post the eightieth

The title is not a typo. Post the seventy-ninth does not exist.

I had a request to show Run Lola Run for Indie Movie Night tomorrow, so I needed to get up to the Orem Public Library to get it (as that's the one place around here that I know carries it). For those of you not familiar with the Provo-Orem area, it's about ten minutes from my apartment by car. However, I am currently without car, as my sister uses it to get to and from work. My place of employment is close enough that I can walk without too much trouble at all. Generally I wait until my sister gets home from work to run errands like this, but today I was feeling adventurous. Robert Poste just moved out and left his bike with me for the summer. I thought it might be fun to take a bike ride up to the library. The weather was nice, and the library wasn't that far away.

As it turns out, I made a huge mistake.

When I was in Japan, I rode my bike all the time. It got to the point where I could ride for long distances without much of a problem at all. I foolishly assumed that I could still do that. Clearly, such was not true. Not only was that two years ago, but it was also in a place that had an elevation of maybe a hundred feet above sea level or so. Biking up a huge hill in a town that is right at the foothills of mountains is an entirely different experience, and I found that out in a hurry. I was breathing pretty heavily within a few blocks, and that was before I even got to the giant hill. I kept focused on the top, telling myself that it was only a little further. Not much further. You can do it. Just a little bit more, that's all. As long as I kept moving, I was in fine shape.

The problem came right at the top of the hill - right when I thought I'd made it through the worst of the ride. There was a stoplight right at the top, and I had the misfortune of hitting it at a red light. I stopped and took what felt a like a welcome break. No sooner had I stopped than my head got really light. A purplish film fell over my eyes, and everything got really faint and hard to see. I've only felt like that once before, and that was when I fainted just after getting a flu shot. (That's a story for a different day.) I knew something nasty was going to happen if I didn't sit down, and soon. As soon as I got off my bike to sit down, however, the light turned green. I got across the street as quickly as I could so I could throw the bike to the ground and collapse for a bit. This created a conflict for me. Exhaustion and light-headedness were telling me to lay down; however, a swiftly growing sense of nausea was telling me to get up quick so I could throw up. The light head, I decided, could wait a bit, as I scrambled to my knees so I could deal with the nausea first.

After throwing up, briefly, I sat on my knees and looked up for a moment, taking in my surroundings. I had chosen the intersection of two of the largest streets in the area to vomit, and, what's more, I had done so right in front of a mall. On my right, there was a young girl, maybe six years old, looking at me with a look of curiosity and horror from the window of an SUV. While I felt a little bad for her, I felt much better for having dealt with that nausea. Wow.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, really. I made it to the library perfectly fine, if not a little sweaty and out of breath. Master Fob was there to help me choose some books to read over the next few weeks. The movie I wanted was there. The most amazing part was the ride home. While getting to the library took me nearly an hour, the ride home was a paltry twenty minutes. My guess is that there was some sort of rift in the space-time continuum that made the ride to the library miles and miles longer somehow. Orem is a funny place.

So there you have it. Come and see Run Lola Run tomorrow at my place. 9:15. Email me if you need directions. And Katya, you'd better appreciate this movie, or else this whole trip will have been in vain.