It’s nothing much, about 20 miles of gently rolling hills, but the Portola Loop is one of my favorite short rides–and I haven’t been able to ride it for a LOOONG time on account of my knee injury. So it’s wonderful to know I can bike it again.
It’s all part of a campaign to get back into shape. It’s been really depressing watching the fat build up and the muscle wither because of the knee problem, so I’m trying to add more exercise into my day–CAREFULLY. It’s hard because my “normal” activity level would trounce the knee instantly, so I have to keep reminding myself to go slooooow. I know exactly what I need to do to get back into shape, and I’d really love doing it–I just CAN’T.
Well, there are worse frustrations.
The Pride Parade: I didn’t get to see as much of it as I would have liked. In fact, I didn’t get to see much of it at all. I’d forgotten one of the basic truths about being five feet tall, which is that it’s darned hard to see anything unless you’re in FRONT. We got there too late to get a prime position, so outside of the little I could see while craning my neck on tiptoe, I mostly missed it.
That being said, I still had a HUGE amount of fun–half the fun in this is people-watching, and boy, were there people to watch! Not as outre as Folsom Street Fair (the leather festival), but lots of drag queens, people decked out in rainbow this-n-that (I bought a fabulous rainbow hat for the occasion), and costumes galore.
(By the way, did I mention that a photo of me from last year’s parade is on the SF Pride homepage? Go look at it quick–I imagine they’ll take it down soon. I’m the one in the rainbow outfit just to the left of “Monitors Wanted”. A friend pointed it out to me. I’m also in the SF Pride 2005 magazine, in a photo collage–I got three copies of the magazine to send to mom and friends.)
I also bought two SF Pride T-shirts while I was there (to tie-dye), and briefly considered a SF Chronicle commemorative T-shirt (“We come out every day.”) Lots of other stalls selling stuff, and of course the AIDS Lifecycle booth–plenty to see and do.
After that I went off to the tie-dye party and proceeded to dye two T-shirts and one bathrobe. The T-shirts came out astonishingly well–one was a spiral design, one came out as an eight-fold symmetric starburst–but I’m less happy with the bathrobe. I’d forgotten how much dye terry cloth absorbs, and ran out of dye, so it came out with big blotches of white. I’m considering donating it to a friend who likes tie-dyed bathrobes, and trying again with a new robe. I have an idea for how to dye it that should look just fantastic–stripes of color running up and down the robe, rather than a spiral as I was attempting.
Life is too damn short. I want to try everything.
