how many women should it take to change a bike tyre?

in an effort to be a little more self-sufficient than wailing: "it hurts/i'm not strong enough/oh my god, look how much grease i am now covered in?" i signed up for a women's bike maintenance clinic.

it turns out that it really is easier to get someone else who fits the gender role of 'person on white horse/frame, in a suit of armour/spandex' to do anything pertaining to calipers, cranks and carbon fibre.

like most academics with advanced degrees, i already know how to change a tube, it's just that i'm not actually very good at it- and by "good", i mean efficient (by which i mean "fast"). and by that, i mean after about 45 minutes i emerge coated in a sheen of black grease, entering the first phase of carpal tunnel syndrome, clutching an underinflated tyre.

really, i was hoping to learn a short cut, but apparently, like everything else in cardiovascular life, to get better means doing it more- fortunately, this will not be a problem i run or ride into. and so the evening proceeded, interspersed with many four letter words, and the constant refrain "this is so much easier to do on a mountain bike".

perhaps the best, and most defining part of having a group of women gathering together in order to learn and then practice things is that anything applied- or physically difficult- means unconditional, judgement-free and most importantly "group" effort.

followed by an endless supply of hors d'oeuvres and wine.

it's like taking your first real poo in a "grown up" toilet

achieving (and completing) any developmental milestone is supremely satisfying-- and also very relative. for some, the ability to select the appropriate remote control (out of the little "catholic family" of them) is an accomplishment- actually being able to do something more complex than change the volume or channel, approaches doctoral level applications. i routinely ascribe to the school of; "other people are trained to do specialized things like; change the oil on my mazda; perform open heart surgery; dye my hair into a purple mohawk, and therefore there is no reason to cause myself undue stress by even attempting such activities".

pride comes before a puncture, and i am a slow learner, where frustration appears to be the only way for things to sink in- although this has not yet been true for retaining the law of fractions or calculating a 15% tip at thai siam.

i recently acquired new mountain bike shoes (and cleats), and was able to whip out the little multi tool to get things situated, per the multi-lingual instructions, in addition to tightening the rear brakes (although at this point installing new brake pads is probably the more appropriate course of action). unfortunately, i got a flat in the non-padded-bike-shorts-rear prior to a steep and rutted ascent, and there was no audience participation for my 'helpless female on the trail' impersonation. i had been given instruction 3 or 4 years ago on how to change a flat, and then sent off with a spare tube, but i also remember taking a very (very) long time, most of which was spent wrestling the tire casing off the rim-- this happy little ritual was repeated again. eventually the new tube was put in, casing wrestled back on, air pumped (and pumped), and nothing. i have a master's degree, which should outrank my ovaries, but being able to write a research paper and figure out the footnote feature to american psychological association standards doesn't necessarily generalize to life's little irritations.

the spare also had a hole. i (finally) figured this out, and successfully did my business.

(so proud).

"i have cramps" is not enough of a reason to leave work

unless you are competing in the olympic freestyle or trapezing for cirque de soleil in a white thong, it is unacceptable to believe that the breaking down of your uterine lining is sufficient grounds to leave your desk and go home to lay on the couch, eat an entire carton of edy's french silk (light) ice-cream, while watching oprah winfrey talk to her dead relatives about the latest tear jerking novel exploring the obstacles involved in loving a prison inmate (as a devout nun) during the civil war.

"cramps" are the ultimate 'get out of jail free'- particularly when talking to a male supervisor. and while my ovaries are riddled with cellulite-- i will wait for my oil/tyres/lightbulbs to be changed, or toilet/sink/vacuum cleaner to be "plunged"-- unless your uterus is hanging between your knees, the equivalent volume of a fish aquarium is pouring down your legs, or it feels like a re-enactment of the run for the bulls in your abdomen, you can certainly sit at your desk and check your email/facebook/ebay account/stalk exes (and their exes), like the rest of us.

