Prayer for the Man

Gerald So invited me to participate in the Lineup blog tour for National Poetry Month. He asked writers to say something about their favorite poem from Issue 4. I did this audio setting instead.

Prayer for the Man who Mugged my Father, 72

by Charles Harper Webb
in issue 4 of The Lineup

Best in headphones.
3:33

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Edit: At least one person thought this was my poem. Just to be clear: This is my rendering of Charles Harper Webb’s poem, which appears in issue 4 of The Lineup.

Call for Submissions: Bike-themed fiction

The book will be out in December. Facebook page here. Official website coming soon.

Updated August 30, 2011:

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

“RIDE,” an ebook bike fiction anthology, to be published on Kindle, Nook, etc., as well as print-on-demand.

If it’s a great story and a bicycle figures in it in a non-trivial way (the protagonist seeing a bike leaning against a wall isn’t enough unless it turns out to be a clue later), I want it.

For those who don’t already know me: I’m a novelist by night (and randonneur by weekend) who creates ebooks by day. Also use my bike around NYC as primary transportation as life allows, and have six-year-old twins who think it’s normal to ride eight miles downtown to a playground.

Equal profit split after I recoup whatever I spend on stock art for the cover (edit August 30: and the interior), which I’ll state clearly on the first royalty statement. (Edit July 11: Either that, or an artist will get the same split as everybody else for original art—please share this with any artists you know who might be interested. Edit August 30: Royalties for the POD version will begin after I recoup any hard setup costs, plus the cost of sending copies to reviewers.) Royalties via PayPal only, so author must have a PayPal account. Previously published OK. World rights must be available. Poetry welcome if it tells a story (i.e., goes somewhere and isn’t just description).

Another edit, August 30: It’s usual for the editor to take half the profit, and split the rest among the authors. I’m not doing that. I want great material, I want this book to exist, and I’m willing to pay more for it by taking an equal share of the profit. (How much more will depend on how well this thing does.)

Any genre, any length, any setting, any time period, any kind of cycling. The more diversity—of locations, cycling cultures, story genres—the better. Do you work in a form I haven’t mentioned, and you’re wondering if you should submit? Get in touch.

I’m looking for stories that make me go, “Wow, that was great!” There is no other consideration.

Submit in Word, Pages, or RTF, using standard manuscript formatting.

Questions and submissions: noteon | at | mac | dot | com

DEADLINE FOR “RIDE” SUBMISSIONS: SEPTEMBER 21, 2011

Quickly styling Word files for InDesign import

Dear eleven people who expect bicycles, novels, and six-year-old twins every time you get a “new entry” notification: This one’s for my fellow InDesign geeks from the #eprdctn Twitter group. You’re welcome to sit through it; just try not to let me see you sneak out during the presentation. It hurts my feelings.

The issue of quickly styling Word files to get them into InDesign came up during @bookdesigngirl’s #eprdctn roundtable this week. The word “nightmare” was used, since nobody ever knows what an author is going to do in a Word file. (Or anywhere else, but that’s a different therapy session.)

Since quick manual Word styling is part of the workflow I had to come up with to get around stubbornly uncooperative IT people who won’t export data in a usable form, I went oo! oo! oo! I know! I know! during the roundtable, and a couple of people said they wanted to know too. So I made two videos. The first shows what you do in Word; the second shows what you do in InDesign. They’re quick-and-dirty because I’m on deadline today. So naturally it was the perfect moment to make how-to videos.

A happy DNF

(In randonneuring, DNF stands for Did Not Finish.)

I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE about the moving stripe:

If you imagine that the starting line is an actual stripe across the road, and you imagine it moving forward through the course at 9.3 miles per hour, that’s the line you have to beat to each controle. You can stop all you want, eat, take pictures, sleep, fix a flat, weld a frame, have an affair—but the stripe keeps moving.

I was just ahead it for most of yesterday’s 200K. Not a lot of time cushion; it was moving at 9.3 miles an hour, and I was averaging around 12, minus stops and what we prefer to call “bonus miles,” which is what happens between going off the route and finding your way back to it. So pretty much, I’d roll through a town, and within half an hour, the stripe would roll through behind me.

Start time was 7am. Finish was 8:30pm. At mile 127, just before 8:20pm, ostensibly a mile from the finish, I came to an intersection that wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I was not, as I’d believed, on Main St.

The question was, where had I left the route, and how could I find that spot again?

8:19

Didn’t panic, flicked the Petzl forehead lamp on, looked at the illuminated cue sheet, got out the iPhone, fired up Maps, and let the GPS find me. I know all about the shortcomings of Maps. It’s not accurate. But at

8:20

What choice do I have?

It found me—not just the intersection, but which corner I was near. Thank god my 3G got stolen last month, or this would take three minutes. On the 4G it took 20 seconds. I tapped Directions and entered the location where I thought I’d left the route, which would be the turn onto Main, and at

8:21

I was giving it everything I had, sprinting. Seven minutes to ride about a mile—I can do that.

But I also know Maps sucks. So at

8:23

I stopped and fired it up again to confirm that the little blue dot (me) had progressed in the right direction. 30 seconds wasted in confirmation vs. 5 minutes wasted sprinting in the wrong direction? No contest.

I was sprinting 90° in the wrong direction.

8:24

I can still do it, but I need to

JAM.

Which I did. Every bit of speed I had left. Going even faster than when that idiot dog bolted across the highway and tried to run me down earlier in the afternoon. Stupid dog. It chased me for a good quarter-mile, too. Little dog. Fast!

A sudden asshole-transit-worker blop of very bad pavement in the headlight. Bang—sometimes you just can’t get around them.

8:25

Rear tire wobble.

