The day I learned how to ride a dirt bike.

Let me preface this by saying that I have a giddy, longing interest in small, self-propelled machines, whether they be motor scooters, four-wheelers, snowmobiles, broomsticks or experimental flying machines. 

The only real experience I’ve had on any of these, however, is a snowmobile. And you may remember that I threw out my back after rolling it into a ditch and trying to flip it back over last Christmas. 

[Foreshadowing.]

Also, every time I go to my girlfriend Christie’s house, I embarrass myself in some way. (Perhaps this little post about me and a faulty pocket door will refresh your memory.) These instances are always avoidable with the help of something that I like to call “thinking ahead” which is not necessarily something that I’m good at. 

[Also foreshadowing.]

It was a beautiful late-August day.  Everything was going smoothly at Christie’s Bon Voyage party, and Christie and I were mingling with her friends and extended family amongst folding tables in their open garage. I was drinking a Pepsi and happily munching on some pasta salad. Her brother was taking the kids on dirt bike rides around their yard. The first time he took off with a kid, the bike jerked forward and a few people around me gasped, but he righted it and drove off. My heart continued to beat heavily. 

[Foreshadowing. Seriously, I should 

have figured this sh** out.]

CHRISTIE: You should try that when he’s done! 

ME: What? No. Not while everyone’s watching.

CHRISTIE: No, it’ll be fine! My brother can teach you! Come on, Brian; it’s a small, self-propelled machine...your favorite...

ME: Don’t try to tempt me. I’m not going to learn to ride it. Besides, your dad’s watching; he already thinks I’m a wimp.

CHRISTIE: No he doesn’t! Well, not anymore at least, ever since you finally gave him a firm handshake...

ME: MY NORMAL HANDSHAKE IS PLENTY FIRM. He just wanted to have a Hand Squeeze-Off, which I wasn’t prepared for! 

CHRISTIE: And, see? Now everything’s okay! 

ME: Still. 

CHRISTIE: Just get on the bike. It’ll be fine, okay? Nothing can go wrong. 

ME: My eye’s twitching involuntarily.  

CHRISTIE: Oh, come on. Let’s go. 

So Christie and I walked over to her brother, who gave me hasty instructions. I have to admit, I began to get pretty excited. 

HER BROTHER: So just squeeze this blah blah blah when you blah blah blah and let out the blah blah blah but not too much blah blah blah clutch gas brake engine radiator. Sound good? 

ME: Sounds great! No helmet or pads, of course.

HER BROTHER: You’re not a wuss.

ME: Damn straight! And I certainly don’t need to know what to do if something goes wrong, especially since I’ve never driven any sort of manual transmission.

HER BROTHER: Of course not. 

ME: Sweet! Here I go, Christie’s onlooking family and friends! I’m about to drive a dirt bike for the first time without a helmet on an inclined blacktop driveway! 

EVERYONE: GODSPEED, BRIAN! 

[Every middle school English teacher on the planet just got a strange tingling sensation in their nose. This story has more foreshadowing than To Kill A Mockingbird.]

So I started up the dirt bike death machine, and gave it a go. I squeezed the blah blah blah and let out some blah blah blah and...oh crap...I didn’t listen to anything Christies brother was saying...and the bike immediately jerked forward a few times, and took off like an unknotted balloon. This is what I believe was my trajectory: 

And all I could think about while I flew through the air to my imminent death was:

After my short liftoff, I landed on my side, and slid down the driveway. It seemed as though everything was fine until I realized that the driveway wasn’t, in fact, made out of piles of marshmallows and sweaters but asphalt, to which I had generously donated a few layers of skin on my elbow, thumb, palm, knee, shoulder, and hip. 

And then this conversation happened:

EVERYONE: *GASP!* 

ME: Oh sweet Jesus.

CHRISTIE’S MOM: Oh no! Are you alright?

ME: Yeah, I’m fine.

CHRISTIE: Oh gosh, let’s get you inside.

ME: Ow. I really should have seen that coming. I feel like there were a lot of red flags.

CHRISTIE’S FRIEND: Wow, how embarrassed you must be!

HER DAD: Let out the clutch too fast. 

CHRISTIE: Ooh, those cuts look bad.

HER BROTHER: I CAN SEE BONE! 

ME: No you can’t. I’m going to get some bandages.

