Goin’ for a putt

Wow.

No, I mean WOW.

I thought I was crazy. Per­haps I still think I’m crazy. But this is good crazy.

I was ter­ri­fied of this thing, and per­haps I was right to be. I still am. I almost did­n’t do any­thing but take it straight home (well, after bring­ing it by Mud­dy’s to show off, of course.) My friend Rick told me I HAD to ride it, but pru­dence was win­ning. After all, stalling out in the mid­dle of Van Ness Avenue was pret­ty scary and, yeah, does­n’t wait­ing until day­light and find­ing a nice aban­doned park­ing lot to prac­tice in sound like the log­i­cal thing to do? Of course it does.

Then right after order­ing cof­fee (decaf, of course! I was already pret­ty jit­tery) and get­ting ready to make the bike a café— — um… well, a café cruis­er any­how— — I sud­den­ly remem­bered my appoint­ment for a swim les­son. I was so enthralled with the new toy that I for­got all about it! I was sup­posed to meet my coach in only twen­ty min­utes, and in that time I had to go home and get my swim trunks, gog­gles, and oth­er para­pher­na­lia. Oh no! By strange coin­ci­dence, I just hap­pened to have a motorcycle.

I did­n’t quite make it on time, but close enough.

On the way home from the swim les­son (around mid­night) I decid­ed to just detour around the neigh­bor­hood a lit­tle. Yes, I stalled the bike at stop signs a few more times (I’ll have to adjust the idle, real­ly) but Fill­more to Fell to Ful­ton and bada-bing, bada-boom! that there yon­der is the Pacif­ic Ocean! And not only that but I’d got­ten a lit­tle bit of prac­tice on some res­i­den­tial streets, and some prac­tice on the open boule­vards. I start­ed to feel a lit­tle bit at ease on the bike.

So I rode up around the Cliff House and through the Pre­sidio. By the time I was look­ing at the Gold­en Gate Bridge I knew I’d go across. The toll is up to five bucks these days, but the City always looks nice from Vista Point.

In the park­ing lot over­look­ing the Bay on the Marin side of the Bridge, I was first star­tled and then amused when a car a few dozen yards away rocked back and forth rhyth­mi­cal­ly. That’s when I real­ized that I may nev­er have been to Vista Point by myself. I’ve been there a few times, but nev­er just to go see the sights for myself. I remem­ber look­ing out at the City with a date and say­ing «that’s our City» but this was the first time I stood there to say, «that’s my City.»

And then it real­ly hit me: I could vis­it one of my night-owl friends, like euthymia or xanadu­too. It would­n’t take long to get even across the Bay to Alame­da. No longer fet­tered by the sched­ules of BART and MUNI, I could just drop in. That’s when it real­ly felt like yes, NOW I real­ly live in San Fran­cis­co. Now I’m not just trapped in one part of the City, but can roam around it at will. It felt like a moment I should sit with and expe­ri­ence, and pay some vis­its anoth­er day.

I came back to the City and ate at the Lucky Pen­ny. I got out of there at about two A.M., so I took res­i­den­tial streets home and avoid­ed the bar rush traffic.

Now I’m tired and thrilled. My bike has twen­ty-eight miles on the odome­ter. While I did open up the throt­tle a cou­ple times, most of the time I was run­ning right near the speed lim­it. I think I got it up to 50mph on the Bridge (which is a 45 zone). So yeah, there’s fun to be had from speed, but that’s not all there is to it.

This is great!