Biker Girl

I've been riding my bike to work and with this goes a fine sense of moral superiority. I feel so eco-friendly as I coast along next to the gas guzzlers... BUT, it also scares the ever living crap out of me. Biking through traffic is terrifying for so many reasons, most of which involve how much of me would survive a confrontation with a Hummer. I like my legs and I'm fairly certain they wouldn't make it out in one piece.

But I've been braving the mean streets anyway and yesterday I had my first fall. I suppose it's a right of passage, but I was really hoping it would be from dodging a door, or a gigantic pothole I couldn't avoid. As it was, I didn't tie my shoelaces tight enough and one of them got caught in the pedal. There's nothing as graceless as slowly pulling to the side of the street as your pink Converse gets sucked into your wheel, trying desperately to kick your shoe from your foot and coming to a halt at the corner of Pico and Overland where you let your bike fall on top of you, in a messy heap of girl and cycle. I must have looked like a circus act gone terribly wrong. But as I picked myself up and double knotted my shoes, I still felt it-- that fabulous sense of eco-superiority. Los Angeles may be laughing at me, but somewhere out there, a Polar Bear is smiling... and wishing I would tie my shoes tighter.