Last but not least, I stumbled across Gus Van Sant filming a movie. Which is pretty weird, cuz he and I both live in Portland, and that’s a long way away.

An excerpt from ìIt’s All Fun and Games Until You See The ëEddy Outí and ëFirst Aidí Hand Signalsî: A Wilderness Evacuation on a Personal Rafting Trip, by Catherine Stifter WMI-NOLS instructor, W-EMT, with Dave Yacubian, WMI-NOLS instructor, W-EMT:

Time check: 2:00pm - Our friend Belle was sitting in river water on the floor of the boat with ìpainî written all over her face. A paddling companion Tom (a WMI WFR) was stabilizing her lower left leg and foot, which was displaced a quarter turn from normal. Dave Yacubian knew the inch-deep, purple indentation at mid-shin was a fracture, but he asked for my second opinion. Leaning carefully on the raft to assess her injury elicited guarding and groaning. All the toes on both feet were cold and numb. We had an anxious patient with mild shocky vitals. On a scale of zero to broken, I guessed it was a 10.

Ouch! Belle’s been recovering nicely–hooray–and lucky for her, she had health insurance. But I’ve also spent an evening sitting in the ER at OHSU, waiting with an uninsured friend who was extremely stressed out from intense pain and, well, uninsurance. Quite possibly worrying about how he was going to pay for his emergency room visit was exacerbating his experience. I’m also uninsured, and when I crashed my bike recently and hurt my shoulder, I limped along for two weeks before I scraped together the resources to get my shoulder “looked” at. In the meantime, I was still working, trying to avoid lifting the heavy things but failing because, well, heavy lifting’s a part of my job.

So hold up, here: I’m a seasonal employee in the outdoor industry, I like to play, and should anything happen, I’ll be bearing the full brunt of that bruising. I encourage people to get outside and push themselves, and were I to take my own advice, I could get in some serious trouble. I did take my advice, and though I’m healing, I’m still a little freaked out because three weeks after the fact, I still can’t lift many things. It’s a difficult dichotomy. I can’t be alone in this dilemma, either, because Portland is a town filled with adventurers and outdoor enthusiasts, many of whom pursue employment seasonally, like I do.

Perhaps I’m not pursuing my care options aggressively enough, but what’s there to be done about situations like these?

Enter the skateboard.

I work with a guy who’s old enough to be President, yet hip enough to be an intelligent advocate for skateboarding. He’s been taking my abstract interest in decks and trucks and spinning it into something a little more concrete. Finally, last week, I bought myself a board for my birthday.

I also got a message in my e.mail, forwarded from the aforementioned: a notice about a girls’ only skate clinic, at the Dept. of Skateboarding.

The hype surrounding it is a little frightening (”Sponsored by Everybody Cool!”) but still, it’s a girls’ only skate event. And though I may have a board, I don’t know how to ride it. So I’m going.

It’s for girls 6 and up. I’m definitely at least 6. Times 4, even.

I turned off a cell phone, and I taught someone how to ride a bike.

The cell phone belonged to an agitated older woman. Apparently, the phone was driving her insane, and she didn’t know how to turn it off. So I did it for her, and she was grateful.

The bike belonged to another woman. She didn’t know how to ride it, and so we went from standing over the bike to riding it in big circles.

Yay, day.

And tomorrow? It’s my birthday. I’m going to Cascade Head.

It makes me tired, this sort of talk.

A few nights ago, I went to a going-away party. A friend of mine, a bike messenger, was leaving for England, for grad school. There were many other bike messengers there. Perhaps you would consider these folks the bikers-with-attitude-problems, but then, consider this: they’re still folks. Folks who harbor aspirations and dreams, and who suffer grief and loss.

These are human emotions.

Emoted by humans.

Human, like you.

As an aside for the so-inclined, did you see Jonathan Maus’ blog entry about Bridge Pedal?

My favorite bike in movie event last year was MI:2 at Esther Short Park. Not so much because of the movie, but because the ride over the I-5 bridge was totally rad. If anybody wants to bike to Vancouver with me over that bridge, let me know. I’d like to ride out there again, but it’s hard for me to agitate for a solo trip.

Tonight my mates and I grilled a chicken in a spicy blackberry bbq sauce. The blackberries were picked this morning, two blocks south of the house, in the church parking lot. Yum. Dm came over, and while ‘ren and I were hashing out some storyboards, Dm disappeared into the garage and reappeared with The Blade of Death, a scythe that terrorizes the dandelions we can’t get with our pushmower.

Dm was really stoked on The Blade of Death. He couldn’t wait to take it to the front yard. Neither could we wait for him to take it to the front yard, so we followed him ’round front, where he began to swing at the weeds in a controlled, yet haphazard manner.

This method ultimately proved ineffectual, and while the guys were standing around brainstorming about how one could best utilize this really cool yet somewhat archaic tool, a woman of a more sophisticated age walked by.

“My grandfather used to use one of those,” she said.

And so she had the complete attention of three young men.

They begged her to demonstrate the scythe’s use, and she complied. It was awesome to watch this woman school the guys. It was even more awesome that the guys took her lesson and demonstration to heart, thanking her profusely before she continued on her evening constitutional.

Not long afterwards, a door-to-door saleswoman stopped in on our little party and attempted to pitch mortgages to us. She didn’t get very far along in her rap before she had a scythe pressed into her hand, and a weed presented to her.

She was a good sport about the whole thing.

We rode through Eastmoreland, passed some folks we knew, waved quick hellos. ‘ren set a fast pace, and it wasn’t until we turned onto Sellwood Blvd that she slowed down.

Down, down, down to the river, where we walked our bikes down onto the sand, before settling on the dock as a breakfasting spot.

By 7:46, we’d been awake for two hours, had eaten, chatted, watched the rowers, and ‘ren was on her way to work.

Good morning.

In other news, my housemate’s dog just broke my partner’s Japanese maple in half. Knocked the whole thing off its trunk, in fact. All because a squirrel was flicking its tail at it from the top of the fence.

It’s been quite the day.

I offhandedly commented that I wanted to start a Texans social club (”You can take a Texan out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of a Texan”?) and the last two folks that I met were all for the idea.

And why not? Up on Alberta, if the banner outside of (soon-to-be closed) Joe’s Place is to be believed, there exists (-ed?) a Louisianans social club.

So I guess I’m polling y’all: is there anybody out there who would sincerely be interested in a Texans social club? Because it’d sure be nice to find some other folks with whom to drink Shiners.