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It's hard to believe this is my 200th post.

It's bee a little less than 5 years since I started this random blog. When I started it, I surely would have bet that I'd have at least 200 posts much sooner than this....or not at all. I wouldn't have even gotten here this fast if it wasn't for some great inspiration over the last few months.

So what do I have on tap for number 200? Just let me warn you now, I feel like awfully long-winded today and have a few different topics to help fuel that today. I guess I'll just start off with what's gone down since I left work on Friday.

Friday:

With the X out of commission. I rode Betty into work on Friday. Turned out to be a good thing too, since she's my utility bike. She's not flashy or pretty like the X, but she never lets me down. She's also very aggressive and likes to get dirty. Basically, my type of girl.

Anyway, the forecast when I went to bed on Thursday made no mention of rain at all on Friday. The forecast after I got to work was much different, calling for rain between the hours of 1 and 3. AKA, my commute and errand time.

The sky was overcast, and I could see some pockets of of rain here and there around downtown. I was happy to see that none of the rain pockets was currently over any part of my commute. Though when I pulled out of the garage, that happiness faded fast. I didn't feel the rain, but the spots started to form on my visor.

Thankfully it never rained hard wherever I was the whole time on the bike, but in many places I road through it had, leaving standing water here and there on the roads. I made it through my freeway ride in one piece, though it sure seemed on girl on a cell phone desperately tried to make sure otherwise, and pulled off heading to the bank.

About half a mile or so from the bank , I turn onto Ecorse. The last turn before I am actually at the parking lot for he bank. With the pavement wet and already a little slick, I make the turn and start to gently roll onto the throttle. After it's already too late to make a difference, I notice I am going to go right over a manhole cover.

I come off the throttle a bit before I go over it, but the rear wheel just slides completely across it. I nearly low-sided before the tire gripped again, and then I nearly high-sided with my correction. I attribute my crash-free turn there to three different things; the weight of the bike, my familiarity with the bike, the fact that I was riding single.

Betty is a lot lighter than the X. She is what is referred to as a standard style motorcycle. You sit straight up on a standard....not hunched over like a sport bike, not laid back like a cruiser. Standard bikes are also historically kind of ugly too. Nothing extra on the bike to make it look any better....or to weigh it down. Had I gotten such quick and extreme side to side action like that on the X, I surely would have gone over high-side with my over correction.

Also, had I not had a couple years under my belt on this particular bike, I probably would have laid it down as soon as I started sliding. Had I had a passenger on the back....no way I recover from that either. Other than that, no incidents at all as I ran errands after work. Got home a little damp, but nothing to really complain about. At least my phone didn't gush water as I opened it after this trip.

Rode to my last class for Winter semester later that evening, then up to a bar near my house to meet up with Denise, Bryan, and Michael. From there we decided another place nearby would be good and I would drive everyone else who was willing to walk to my house and jump in my car. After bar number two, we head to one a little further away, but still in town. Maybe 3-4 miles from my house.

When we get there, Denise throws out the Drama card and says she's going to stay in the car for the whole 2 hours Mark, Michael, Bryan, and I are hanging out. To that I pull out my Reverse card, by throwing my truck into reverse, and took her home. I had somewhat planned on her acting this way, which is why I made sure to limit our choices close local places. I also yelled UNO! as I dropped her off....joke for one there.

The rest of the night was smooth until the end when Bryan (Denise's husband, and the only one with me that night that's not a blood relative) offered to pay the tab. Mark checked the bill before we left, and saw that he had only left her a two dollar tip on either a $48 OR $50 tab. We eventually took care of that and got Bryan home without him puking in my truck....again.

Saturday:

All through Friday night and early Saturday morning, a few weird dreams kept me awake for more than half the time i was trying to sleep. Not too long after I finally fell asleep, my alarm goes off....I reset it to give myself 90 minutes for another much needed REM cycle. Although I needed the sleep, that put me behind on my plans for the day and I ended up leaving for our safety meeting without my jeans fully drying.

After the meeting we headed to Nemo's for a couple burgers, then out to Bookies for a late BDay celebration for Mark. The lack of sleep and the long day caught up to me there, and I wasn't my usual talkative self....even with Kelley.

Sunday:

Woke up to an alarm clock for the second weekend day....shouldn't there be a law against that? Had breakfast with my mom, uncle, and cousins at the new Parthenon Coney Island not too far from my house. Unfortunately my mom snuck up to pay everyone's bill before the waitress even brought it out to us. I would have stopped her, but I know Denise and Bryan are always looking for a free meal, and if my uncle was letting go with just a little protest, I was ok with it too. I know she enjoys doing that anyway, so I wasn't going to stop her on mother's day.

A few hours later, I got to treat her to game 5 of the Wings/Ducks series for her mother's day present. The seats were pretty good, 15 rows from the ice directly behind the net on the visitor's side. We got to see a lot of action in our end throughout the game, and got very lucky to have quiet Ducks fans right in front of us. They didn't stand up once during a play that we wanted to see.

