alantastic

Every time I want to log into blogger, I have to type "alantastic" and then my password. Though I try to maintain fairly simple relationships with my various and sundry user names, alantastic and I have had a very odd time together.

When I first assigned myself the name, back in August, it was with an air of sarcasm. "tastic" on the one hand, indicating a certain level of greatness which my blog does all but embody. "alan-tastic" on the other hand, contrasting a artificial suffix for "greatness" with one of the blandest names under the sun.

There, then, came a time when I felt a certain amount of animosity towards "alantastic". I thought of it as a code which activated, within me, a deeply embedded program which behaves almost as I do, but in a manner more superficial and less authentic than the real thing. Within myself, I figured, I had created a personality which behaved a lot like me, but lacked an initial spark, and as I typed "alantastic" I could feel this program taking root in my central nervous system, laying its silicon tracks of my organic ones. It was the enemy within; in some ways, it was everything I hate about myself.

And now, tonight, I find myself taken by a third and altogether more favorable impression. I bought a bicycle today, the newest addition to my growing fleet of vehicles. I have not named it, yet, but I'm working hard on coming up with something. It's matte black, very sturdy, with incredibly sharp gear wheels (as evidenced by my newly ruined button-fly blue jeans. {casts away a tear}). I bought it for a number of reasons, the most significant being that I wanted a bicycle and I had the money. Less significant, but of great importance, is the fact that I find myself driving short distances either to avoid the cold or to avoid walking. I surmised that if I had a bicycle, I would use it to travel these short distances, leaving Belinda to carry me to my more remote destinations. I also plan to go riding in Forest Park during my 2-hour break on Friday afternoons.

But the inaugural ride, tonight, was to Maggie's Greenway apartment. She was throwing a very low-key birthday party for a fellow member of the Alternative Lifestyles Association and, despite the cold, I rode my unnamed stallion through the nearly empty streets to her place. Somehow, merely knowing that I'd arrived by bicycle kept me smug all night, but it was the ride home which brought me into a new equilibrium with my username.

Oh, it was bitterly cold. To ride slowly was to allow the cold time to chill my bones, but to ride swiftly was to invite the wind through the pores of my clothing. The loose chin-straps of my Russian/Postal worker hat flapped behind me, and I slid along the nearly finished Kingshighway. It's eerie in a way that I've only experienced once before. The road, itself, is finished, but none of the acoutrements of a normal road have been installed yet; in essence, the whole area becomes an oil painting of pitch blackness. I felt slippery, riding there. I felt some cross between diffusion into the environment and stark contrast with the surroundings. Eerie like Van Gogh. Eerie like getting a body part as a gift.

In some ways, it's like riding through a ruined world in which you are the only survivor. Not like The Omega Man in which Charlton Heston rides around cities mowing down zombies who look like German mimes and who act like ninjas. Rather, the sort of post-apocalypse where I have nowhere to go, and I'm coming from nowhere in particular, and I just happen to be where I am. Even when everyone in the world is dead, there's still the cold and there's still the breeze, and there's still the feeling of both through three layers of clothes.

And that, my friends, was alantastic.

I've been looking for some sort of foothold to help me climb out of my pit of self-doubt, and I don't think that enjoying the feeling of worldwide solitude is quite the ticket to being well-adjusted, but to feel satisfaction of this sort comes as a refreshing reminder that I'm still alive, as dead as I may feel.

-Alan