PMS is not an officially recognized handicap, but will it eventually warrant special parking spots at the mall? reserved toilet cubicles nearest to a public restroom's entrance? rear view mirror tags to be hung during that week indicating, to police and other motorists, your hurried and erratic trajectory to the closest DQ drive-thru for a maui brownie madness blizzard? pre-boarding a flight before a 95 year old biddy who is folded up like an ironing board because of her chronic athritis? bonus rewards at blockbuster to rent yourself a meg ryan movie AND a family sized bar of hershey's? perhaps we will begin to see men calling off because they cut themselves while shaving that morning? or come in late after waiting for their morning glory to dissipate?

clean your car, change your life

my car has been filthy; inside and out. but as with most things, i worry more about what other people will see. therefore when the very infrequent compulsion overcomes me, i will usually wash the exterior so it does not look quite so "matte". not to mention it's just so much bloody work fiddling about with those oversized and akward vaccuums that cant seem to suck up anything bigger (or smaller) than a tic tac. however, this has been the season for expensive new make-up, using moisturizer (somewhat daily), and nice knickers (or at least ones with no holes in them). that, and the crumbs and other unidentifiable funk around the central console were really starting to irritate me. i also needed new wipers and windscreen squirt.

in the: non-codependent-boring-chores-are-always-more-fun-when-you-have-company way, i invited a friend to wash her filthy, crumby car too. really i needed "back up" to venture into testoserone hell (pep boys) to purchase my wipers. fortunately the 'deer in headlights of an oncoming locomotive on fire' drew a very patient and grandfatherly salesman to orient us to the wiper aisle; i encouraged him not to leave us, perhaps "abandon" was the word i actually used. at the checkout he offered to install them for me (was it that obvious?). i declined, informing him that i needed to be wiper self sufficient, but if he heard excessive weeping and swearing from the car park, to send out reinforcements.

after several minutes of struggling (and swearing) we wrestled the wipers off. another several minutes of more swearing and struggling ensued in order to attach the new ones. wiper mission accomplished was punctuated by some animated high fiving. after that, replenishing the wiper fluid was child's play; but we still high fived ourselves. while this may not be a great feat for many, the fact that i spend about as much time futzing with my car as i do poking around in my left ventricle with a scalpel marks this as an achievement.*



*although perhaps not an entirely successful achievement as the wipers were tested in a downpour that looked like vaseline had been dumped on the windscreen during the work commute today. one of the wipers popped off.

"this is why you (should) have a husband"

i tend to manage my money the way i do my health; ignore it and everything will be fine. my checking account is overdrawn, i have been charged a tonne in overdaft fees. this is not how cancerians are supposed to function. according to the "star sign in 4 sentences or less" bible, we are a financially conservative breed who snuggle nightly with their piggy banks. although i only take vitamins when i am starting to get a cold/remember/have the urge to.

i am a moocher, just not in the orange county housewife "buy me a fur coat with LV branded into the cuffs" way. rather, the "take care of my basic needs/problems that i could probably figure out after about 3 hours of head scratching and fuming" kind of way. last week i was sitting-in-traffic-to-work, when another motorist pointed out that my front tyre was very low on air. once at work, i confirmed the diagnosis, however my "go to for anything vaguely related to stuff guys are supposed to fix" co-worker, was away at a training. so i drove rather slowly to a whole building of men who were "trained to fix". female deprivation and/or working at an auto shop with only ted/bill/bob/rick for company, had a rather helpful chap named "shaun" (his embroidered shirt said so), impersonating nascar pit crew for me.

crappy financial planning/management aside, i need to write down what the psi should be on my tyres, buy a pressure gauge and learn how to use it (again). because if i do not do something frequently and repeatedly (multiplying fractions would be a prime example; aren't they the ones you flip and then just add, or is that when you divide?); i forget. however, this behaviour never held true in my decision to keep trying to live with yet another (drug/religion/sex addicted) roomate.

"shaun" gave me his tyre gauge, and told me i could come back monthly and he would check them for me. i wonder how good he is at doing taxes.