Just messing around -- long

[Zen]

The next morning I was roused out of bed by the bright sunshine. I had a terrible hangover but at least I was finally sober.
What was I thinking yesterday? No man is going to make me happy, I'm going to make me happy!
I called into work and told Captain Blowhard I wouldn't be in.
"When will you be in?", he asked.
"Oh, about never o'clock" and hung up. I was feeling better already.
The next order of business was to get two darts. I threw them at the big US map I had tacked on the wall.
Thwap! Start
Thwap! Finish.
Then I dug out my Adventure Cycling maps to see if there was any route in that vicinity.

[Biciclista]

The dart had landed somewhere near Boise, Idaho. I got onto my computer and googled it to see what kind of bike things they had going there. I must admit I am not ready to crosscountry on my bike, so i loaded my bike and essentials into my car and asked my next door neighbor to come in and water my plants while I was gone and I drove towards Boise.

[OnTerryOh]

I buckled my seat belt for the 1700 mile ride from Chitown to Boise, 24 hours on interstates until I would reach the Boise Greenbelt trail. http://www.visitidaho.org/thingstodo...greenbelt.aspx

Reckoned I would stop in Lincoln Nebraska for a night. Probably I'd stop at The Albany in Cheyenne, too -- have a steak and a few drinks before I found a cheap motel. http://www.albanycheyenne.com/liquor.html

As I drove past the soy bean fields and corn fields in Iowa and Nebraska, I found myself thinking of Lane Foley, with his happy exterior and the dark, hidden side that few people ever saw. Lane is fair-skinned, blonde and muscular, with a dimple on his chin and a joke never too far from rolling off his tongue.

He unicycled as if he were dancing to a fast and happy tune, like maybe Glen Miller's "In the Mood" was always playing in his head. I'd seen oodles of women fall for him, but I was never one of them.

We'd grown up next door to one another on Burling Street. At times Lane had been my best friend and at other times my brother's best buddy.

I remember him unicycling back and forth to school at St. Margaret's when he was about seven years old. One time I saw him wheeling along and singing, "I've got the joy, joy, joy, down in my heart."

When he was 14, he unicycled in Chicago's St. Patrick's day parade, circling and smiling and tipping his green fedora to the reviewing stand where Mayor Daley and other bigwigs looked on, the river dyed green and the bagpipers and drummers conjuring up sounds of the old sod, Lane Foley, such a fine lad, at the center of it all.

No surprise really that I hadn't heard from either him or Beth much since they'd gotten hitched and joined the circus. In a way, the circus would be the perfect home for my dear old demented friend Lane.

As to myself, I'm divorced, alone, no regrets. Got a song in my mind just about all the time -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhApYxZisBI

[Biciclista]

The dark part of Lane wasn't something I liked to think about. All kids go through sprees of petty theft, but Lane pushed the envelope there. He financed his hobbies with the spare change he got by selling things he stole to other kids we knew. He started in the 6th grade and continued as far as I knew, until he graduated from highschool. But Somehow he never got caught. I always rationalized about it, blaming his crazy mother for not giving him the attention he needed, or his father, for abandoning the family when Lane and I were only 6 years old.

Lincoln, Nebraska is near a lot of feedlots. Big giant fenced in congregations of steers standing on giant mounds of manure. The smell is un-mistakeable. However, I saw something else as I pulled into Lincoln, there were a lot of billboards which advertised "CIRCUS MAGNUM IN TOWN"