS since self inflicted injury. WEEKS. Sigh. Huff. Eyebrow.

So cut to last night when as a reward for doing a 60km mountain bike race (holy moly, that’s far!), I was doing a roast chicken (with garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus and green salad) for my brave sporty husband type. I went to pick up the pan for the asparagus (on a burner that wasn’t on) and the oven had heated up the handle so much my hand stuck to it a bit. I ran my hand under cold water and cried. I cried! Usually when I hurt myself I just run through my list of obscenities until I run out of ideas and go on my merry way, but this time I couldn’t take it out from under the cold water without bursting into tears again. I had to call Graeme over (I know, I know, I acknowledged weakness, next time we’re picking gladiator baseball teams where the stakes are life or death by cougar he won’t pick me to be on his team) to help finish the gravy. Also, I LET A BOY HELP WITH THE GRAVY AND THE WORLD DID NOT END. Lesson learned.

Anyway, I went to bed with a ziploc bag filled with ice and a wet cloth and at some point during the night it stopped hurting. There is only one blister that has raised (it’s the shape of Lake Ontario) but there are two massive white pockets under the skin around the blister. It’s gross, and a bit sore but I think I’m gonna be okay. I will accept gifts though. Just in case.

UPDATE* – I just went to get icecream and shouted to Graeme “I updated my blog! And I linked to yours! Because I’m a better wife who links to your blog even though you never link to m…” and at that point I hit myself in the face with the freezer door.

I ride my bike from about March to November. I try to be a good cyclist, and as always, I am opinionated about what that means.

A cyclist was killed three weeks ago here in Toronto, after he and a car were in a standard(ish) altercation. After the first shouty/ angry/ argument between car and bike, the cyclist then chased after the car on foot, grabbed onto the driver’s side window frame (and possibly the steering wheel, I guess we’ll find out when it’s in court), and then the driver made the terrible (and one can assume panicked) choice to drove onto the wrong side of the road to try and knock him off the car by scraping him along post boxes, street signs and anything else he could find. It eventually worked.

The cyclist a bike courier, was drunk (and a drunk) and had just had an altercation with the cops. The driver was the former attorney general of Ontario.

This tragedy has raised the hackles of the cycling community and the driving community who hate the cycling community. I rode in a large cycling rally after it happened, that I probably shouldn’t have ridden in. I was riding because I think cyclists have a right to be on the road and to have the respect of other drivers, and to feel safe. Unfortunately I think that by chasing after the car and grabbing onto the driver’s side, a fact I learned after the rally, the cyclist took this incident from a fairly standard bike vs car daily unpleasant incident, and into the realm of stupid aggressive fight, where everyone behaved terribly and now someone is dead. I imagine it’s pretty scary when an angry drunk man chases your car down and tries to grab your steering wheel, but scraping him off with a post box? Ugh… I dunno, I wasn’t there but the situation is horrific and has ruined the lives of everyone involved, most especially the guy who ended up dead.

I think for cyclists to demand respect, and we do (usually in a whiny, angry, self righteous way), we need to start respecting the rules of the road. Every day I see cyclists not stopping at red lights and stop signs and, certainly, most of the time nothing bad happens. But sometimes it does and the consequences can be pretty bad. We don’t have a right to disobey the rules of the road just because our machines aren’t as dangerous as cars, it’s still against the law and it bloody hurts when you get hit by a bike. And just because some drivers are total douche bags doesn’t give us the right to roll through a stop sign, in fact, it’s all the more reason not to. Don’t allow drivers take any moral high ground! Boo for moral high ground in an SUV!

Now for some language I picked up at Catholic school…

STOP LISTENING TO YOUR FUCKING IPOD WHEN YOU CYCLE YOU NUMBFUCK DICK HEADED IDIOT. It takes away 50% of your ability to ride your fucking bike safely, and forces me to have to deal with you. If you don’t pull over far enough because you don’t hear my bell and you ride your loser hipster fucking bike into me and into the path of a douche bag car, I will sue you (American stylze mother fucker) for every cent you and your parents have, and further more, I will beat the living SHIT out of you you selfish fuck. Also, if you get hit by a car when you’re listening to your ipod, you deserve it. Pop some Aimee Mann on your ipod next time you can get on your bike after leaving the hospital and CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER. Grow the fuck up and leave your heap of shit, I heard them first, indie band tunes for the fucking gym.

Finally, if you’re a boy and you think you’re faster than me so you pull in front of me when I’m stopped at a traffic light, you. better. be. fucking. faster. than. me.

That’s all. Sara’s rules of the road, some more official than others. That we are doing our bit to lessen pollution, unclog roads, strengthen our lungs and get outside isn’t enough, we gotta obey the rules like everyone else and maybe by being great examples we can lead the way for others.

Now this, this I can respect...

Peel.