Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2026 Tour de France Stage 15

Introduction

It’s upon us: the Grand Boucle. In case you’re new to the Tour, “Boucle” is French for “Boucle.” This is far and away the most important bike race there is, blah blah blah. Even still, it’s taken me a while to muster up enough gumption to wake up early and blog it live—for the simple reason that it’s generally the most boring race on the calendar. But don’t leave! I’ll breathe life into this report, I promise! It’ll be like improv! Also, this blog is your one-stop-shop for Tour news because during the lulls in today’s action I’ll fill you in on what’s been going over the last couple weeks. (Two-word synopsis: pretty boring.)

Why is the Tour boring? Two words: Tadej Pogacar. Probably even NASCAR fans have heard of him by now. Pogacar is the extraterrestrial rider who wins almost constantly, usually by just riding away from everyone, soloing for 30,40, 50 kilometers at a shot, over any kind of terrain. He might as well be a major league ball player who returns to Little League, or a heavyweight boxing champion beating up junior high kids. Pogacar rides for the well-stocked UAE Team Emirates XRG team, headed up by one of the greatest villains in modern cycling, Mauro Gianetti, who was a known doper as a racer, and who as a director is known for his not-normal protégés like Riccardo Riccò, Leonardo Piepoli, and Juan José Cobo. If you haven’t heard of these guys, here’s the ultra-short bio they all share: all eerily strong, and all got popped for doping. So anyhow, if I seem less than psyched to see Pogacar dominating another Tour it’s because I’m not. (And is he dominating this Tour? Spoiler alert: yes, completely.)

Is it fair to cast aspersions on Pogacar based on the person running his team? Decide for yourself but consider this: Pogacar’s weird ultra-short haircut, the color of chicken Top Ramen, looks a lot like Riccò’s back in the day. Coincidence? Decide for yourself.

Still, anything can happen in this sport, including a tight battle for second place, or some cataclysm that reshapes things, or riders getting in a fistfight, or maybe even a podium girl wardrobe malfunction (as the Tour has resumed the podium girl tradition, albeit with only one girl per podium, oddly enough). Read on for what might possibly be a diverting blow-by-blow report of the 184-kilometer (114-mile) mountain stage finishing atop the hors categorie (i.e., “too difficult to classify”) Plateau de Solaison.

(Why do I call this a “biased” blow-by-blow? I refer you to my description of Gianetti above and the pall I feel that casts over Pogacar. A professional journalist would bite his tongue so as to seem impartial, whereas I say: why be impartial to a rider who hugs a monster like Gianetti after the finish line? If you agree with me, read on. Otherwise, just scroll down and leave an indignant reply below, showcasing your high dudgeon, and then go read some other coverage by a craven, declawed writer who needs to earn a living at it.)

Tour de France Stage 15 – Champagnole to Plateau de Solaison

As I join the action, the riders have 57 kilometers to go and are nearing the base of the third-to-last climb, the Category 1 Col de la Croisette. “Croisette” doesn’t translate literally to English, but it’s kind of like a small, sweet croissant, the French equivalent of a cronut. (Yeah, I made that up.) There’s a breakaway off that has just under three minutes. The commentator Tejay van Garderen is predicting that Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma - Lease a Bike), who sits second on GC, is planning a long-range attack. This would be exciting for sure and also very surprising, because if you’re not Pogacar, all you get to do in this Tour is be on the ropes—you don’t get to dictate the trajectory of a mountain stage. You might as well try to commandeer a city bus. But who knows, perhaps Vingegaard could try something like that, so that only Pogacar could catch up (easily, while breathing through his nose) but not Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe), who sits third on GC and is the main threat to Vingegaard’s second place overall, which is the only GC ambition he can realistically have.

Since nothing interesting is happening on the road right now, I’ll brief you on what’s gone down in this Tour so far. It started out well, with a team time trial, one of my favorite events. Team Visma - Lease a Bike rode a sweet race, putting Vingegaard in yellow. Pogacar was only third, because the Netcompany Ineos team also rode very well and their fastest time trialist, Filippo Ganna, went four seconds quicker. (The race no longer counts the time of the fifth rider in a TTT; now it’s the first, so when a team feels they’re close enough to the line that their leader no longer needs them, he solos. This matches the overall modern ethos of humankind, I think. All for himself and none for all!)

Now the riders are on the base of the climb. The gap is down to 2:37. Riders are going out the back of the peloton one after the other. Up in the breakaway, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) leads ahead of Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek).

And what’s this? Simmons gives a high-five to a devoted, flag-wielding superfan!

It’s the best day of this fan’s life! Look at him shouting encouragement.

Check out that hair, that tank top. You know what? I don’t care whether this is an insane local or one of my countrymen: ‘Mer’ca!