After the Wings took out the Ducks 4-1, I drove back home and made my mom come in so Mark and I could take pictures of her with her "Price is Right" check before she took off on her hour long ride home. We watched the end of X-3 and the beginning of Top Gun while I waited to hear that she made it home safe, and I promptly jumped in bed.

I fought connection problems on my laptop all night, then finally turned the thing off around 1am. After that, I tossed and turned and stretched and scratched and sighed and got up for a glass of water....basically anything but sleep. That lasted til about 3am, and when I finally fell asleep the first dream I had woke me up for good. One of my recently confessed nightmare situations became an actual nightmare last night. It all seemed so real, my heart ached when I woke up....and I still can't get it out of my head.

Speaking of today and my lack of sleep, it's amazing how a state of mind can determine what you notice in a certain situation. If you are happy or in love, you notice all the great things around you. When you are depressed or heartbroken, you notice all the things wrong around you. When you are sleep deprived, you notice the oddest things. Today, I noticed the lights and light pattern in the same hallway I walk through every morning. I honestly had no idea about any of the lights before today, but now I am pretty much an expert.

After arriving and settling in, I had to write out the date a few times for some items. 5-11-09....although the first thing I filled out said 5-11-02. Hmm, only 7 years off. Then I realized that today would have been my seventh wedding anniversary with Chris. I'm not one to dwell on the past, but that made me think about what everything would be like now if we had actually gone through with it. Different is the only way I can describe what I came up with.

So with all these thoughts running around my sleepless head, I needed to start up my morning playlist a little early today....as in right after my shower. I headed over to my computer and fired up a playlist, hit random, and listened to the first song at home. Next two songs were "random" finds in the car because I accidentally hit the wrong button and got an unexpected station. It all worked out for the best though.

Morning Music 5-11-09

1. Falling in Love in a Coffeeshop- Landon Pigg. Interesting choice computer. I really like this song, other than the chorus. The way he sings it give the song character, and I appreciate that, but the rest of the lyrics are just fan-effing-tastic and I think the chorus takes a little away from that. I chuckled yesterday when I saw this was on an AT&T commercial, and about picture messaging too. The irony was not lost on me there....you can look at my Verizon bill and see that. Ooh....I should probably pay them.

2. White Wedding- Billy Idol. "Hey little sister, who's your Superman? Hey little sister, who's the one you want? There's nothin fair in this world, and there's nothin safe in this world, and there is nothin sure in this world, and there's nothin pure in this world....start again." Who'd have thought that Billy Idol could be so deep?

3. Come Undone- Duran Duran. Ok, NOW I see why I pressed the wrong station button. I absolutely love this song....and I don't own it anymore. Sad. I was first drawn to this song by the voice of the girl in this song. Hearing her gave me goosebumps, something that rarely happens, and it still does from time to time. After she drew me in, I listened to the lyrics....and smiled. Some great words there. Some of the verses don't seem to make sense when you first hear or read the lyrics, but they have a definite meaning for me. "Who do you need? Who do you love? When you've come undone."

4. I'm Bad- L.L. Cool J. "I'm the pinnacle, that means I reign supreme, I'm notorious, I'll crush you like a jelly bean."

5. Sabotage- Beastie Boys. Such an awesome video. I'll never forget flying down the alley behind Snookers in my Dakota with this song blaring on my CD player. That "experiment" was two fold. First I wanted to see how fun it would be to recreate part of the video, because the alley was pretty jacked, almost like a motocross course. We caught air at least once, and grounded something out a couple times. Second was trying to get the CD player to skip. I had this great Pioneer 6 disc changed mounted under the passenger seat, that I never got to skip (even that night) with a CD that wasn't scratched.

6. Ghost of You- Good Charlotte. This made me laugh. A little ironic with some of the stuff in my head/dreams right now.

7. I Wanna be Sedated- The Offspring. They performed this in the movie Idle Hands. I'm sure you didn't see that, because NO ONE saw that. Opening weekend for it we were the only ones in the theater to see it. We got in for free, so it wasn't too much of a loss there....and empty movie theaters can be fun too with the right companion.

8. The Pretender- Foo Fighters. So if I wasn't as tired as I am, I probably would not admit this here....but this song always reminds me of myself. There are so many people who think they know me, but only a select few I trust to be completely open and honest with. You'd be surprised how short that list is too....

9. I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor- Arctic Monkeys. Well, there are few finer things than a woman who knows how to dance and actually gets into it. Throw a mirror into the mix, and I am completely helpless.

10. Rub You the Right Way- Johnny Gill. This song just reminds me that my own magic hands have been idle for way too long. The last person I dated that actually enjoyed getting massaged was Chris. At that time I was doing that somewhat regularly for my PT job, and getting practice just about every night at home. I never thought I would have a hard time finding someone who liked getting massaged as much as I like giving them.