To Slip and Slide, or Just to Ride

We once walked out on the beach
and once I almost touched your hand
oh how I dreamed to finally say such things
then only to pretend...
Even if your heart would listen,
I doubt I could explain.
--Jimmy Eat World "If You Don't, Don't"

If you want to see something I one day dream of doing, click the link here.

It's a slippery slope I'm treading on. I must keep my wits about me and maintain my focus, for at any minute I may end up falling in, and I don't think any of us wants to see that. Do we?

And yet, there is so much to see, and I AM attracted by the beauty of my surroundings...

Alright, for all you who don't read into the symbolism here, we're talking about Love. And, this week, I've felt my heart being pulled in one direction while my feet so clearly want to go somewhere else. This begs the question, what is so bad about falling in love?

Most of me wants to walk the ridgeline of reality, and only once in a while, peer down on love, enjoy the view for a bit, then continue on my journey. But there is part of me that wants to get closer, ya know, for a better view. As if getting closer and seeing more clearly will in someway help me understand love. At the risk of falling in? Remember, it's a slippery slope. Like the glacial slopes my friend crosses in his video. Were I to slip and fall, there would be no saving me. I would slide, at an exhilarating pace, down. With nothing to stop me. So, out of necessity, I keep my distance from the edge.

This is all so abstract. Let's get concrete.

I had to go back to work this week. It was full of meetings with the principal and other teachers, reviewing school policies, sort of setting up my classroom, and even a little interaction with some of the students (cross country runners mostly). School starts tomorrow, and we all are full of a mixture of emotions consisting mostly of excitement and dread.

Also this week, I went horseback riding. The highlight of the trip, for me, was her. But, other highlights of the trip included:

• both of us listening to the same music on our 40-minute Harley ride to get there (and another 40 minutes to get home)
  
• the kid who was taking care of the horses asking if we wanted to take a picture of the one who suffered from "Horsey Down's Syndrome"--distant stare in its eyes and tongue sticking out
  
• my heart beating faster
• the sunset
• the tour guide getting lost and having to use the GPS on her phone to find our way back
• Cafe Rio for dinner (the food was good, the company was exceptional)
  

Sadly, those are all the images you get from the trip.

Also this week, trying with all my might to delay the end of summer and the onset of my real job and the stress of actually having to work everyday, I spent all day Saturday doing fun stuff. I lifted weights, rode my mountain bike, played tennis and frisbee, and fixed my sprinklers (or so I thought).

And that's my last week of summer in a Nutshell,
Hop

Ye Olde Nutshell

You're so delicious,
You're so
Soft
Sweet on the tip of my tongue
You taste like
Sunlight
And strawberry bubblegum
You bite my lip
You spike my blood
You make my heart
beat
faster.
--Matt Nathanson, "Faster"

And so it begins...again.

This past week was full of adventure. I made a new friend and we shared a lot of firsts together. Hopefully we'll share many more firsts in the coming...hours, days, weeks...Listen to me, I'm so optimistic. Where does it come from, this optimism, this confidence?

It must be from the inordinate amount of fast food I've been eating lately. It can't be from working out, because I've only hit the gym twice this month, and I've only run three times. And I finally got on my road bike for the first time this week. So, no, it must be my diet, because it's definitely not my exercise.

I watched the sunrise this week. There's something incredibly therapeutic, cathartic, symbolic, and romantic about arising early in the morning, finding yourself in the dark, and watching the light creep over the mountains to the east, illuminating the world around you. And honestly, I can't think of anyone better than the person who was with me. She had all the right answers to all my questions/comments. So, thank you mystery woman from the sunrise memory, and may the monkeys from the movie ever be out of your dreams.

Some of you may know I was in Utah last weekend. Well, I have surpassed the 14,000 mile mark on my Harley-Davidson. That may not seem like a lot of miles to some of you, but consider that earlier this week my buddy, Green, rode his 1990 Katana over to my house, and it has fewer than 13,000 miles on it. So, in 21 years, he has put almost as many miles on his bike as I have in the past 3.5 years.

Some might consider the big news of this week to be the fact that I paid someone to sedate me, lay me on a table, apply great pressure to my eyeballs, cut my corneas open with a laser and send me home with clear plastic shields over my eyes, and steroids to drop in my eyes every few hours. (Fun factoid: the steroids I drop in my eyes leak through to my sinuses, and down into my oral cavity. Translation: I can TASTE the steroids a few minutes after I put them in my eyes.)

Now, I have two favorite memories to share with you from this week. One of them involves my army buddies. We went out to dinner together on Thursday and over the course of our conversation, Green brought up this young woman from his apartment complex who was "Jewish" and a "Jesus Freak". The conversation stalled for a second as we all considered this. Jews don't typically identify with Christians, at least not the "Jesus Freaks". While he was talking about her, she sent him a text message, making some statement about religion. Since I have the reputation among my peers of being the strait-and-narrow-let's-talk-religion-and-stay-on-the-right-path guy I told Green to give me her number. I texted her, which resulted in her calling me, which resulted in me inviting her to church on Sunday.

The second memory, forgive me, is a bit juvenile--I'm still young at heart. We're driving in the car, she and I, and I look over and ask sweetly, "Can I hold your hand?" Her reply: "That depends...can you multi-task?" Ah, the wit. The flirtation. It makes my heart beat faster.

And that's my week in a Nutshell,
Hop