Gridlock

 

I was on the freeway, making my way home, the traffic heavier than it has been in quite some time. Somewhere between the on-ramp and the off-ramp, the Pogues' "Gridlock" came on. It was good timing - at the time. Then, there was still plenty of light left to the day, but I knew there wasn't so much that i could get a "full" ride - a single loop around the wash, top to bottom, and maybe a little extra before the light would be gone. Not much, but more than i have been able to get in more than a week. Not because i was too lazy, or it was too hot, or there was something else to do. A week ago, Tuesday, i was riding along just fine, when all of a sudden, and for no reason i could think of, i started to feel some pain in my hip. It continued to build, until it became so excruciating that i had to stop. I thought to walk a bit, but that didn't help at all. I might have cried about it, but hearing the voices of some other riders coming up along the other side of the channel, i figured i couldn't let them see me like that, so i hopped back on the bike, and gritting my teeth, i pushed on just so they wouldn't think i was slow or something. For the next two days i couldn't walk more than fifty yards before starting to limp, more than a hundred yards before starting to clench my fists in agony. Ultimately, i decided it wasn't exactly my hip giving me grief, it was my back, the pain had just been showing itself in my hip. I don't even know if that makes any sense, but after those two, three days, it was my back that was clearly the problem, and that wiped out the rest of the week. Then came the three day weekend and...

i got sick. Who knows what with. Let's just say covid and be done with it. Whatever it was certainly sapped me of all energy, enthusiasm to do much of anything (though i did manage to change the wonky rear light on the mrs's car). And so, a week plus a day later all is well again. "What a drag it is getting old," sometimes, i suppose, but it was "Gridlock" i was whistling as i rode around the wash last night, and there wasn't anything like that in sight.