HER BROTHER: That’s bone I see! That’s what your elbow bone looks like! 

ME: Nope. It’s not my bone.

HER FRIEND: It’s going to suck to show up at your second interview at church covered in all those bandages...

ME: What? Oh that’s right. Thanks for reminding me.

HER BROTHER: Can I touch your elbow bone?

ME: If you can excuse me, everyone, I’m going to go disappear for a bit. 

And so I went inside and used all the bandages I could find to cover my mutilated body.  When I was bandaged up, my body started to actually understand the fact that I had just been thrown onto a driveway like a bony ragdoll and I began to shake. I grabbed some water and sat down inside for a bit. Then Christie, her siblings, and her dad came in. 

HER BROTHER: Looks like you should have let the clutch out slower.

ME: Yup.

CHRISTIE: No, it’s not the clutch. He should have blah blah blah, then blah blah blah blah. 

ME: Guess so. 

HER DAD: Actually, what I think happened was, he took the blah blah blah and didn’t blah blah blah first, and...

ME: It’s really nice to know that there are so many things I did wrong. Let’s keep talking about it.

HER DAD: Well, you know what they say: Time to get back on!

ME: I don’t think so. 

HER BROTHER: Yeah! Like riding a bike!

CHRISTIE: Ooh, bad analogy. Brian fell off his bike too. TWICE.

ME: I’m so glad you brought that up. 

HER DAD: Let’s go! Back outside to try again.

ME: Thanks, but I’d rather die. Maybe I’ll get back on the bike after some therapy.

CHRISTIE: You can do it, Brian! You just have to take out the blah blah blah and blah blah blah clutch gas brake engine radiator. 

ME: Okay. I’ll get back on if I can ride the bike inside a bouncy castle. 

CHRISTIE: Huh?

ME: What part of ‘bouncy castle’ don’t you understand?

CHRISTIE: How about trying it on the grass? 

ME: Bouncy castle.

CHRISTIE: We don’t have a bouncy castle. 

ME: No bouncy castle, no ride. 

CHRISTIE: Fine. 

And that’s the day I learned how to ride a dirt bike. And by “ride” I mean “immediately and violently crash.” 

I still have a scar on my elbow from last August. If only Mederma could reduce the appearance of emotional scarring as well. 

I just really like pocket doors, okay?

I’ve had to say that so many times in the past couple days. All because of this story… 

So I was at Christie’s last week, and since we had a lot of errands to run that day, we decided in the morning that I would use her parent’s master bathroom to shower and she would shower in the other bathroom in order to save time. 

Routine procedure. We’d done this before. However, soon everything went wrong.

You see, Christie’s parents’ bathroom is one room with a shower, Jacuzzi tub, and sink, and there’s a smaller toilet room inside with its own pocket door.

And I love pocket doors.

I think it’s cool how they can just disappear into the wall making that cool sliding noise, and have their own special hook-like locks that are different than other locks. I also like how, though the door has handles on the side, to pull it out of the wall you must push on the little hook lock and pull it with your finger to close it. My grandparents had one at their lake home, and I used to play with it all the time. Pocket doors are like little extra walls that are actually doors that appear like Inspector Gadget’s arms. 

I just really like pocket doors, okay?

 

So after I turned on the shower to let the water warm up, I decided to take a little wee in the tiny toilet room. And of course I closed the pocket door and locked it. After I had flushed, I went to unlatch the pocket door and it was stuck. The little knobbity-switch thing didn’t turn all the way.

It took me only a few seconds to realize the gravity of the situation.

"1. I'm trapped in a 3x5 foot toilet room.

2. I locked the door to the main bathroom.

3. The windows are closed.

4. The shower is on.

5. Christie is showering elsewhere.

6. No one else is home."

The best thing about this situation was that I still had clothes on.

I was trapped in the bathroom.

With the heat in the toilet room rising because of the now steaming shower, I began to use my escape game skills to find a way out. Unfortunately, I found no screwdrivers (escape games always have screwdrivers) or secret compartments opened with a code I found written on the side of a bookshelf. (This reference is only relevant to the ten people in the world who actually play escape games…Sorry, the rest of you.) The only tool-like things available were Christie’s mom’s jewelry, and I considered trying to use some of it to unscrew the screws on the handle, but when I imagined her mom having to call in firemen to break down her bathroom doors with axes to get me out, I was thinking that coming out with a handful of bent and broken jewelry would probably not be the best idea. So I continued thinking. 
 