8:26

It’s flat. I have a decision to make:

1. Attempt to change a tube in the dark and ride the last mile in 4 minutes.
   
2. Ride a mile on the rim

I’ve ridden a few miles on a rim before, when we moved from Queens to Washington Heights and Kathleen was already at the new place with the moving guys. The bike hadn’t fit in the moving truck and she wasn’t quite comfortable with the movers, so when it popped, I just kept going. And that worked. No damage to the rim, even after cobblestones. So this could too.

The wobble wanted to spill me sideways, and there was a good chance the rim was taking damage, but it was my only shot at a finish, and I was moving—for 50 feet. Then the rear wheel braked all by itself.

8:27

No time to analyze. I picked up the bike and ran.

In cleated winter bike shoes, with a 10-pound Carradice Nelson Longflap under the saddle.

8:28

Still a mile to go.

8:29

Still a mile to go.

The cue sheet has a phone number on it. I called it. Then I kept lugging the bike. Two more calls later, to clarify my location and tell me to stop moving, Laurent picked me up and drove me to the train station, where the

9:12

New York train pulled out as we were getting the bike out of his car, and at

10:12

I was sitting on a cushioned seat in a lighted train, noticing the inner tube wrapped around the wheel hub and over the brake caliper, and trying not to fall asleep.

THE FIRST REASON I’m happy is that all the failures leading to that moment were the outcomes of gambles I made with full understanding. The first gamble was on a right leg that couldn’t bear my weight without buckling the day before because of lingering effects of a bad sciatica (or piriformis syndrome) episode. The second was on a bike computer sensor I rigged with Velcro when its fork mounting broke because I couldn’t afford to completely replace the whole thing.

I’m happiest about the leg. Really happy, actually, because it feels the same as it did six or seven years ago, when I thought it was an MS exacerbation. (Blog newbies: I have MS.) But this time, it was clearly the result of an injury that had me on the floor for hours last Tuesday.

So—does that mean it wasn’t MS six or seven years ago, either?

Could be!

That doesn’t mean I don’t have multiple sclerosis (lesions on the MRI and bouts of optic neuritis are hard to get around), but it does mean maybe I can worry less about losing my legs to myelin degeneration. Maybe I’ve got a herniated disk or something like that.

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

The sensor mount—that was a decent gamble. It didn’t pay off, but it was still a decent one. I’ve been riding with the sensor Velcroed to the front fork for a month, and it seemed to work. There’s a little magnet attached to one of the spokes on the front wheel, and every time it spins past the sensor, the computer counts one wheel revolution. Worked pretty well. A glitch here and there, but nothing that significant.

The headwinds on this ride were far worse than anything my Velcroed sensor had encountered, though, and I think it was flopping around in the onslaught. My speed would flip from 1.7 mph to 5.1 to zero, back to 1.7, up to 16.9, and back down to zero in the space of a few seconds.

And since a speedometer and an odometer are basically the same thing?

No usable distance readout. I had to navigate based solely on my feel for distance.

Which—you know?—was kind of great. I only got off-route about once per 30-mile leg. Only lost five or ten minutes each time.

It adds up, though, and then it’s 8:19 and you’re trying to figure out how not to DNF.

Oh well. Did my best.

TONIGHT WHEN I put the boys to bed, I stayed for a little while and talked with them. I like doing that because they’ve stopped with the nighttime crazies and I’ve stopped with the bedtime impatience. When one of them’s asleep is my favorite time for it, and the one who’s awake always feels the same—Daddy, come talk to me!

But tonight, it was just bedtime kisses and then I hung around in the dark and told them that on this ride, I met a man who also had six-year-old twins! (They loved that.) And guess what. (What!?) I started telling him about the little brevet we did at Rockland Lake, and guess what. (What!?) He already knew about it!

(HOW’D HE KNOW!?)

Well, he read my blog about it. Isn’t that cool? He saw the pictures of you guys and everything. So I told him we’re going to do it again this year, and—

That’s when the one who didn’t finish last year started looking worried.

So one thing at a time. First, I think I got it across to him that the entire distance of the event is still shorter than the 14-mile day he had during the summer, when we rode down to River Run Playground and back—and while I was explaining that, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t the distance that had turned him into one big black hole of whine. Maybe it was that I hadn’t broken it up into enough smaller pieces for him to deal with cognitively.

What if we did two times around the lake, and then had lunch, and then did two more? Would that be better?

He smiled and looked relieved, but then he looked upset again and said it wouldn’t be fair because if he got a medal this year, he’d only have one medal but his brother would have two.

Well, I said, and then I started explaining fairness, and things earned. I got a few seconds into it—but who needs that? Seriously, did that ever help you when you were a kid? It’s a lesson and everything, but who wants to hear that when you’re tucked into bed and your Daddy’s hanging out?

So instead, I said, Hey guys, know what happened to me yesterday on my brevet? I didn’t finish.

What?

I DNF’d.

You—(I could see them trying to remember the term, because they haven’t heard it since last year. Then they got it.) REALLY?

Yeah. I got all the way almost to the end, and then I went the wrong way and my tire popped and I ran out of time.

You ran out of time? (Both boys engaged now, in their two beds.)

Yeah.

You ran out of time?

Yeah.

You didn’t finish?

Nope. Didn’t finish. And you know what that means? (This last addressed to the one who quit at Rockland Lake.)

What?

It means I’ve DNF’d twice. You’ve only DNF’d once. But you know what? It only feels bad when you know you didn’t do your best. I know I did my best, so I feel okay about it.

Really?

Yeah. It always feels better when you know you did your best.

Here’s your music. Night, boys. I love you.

It felt like connection all around. Failure comes in handy.

Now if I only knew why when Mommy got home from choir practice, the other one was sleeping in his doorway.