So of the 24 members of the original breakaway, it’s down to eight. The two Visma - Lease a Bike riders have been dropped, so either they’re putting a “satellite” strategy into play (i.e., they’re dropping back to help Vingegaard with an attack) or they’re just dropped. If we apply the “Occam’s Razor” notion to the situation (i.e., the simplest explanation is the most likely one), I’d say the latter.

Back in the peloton, Visma leads the chase. They’re keeping the gap pretty stable.

And what’s this? Simmons attacks the break! OMG, he must have been inspired by that superfan!

He’s suddenly got a huge gap! Freakin’ crazy!

This is amazing. I just went and woke up my daughter. She’s gotta see this (and quick, before Simmons is reeled in!). He’s got 17 seconds and might just be the first American to lead a stage over a major climb since, well, gosh, probably Sepp Kuss (Visma - Lease a Bike) five years ago.

Simmons continues to power the pace. He’s not exactly built like a climber. In fact, he looks a lot like the guys at the Golds Gym I went to in Santa Barbara back in ’90.

Man, the throng of fans is incredible, so many of them! I can’t tell what they’re yelling, but it’s probably something along the lines of “USA! USA!”

And Quinn takes maximum KOM points over the summit!

I’m not sure Simmons has any interest in the KOM competition (though surely many enemies of freedom would be glad to stop having to see his stars-and-stripes jersey). He’s only in 30th place in the KOM competition. He must have ambitions for the stage win, bless his heart.

They’re on the descent now, with the group gradually reeling in Simmons. So I’ll get back to my recap. Stage 2 was a bit hilly but not a mountain stage, but that didn’t stop Pogacar and his top domestique, the young Mexican sensation Isaac del Toro, from launching a blistering attack near the end that was so devastating to the others, Pogacar was able to sit up at the end and gift the stage to del Toro. This cut Pogacar’s GC deficit in half so he trailed Vingegaard by an insignificant six seconds. Pogacar then bided his time and—wait, no, he didn’t bide his time. He won Stage 3 in a sprint and took the yellow jersey. Stage 4 was actually kind of interesting, with a big breakaway that took over four minutes out of the GC favorites and was won by Mads Petersen (Lidl-Trek), the former world champion who’s largely a sprint specialist. Simmons, his teammate (who led him out) took second. The GC lead was taken over by Torstein Træn, whose name sounds pretty funny if you say it three times fast. Stage 5 was for the sprinters and was won by Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM Team), whom nobody in the entire peloton had even met before. Træn kept yellow, and the American Sean Quinn (EF Education-Easypost) stayed in second overall.

Getting back to the action, Visma leads the chase in the peloton. Why? Commitment. They made a commitment to lose another Tour, and by God they’re gonna honor it.

The breakaway, five riders now, is at the base of the Category 3 Cote du Mont, 2.1 kilometers long at 8.3%. Simmons is back in the fold.

Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is on his race radio, perhaps asking, “Why is Visma being so nice? I thought we were gonna have to help pull this break back! Am I supposed to tip these Visma guys?”

Simmons takes a bottle. Or, well, tries to—he fumbles it. D’oh!

Returning to the recap, Stage 6 was a disaster all around with Træn crashing hard and losing yellow. Quinn (who otherwise would have taken the yellow jersey, the first for an American in twenty years) lost almost five minutes to Pogacar, who did this annoying thing where he soloed to victory and took 2:38 out of second-place Vingegaard. The Tour became officially boring at that point. Stage 7 was a sprinters’ stage, won handily by Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step). Merlier won again the next day, and then Stage 9 was pretty interesting with a four-up breakaway that just managed to stay away, with Mathieu Van der Poel leading out the sprint like a boss and holding the other three off. Things got boring again in Stage 10 when Pogacar had another solo victory ahead of a splintered chase group. This stage was slightly noteworthy for two reasons. One, Vingegaard faded at the end, losing ten seconds to the second place finisher Evenepoel. Two, Evenepoel really rallied to win the sprint over the chase group after having been dropped on the last climb. I’ve not historically been much of an Evenepoel fan, but I have to admit, he showed real grit to claw his way back during the final descent and then beat all the dudes who’d dropped him.

Now the break is nearing the summit of the climb, with Pidcock back in the lead. A couple more riders have made it back on. 

Back in the peloton, Victor Campanaerts drives the pace for UAE Team Emirates-XRG despite actually being on the Visma - Lease a Bike team. It’s an inspiring bit of generosity in a sport normally known for its professionalism. Perhaps Visma’s directeur sportif saw one of those bumper stickers encouraging random acts of kindness.