[Only the first five seconds of this video are relevant, but for some reason I couldn't help but put it up. Call me adorable.]

And then it came to me. The wall opposite the pocket door faced the main entryway in their house. So I started knocking. And knocking and knocking until Christie’s dog started barking. I felt like Bear Grylls when he sees a boat in the distance from the deserted island he’s stranded on, which means he can board the boat, or you know, be picked up by the Discovery Channel helicopter...either way, the end credits are rolling.

After about fifteen minutes of knocking (during which Christie has admitted to taking a long shower, reading, and cleaning her room because I was taking so long in the “shower”) Christie finally came down to yell at her dog and then realized the bizarre The Tell-Tale Heart-like knocking coming from the other side of the wall.

She knocked back. I sent another knock.

CHRISTIE: Brian?

BRIAN: knock knock knock knock knock

CHRISTIE: BRIAN?!

BRIAN: Christie! You’ll never guess what happened…

CHRISTIE: What?

BRIAN: I’m trapped in the little toilet room because the pocket door’s lock is broken.

CHRISTIE: (trying and failing to open the locked bathroom door) BRIAN!! Why did you lock it?

BRIAN: I just really like pocket doors, okay?

CHRISTIE: But the other door’s locked and the windows are closed and the shower’s on.

BRIAN: Thanks, but I have already established that.

CHRISTIE: I don’t know what to do!

BRIAN: Well, are there hinges on your side?

CHRISTIE: No.

BRIAN: Are there screws on the handle?

CHRISTIE: No.

BRIAN: Bollocks.

While Christie was trying to unlock the door with a bobby pin, she called her mom (which made me glad I didn’t use her jewelry). Hearing one side of the conversation, I remember Christie saying, “I asked him that too…I guess he just really likes pocket doors.”

Christie’s mom then came home with a family friend/handyman who took a coat hanger and unlocked the bathroom door and then used a screwdriver to unlock the pocket door, revealing me, sweaty, red-faced, and unshowered in the doorway.

I would love to say, “And then I woke up,” but this was no dream, folks. I had been in there for an hour.

That whole time-saving thing that Christie and I had planned was kind of ruined at that point. And I still hadn’t showered.

I just really like pocket doors, okay?

My New Kite

I thought I'd take a little break from being funny to show you something awesome. I got a new kite. As of now, she's nameless, but I'm pretty sure she's a girl.

The day I bought my kite Christie and I found out that there was a kite festival going on on top of a freaking frozen lake in the middle of freaking winter. So we went.

 Christie tried out her camera for photography class for the first time, hence the black-and-white, scanned pictures, and I flew my new beautiful kite.

 

 [I'm not in this one.]

I've never been to a kite festival before.  It was fun, actually, to watch the sky being boring and gray until a gust of wind came up and suddenly it was filled with color. There was music playing like, Come Fly With Me and other flight-sounding songs.

Anyway. It's a busy one, this week. But life definitely doesn't suck. Hope yours is going well too.

What a kite feels like

I’ve always wanted to go hang gliding. Probably because I would then have an idea what a kite feels like. Do you ever look at inanimate objects and ask them quietly, “What does it feel like to be you? I mean, let’s assume you have a consciousness and actually live. What does that feel like, [add their name here, like Dwight Schrute Bobble Head, Fork, or in my case, Kite]?” Sometimes I do that. But whenever I’m flying a kite, I’m always asking that question. That’s why I want to go hang gliding.

And for all you who are thinking that it would be more kitelike to go parasailing because I would actually be tethered to something, you’re wrong. Same to you, skydiving fans.

Hang gliding apparatuses are shaped like delta kites.

While I was sleeping last night, I dreamed that Christie and I went on a hang gliding date. We used special hang gliders that were actually the shape of diamond, Benjamin Franklin-style kites (a little more difficult to control than their delta style, but worth it). Gliding through the air amongst clouds, adjusting our bodies and kites to the gusts of wind, looking down at the patchwork of farms and city which is China (Did I mention we were in China? Well we were.), it was a dream come true.

