I was about three or four and in a group music lesson. We were taking a five minute break and another kid caught me in the corner picking my nose and sampling the contents. Between her 'EWWW!!!' (she was about nine - I was the youngest kid there by a good four years) and her inevitable tattling on me to the teacher and all the other kids, I was able to convince her that my family came from Russia and in my family (and all over Russia, presumably) it was a ritual we did for good luck.

I discovered a new sensation walking to the bus stop this morning: thick snowflakes falling on sunburned skin.

It's a Midwestern rainy day in the desert. I've got a glove with a coat hanger twisted through the fingers making the 'rock on' sign in the corner, and a wasteland of chocolate wrappers surrounding me. I have a surprise birthday party coming up that, yes, I am supposed to know about, but not the details, and the details being a surprise is enough for me. I also have a surprise birthday dinner coming up that was wholly a surprise until I figured out the clues in a burst and rush of lucky guesses this morning.

It occurs to me that if this were a story, trying to 'illustrate' my happiness, to 'show and not tell' the details that made me that way, it would probably sound forced, but since it's real, and I'm not trying to write, and this is a fleeting feeling, it reads real, at least to me.

We, this stranger and I, were using the Scrabulous chatbox to chat to each other about rambutan and its availability in the United States versus its availability in Canada, which is of course the best possible use for a Scrabulous chatbox. I told him it was near-impossible to get them here unless it was June, and he assured me that the stores were crawling with them in Vancouver, that they were just as prolific there as pineapples or grapes. I was distracted by this beautiful spectre, plus had racks like either 'AUUNOII' or 'CCRZBVX' but never mixed together, so he was winning for most of the game, and was friendly as could be while he was doing so, even bordering on flirting, which skeezed me out a little but was innocuous enough if I just sidestepped it.

Until I started to win. As I got closer and closer to his score he got more and more stroppy. His compliments became sort of backhanded; his comments more guarded. And when I had just one tile left, and was leading by just fifteen points, he probably knew he was going to lose, and so typed 'wow so why do your turns take so long when it's obvious you're using a [Scrabble solver] program' and then left, only to return the next day to finish out his loss with only silence.

What a classy gentleman! I love playing games with those who think that if they don't win, the other person must be cheating. But there is a bigger issue at stake, and that is that the rambutan availability in Vancouver has been thrown into question. I can't trust the claims of someone who turns into a five year old at the first available opportunity! What if Vancouver ISN'T really a fruitful paradise spilling over with rambutan? What if it turns out it's just a cold, rainy, grey city with only oranges and apples to offer?

Every Tuesday I sort of wish it will snow so there won't be a softball game. This, after I spent all my time looking up a softball league that would have me after ten years of not playing at all. I wanted something that would get me into shape in a nonthreatening way (rugby, my last try two years ago, turned out to be a threatening way indeeed; the warmup mile run alone was too much to start with, and the fact that I was the lightest person there at 150 pounds was practically a guarantee that I would be in the hospital before the end of the season) and would shape my week a little bit, force me to compartmentalize my time.

But now I just wish it would snow. Snow or be warm. As much as I want to have something to do when I'm alone in my house, when I do have something to do, and it's stressful, I wish it were optional. Actually, it's probably simpler than that; softball, for me, means biking four or five miles down to the fields on the outskirts of town, and when the game's over and I'm exhausted, either biking back (all uphill) or going out to the main road and waiting a half hour for a bus - this all when it's at or around freezing and the wind is howling. For everyone else, they just have to jump in their cars, drive there, play, jump in their cars, drive back. Simple as that.

It's a sacrifice I make, not having a car, and I like to think it's for the good of the environment, so I can gloat, and not just because I don't have the money, which is probably much closer to the truth. I oscillate between liking it and not. Sometimes when I'm struggling against the wind with both handlebars wobbling with the weight of my groceries and it's starting to snow and cars are sweeping by me at close range and sometimes honking, I get frustrated and angry to the point where it's not even in line anymore with the situation. But later, thinking about it, I think, what do I not have that these people in their cars do?

I used to think nothing. I used to think I had nothing less, and that I was actually gaining something - exercise, and time spent outdoors. Things like that. I disagree with myself now. I'm definitely short on something these people have, and that's the freedom to just go out at a whim and have fun without getting weighed down with the consequences of when's the bus running, what are the intervals, how cold is it, will it snow, which way is the wind blowing, can I ride my bike into it, has someone stolen my bike light, how long will this take, will I be able to get any sleep tonight once I get home?

Because of all these questions running through my head, I often decide just not to go anywhere because it's too much trouble, and my life becomes more monotonous instead of more colorful. And yes, I realize that this is ridiculously whiny and specific about a problem that's not a problem at all, compared to the rest of the problems of the world, and yes, I realize that I could just not think about all those things and go anyway and deal with the consequences as they happen, but that's not who I am, and these are the consequences that riding a bike has, for me, and this is how it's been and now I go nowhere more often than I go somewhere. It makes me sad.