To wrap up the recap, Stage 11 had an exciting finish when the unknown Uno-X Mobility rider Soren Waerenskjold launched his sprint way early and yet held everyone off. His smile was big enough to cover at least two standard-sized human faces. Stage 12 was another sprint stage and Merlier won again, with a crazy long sprint starting from way too far back that really showed how amazingly strong that dude is. Stage 13 ended with a two-up breakaway, and the winner, Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco Alula) won by enough margin to pop a pretty sweet wheelie over the finish line. The narration of the replay was rather odd, in the NBC/Peacock coverage: Phil Liggett said, “Watch the way he smashes his bike on the finishing line just to make sure.” Huh? Make sure of what?

Anyhow, yesterday’s stage was another yawner, with Pogacar soloing again and taking another 44 seconds out of Vingegaard, who again faded at the end and finished fourth. And again, Evenepoel was dropped toward the end but fought his way back and finished just four seconds behind Vingegaard, and a couple seconds ahead of his (Evenepoel’s) teammate Florian Lipowitz, who shares the team leadership with him and finished third in last year’s Tour. Maybe today will be the really bad day for Evenepoel where he loses lots of time. (This happens every year.) For now, Evenepoel sits third overall, half a minute behind Vingegaard who is four and a half minutes behind Pogacar.

Speaking of Schmid, he has been in the breakaway (I guess I should have mentioned that) and has now dropped the others to go it alone on the descent. Not much will happen in the next few minutes so I’ll (finally) get around to listing the breakaway riders, which is kind of sad since they’re most likely doomed. So along with Schmid, Pidcock, and Simmons, we’ve got Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Einer Rubio (Movistar Team), Ewen Costiou (Groupama-FDJ United), and Yannis Voisard (Tudor Pro Cycling Team).

Okay, this is embarrassing. I didn’t realize, until I did my roll call, that Yates was in the break. This would explain why UAE can reasonably refuse to help with the chase. So it is left to Visma to take it up, to defend Vingegaard’s second place on GC.

And now Shmid, still solo, does a huge bunny-hop just out of sheer exuberance, or perhaps (to adopt Liggett’s theory) to “smash his bike” on the asphalt “just to make sure.”

Oh, crap! There’s a big crash in the main bunch! Daaaamn, it’s Vingegaard!

He’s on the ground and his shoulders are rocking, he’s obviously in agony. The impact knocked his chain off and the guy holding his bike isn’t bothering to put it back on. I think it’s clear to everyone, already, that Vingegaard is not going to get up. The medic comes over. Somebody is giving him a consoling pat on the back. It’s all over for him.

Sure enough, now they slowly help him to his feet and lead him to a van. What a shame.

As my daughter just astutely pointed out, the polite pause of the peloton has allowed the gap to the breakaway to go back out, to almost three minutes (after having been down to 2:20). Any show of ambition by UAE at this moment would look kind of untoward.

They’re showing a replay of the crash. Pogacar just barely missed getting caught up in it. Phil says, rather uncharitably, “It was Vingegaard’s own fault, nobody ran into him or anything.” Well yeah, but his front tire washed out for no apparent reason—as sometimes happens, disconcertingly enough (don’t tell my wife!). It’s just bad luck.

Back in the front, Schmid has somehow extended his lead out to 25 seconds over the rest of the break. I’m trying to get a photo but the camera bike is in the wrong place. “This is the only sport where much of the footage is of the athletes’ butts,” I say to my daughter, who replies, “Or lack thereof.” True, true.

With Vingegaard out, the top of the virtual GC is a bunch of youngsters including Juan Ayuso (Lidl-Trek, age 23), del Toro (age 22), and Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM Team, the 19-year-old French wunderkind who now sits third overall in the virtual GC). My daughter asks, “How old is Evenepoel?” I reply that he’s a … summer chicken. (Is that a thing?) (He’s 26, which is ancient for a gymnast but not for a stage racer.) (My daughter, reading this as I write it, asks if it’s okay to have two parentheticals in a row. I see her two and raise it to three.) (I could do this all day.)

It’s only 9 kilometers to go and Simmons is reeling in Schmid! Schmid’s look back is the kiss of death for his solo move.

My goodness, now Simmons has totally dropped Schmid! He’s on fire! And he’s got 1:41 over the chasers so it’s just barely possible he could win this! Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Daaaaamn, he’s suddenly got ten seconds on the chase group! It’s unbelievable!

Now the peloton’s chase is being led by Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe. They’re trying to defend Evenepoel’s (virtual) second overall. I really don’t know who, up the road, would be a threat on GC anyway, but whatever.

The gap to Simmons is dropping, but not very quickly—he still has 1:37. But it’s over 7 kilometers to the finish … that’s an awfully long way on this gnarly climb. Just look at the profile:

Oh dear. Pogacar takes the front. “He’s now in a group of just three riders, including himself,” Phil says cryptically. Only del Toro and Evenepoel can keep up. Or is that Lipowitz? The gap to Simmons is already down to a minute. Okay, it’s Evenepoel in this group. Pogacar looks almost bored. Evenepoel looks composed. Del Toro has a look in his eye that would send a chill down any competitor’s spine.