We were up there for like five hours. Maybe six. (The world record for hang gliding air time is 24 hours, by the way. Look it up.) When we had gotten tired, we landed in the soccer field of a local Chinese middle school, and pushed the little remotes in our pockets to turn our hang gliders into tents. That’s right: tents. A few little soccer players stopped their game to watch. I even remember an old man coming by, shaking the poles, testing the zippers, and saying, “This is a pretty hefty tent, considering that it was formally a hang glider.”

[Have you appreciated the hand-written sound effects so far?]

I have no idea of whether we planned to sleep there that night. But we had to go to the bathroom.  So we tried the school’s locker room, which for some reason both had no vacancy. (All I remember is one of my former roommates being in there wearing a towel and pretending like he didn’t know me. Jerk.)  Christie and I chose to use a smaller bathroom.  While I was going, she was in the bathroom with me. (This would never, EVER, EVER, EVER happen in real life. When I hear of couples talking to each other while the other is in going to the bathroom, even if it’s on the phone, I want to vomit all over everything everywhere in all places in a way that no ShamWow and 409 could ever, ever wipe up. Ten thousand Merry Maids could never rid the world of that smell.) 

There was a shower in this bathroom. And in the shower were two clothed and soaking wet women. While I was going to the bathroom and talking to Christie (which, dear god, would never ever happen in real life), these women opened the shower curtain and started making small talk. We had a pleasant conversation, not bothering with any questions like, “What are you doing in here?” or “Who takes a shower in their clothes?” Soon enough, though, they closed the shower curtain and apparently left.  Then I got a weird look from Christie.

Christie: What was that all about?

Me: What do you mean?

Christie: You think you can just talk to women in a shower while you’re in the bathroom?

Me: What’s wrong with that? You saw yourself that it was just a friendly conversation.

Christie: A little too friendly for me.

Me: TOO FRIENDLY? Are you kidding me?!

Christie: Yes. Too friendly. You were eye cheating on me. I saw you look them up and down.

Me: Of course I did! I--

Christie: So you admit it! 

Me: You didn't let me finish! I was just so shocked to see them fully clothed in the shower. I was merely taking in the situation. 

Christie: Lustily. 

Me: Come on! 

Christie: Whatever.

[I call this one Self Portrait: The Frustrated Toilet.]

And then I woke up. Christie would never be like that, by the way; she's not the jealous type. And she probably would have no problem with me talking to clothed female strangers in the shower. I probably will never get the chance to test that theory. 

Day Trip

I was driving home Friday night on a low tank of gas in an electrical storm the size of freaking Montana on the flat plain between Rochester and La Crosse, where I was pretty sure I was going to be struck by lightning or maybe just run down by a tornado, or run out of gas and then be struck by lightning or run down by a tornado, when I realized that this was all worth the loveliness that was a day trip in which I met Christie in Cannon Falls.

Cannon Falls is pretty close to the middle of the trip from my house in La Crosse to Christie’s house in St. Michael, so given that we both had absolutely nothing to do last Friday, we decided to meet up there and spend the day together.

Our day was spent being tourists around the small downtown area. From a wine tasting in a winery run by a man named Vincent from France…

…to an antique shop that used to be a bank, housing more useless and musty doodads (5 points!) than I've seen in a while...I mean things like empty instrument cases and things I thought were Morse Code devices, but who knows what they really were…

…to an ancient pink building that turned out to be someone’s house. (Whoops.)

…to SWANS AND BABY SWANS!! …

…to Cannon Valley Trail, an old train route which my grandfather (not the one that smells like the man from the garden center; the other one) founded, complete with an abandoned train depot and raspberry bushes along the first .5 out of 20 miles which we walked…

…to a lovely dinner in a deli with checkerboard floors and a lovely fountain-clad outdoor dining area. 

Here's the deal: put an historic city in front of me with old buildings and small diners and, I dunno, hanging baskets, and I WILL EAT THAT SH** UP. Throw Christie in there, and I'm giddy with that strange emotion that I feel when I lay in my hammock or smell the herbs I've planted or have a dream about a town covered with popcorn.  What is that called again? 

Oh yes: happiness. 

For Your Listening Pleasure III: Christmas Waltz

Christie and I took a trip to La Crosse's Rotary Lights at Riverside Park last night and it was nauseatingly lovely. Something about that commercialized, sparkly, but nostalgic Xmas Light Thing brings a song to my heart. I just eat that stuff up.

Take a walk with me and Christie's new camera that doesn't necessarily take the best videos (hey, it was its first try at a light show...that's a big pond for such a young, tiny fish) and listen to The Christmas Waltz, a song I couldn't remember for the life of me during the whole recording and editing process, so I named it things like Frosted Window Panes and Christmassy Song and Fa La La La La. If I was as cool and witty and spunky as I wish I was, that last title would be true, but it's not.

Happy Xmas Eve EVE, faithful follower(s)!!



Christmas Waltz
Arrangement (c) 2009 Brian Schroeder

Avoiding the Box, Kicking and Screaming

I have a new obsession.  Usually my obsessions are okay, but this one scares me (and my parents) a little bit.

Christie talked me into taking a 3-D art class at school with her this semester. (You can all blame her.)  Having to fulfill the requirement, I took the class and now have fallen hopelessly in love with sculpting, building, nailing, gluing, sawing, plastering, and creating things.  In love enough that I’ll be talking to my advisor tomorrow about the possibility adding art to my study program. 

Which will add another element to my major that, on paper, will make me about zero dollars as a grown-up.

My Major Program:

• Reconciliation Studies:
• A semi-academic area of study which focuses on fixing all the broken relationships in society. We look at ways to eliminate racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, economic disparity, and all the other problems in our world.  Pretty lofty, huh?
• Spanish
• Still undeclared, but I am receiving a Spanish-major-like education.
• Art
• Are you kidding me?

Why couldn’t I have just stuck with Biblical and Theological Studies like I was so committed to as a freshman? At least I would have been able to get a low-paying, un-luxurious, but at least stable job when I left college. But darn me and my freaking mind and damn passion to avoid staying in the lines at all costs.

Hey, at least I’m paying loads and loads of money to learn things that excite me instead of paying loads and loads of money to be stuffed inside a box and rolled down a banal track until I’m old enough to retire, right?

I sure do hope so.

Wish me luck. 

(P.S.: This is totally and example of a Thing That Holds Things that I don't like.)

For those not in the know...

Okay, this may just be for Christie. But for those of your who have already seen this wonderful song from The Music Man which I mentioned in the "Yeah, We Got Trouble," post, let me tell you: it will most likely make you smile.

Unless you hate good things.

I love good things, so this made me smile.

Witnessing Momentary Performances

Last week I marked two calendars, made major plans, and got really excited to go see a man with a white hat pushing a bicycle stop to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Lee Walton is an Experientialist artist who has set up seven performances in the Minneapolis area over the next three months. I could go on and on trying to explain this guy, but I suggest you just go to his website to experience his work for yourself.  Or hey, come to Bethel! I’ll treat you to a smoothie at Royal Grounds.

Anyway, a week before Friday, these words were put on the wall of Cuzzy’s Bar in Minneapolis.

Like I said, I marked my calendar, and Christie and I made a date to go watch, sure enough, at 6pm, a man with a blue hat pushing a bicycle eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So random, yet so deliberate.

I’m currently obsessed with his work. Here’s a schedule for the next six performances. I’ll be going to all of them. 

Outside of Barbette Restaurant 
1600 W Lake St, Minneapolis, MN 55408 
Wednesday, September 30 at 10:00am 
Person with wiffle ball bat walks curb before finding a penny

Across from the Black Dog Café 
at the corner or Broadway St. and Prince St, Lowertown, St. Paul, MN 
Sunday, October 11 at noon 
Person walking with purpose stops to answer cell phone, turns 360 degrees

Outside of Whitey's Saloon
400 E. Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN 
Tuesday, October 13, 2:00pm 
Person sitting with legs crossed, drinks a Pepsi while thinking about an old friend.

Outside of the Red Stag
509 1st Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN 
Monday, October 19 at 11:59pm 
Person with backpack relieves an itch

701 Washington Ave. N (between 7th Ave. N and 8th Ave. N), Warehouse District, Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, November 1 at 1:00pm 
Person walks by wearing mostly blue carrying 2 gallons of milk.

Bethel University Campus, Brushaber Commons, 2nd floor
3900 Bethel Drive, St. Paul MN 
Thursday, November 5 at 4:15pm 
Two students with brightly colors shoelaces kiss before going separate ways.