Simmons still looks good but the gap is down to 26 seconds. Yates has dropped back from the break and is now on the front drilling it for Pogacar. The break has completely dissolved. The gap between Simmons and the Pidcock group is actually going up and sits at 39 seconds (not that that helps or anything). In theory Simmons could latch on to this trio and contest the sprint later, except—Pogacar.

Now the yellow jersey group is in the lead. The camera was pointed elsewhere at the moment they came past Simmons. Ah, here’s the replay.

Man, they just blew by him like he was a bit of road furniture. And now Yates completely detonates and goes out the back, having done a great job helping to pummel Evenepoel, who (admirably) is still there. So it’s down to three leaders again, and Evenepoel must be defecating cinder blocks right now. (That’s gotta hurt.)

Speaking of hurt, del Toro really looks like he’s suffering. Evenepoel, on the other hand, looks really collected. Or does he just have a good poker face?

In theory, del Toro would be setting the pace here to help his leader, but that’s not how the sport works anymore. Pogacar is too strong for that, and obviously doesn’t need any help. It’s only a matter of time before he attacks, to pad his 5-minute GC lead over Evenepoel.

Weirdly, Liepowitz has been no help to his teammate Evenepoel. He’s off the back with the Seixas group, which has dropped Pidcock and is actually only a duo now.

Del Toro’s shoulders are really rocking, he’s clearly suffering. They have just 2 kilometers to go. If somehow Evenepoel could stay with Pogi when he attacks, it’s just barely possible he could outsprint him at the end. I mean, you have to dream big for a non-boring outcome in this race, right?

My best guess at Evenepoel’s strategy right now is hoping Pogacar forgets to attack.

But what’s this? It’s del Toro who attacks! In the time it took me to try to grab a snapshot (with my phone camera, since Peacock blocks screen captures), del Toro was caught and sat back down. Not sure why he made that doomed move, and now he’s staying on the front setting tempo. Really mysterious behavior for someone who’s clearly hurting and should just be sitting on to improve his GC position. You know what? I’m going to chalk that attack up to a muscle spasm.

But now del Toro goes again! Dang, I failed to get a photo because I thought it was a replay of the first attack. Evenepoel is right on him! It’s as though del Toro has forgotten what team he’s on! He’s setting Evenepoel up perfectly for the sprint!

Evenepoel begins to come around del Toro!

He’s got the jump on Pogacar!

Evenepoel closes in on the line and Pogacar, sitting on, just might get vanquished!

And Evenepoel has got the win!

For some reason the press isn’t following the riders after they come across the line; who knows where they’re being corralled. So it’s nothing but replay footage for a while until they corner Mauro Gianetti, head of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team. They interview him.

INTERVIEWER: Was this the strategy for today, to set up del Toro?

GIANETTI: No, that wasn’t really the plan, but you adapt the plan as you go along. Pogi didn’t need to drive hard for more time, so it was good to get Isaac as close to the podium as possible.

INTERVIEWER: How does it feel to have a new Golden Boy, after your past protégés Riccardo Riccò, Leonardo Piepoli, and Juan José Cobo? You’ve clearly mastered the art of “marginal gains.”

GIANETTI: Why are you giving me a hard time?

INTERVIEWER: Well, a former teammate of yours once said to the media, “Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like Gianetti, that they can't conceive of cycling any other way.” When I pair that with Pogacar’s absolute dominance of the sport, it rankles.

GIANETTI: Did you guys not get the memo, after Chris Froome was mysteriously exonerated despite his positive drug test? Doping control is over. It’s game-on. You should look the other way like everyone else.

INTERVIEWER: Gosh, it would be so cool if this were an actual interview instead of a complete fabrication by an unapologetically biased blogger.

Here’s the stage result.

Now they’ve located Evenepoel and interview him.

INTERVIEWER: How does it feel?

EVENEPOEL: I’m literally trembling right now.

INTERVIEWER: I don’t see you trembling. You appear calm and your body is motionless.

EVENEPOEL: Well, I was speaking kind of metaphorically.

INTERVIEWER: But you literally said you were “literally” trembling.

EVENEPOEL: Well, sure, but the way “literally” is used in the modern vernacular, it doesn’t literally mean “literally.” It’s just used for general emphasis, like “totally.”

INTERVIEWER: You’re a bike racer, not a linguist. Can you really argue this point with any authority?

EVENEPOEL: Look, I’ll give you an example. Remember when Google went down for a few hours back in 2022? Someone tweeted, “OMG, I cannot BELIEVE Google is down. I am LITERALLY using Bing right now.”

INTERVIEWER: Touché.

Here is the new GC:

Now the Peacock commentator Steve Porino is interviewing Matthew Riccitello (Decathlon CMA CGM Team):

PORINO: What can you tell us about the race?

RICCITELLO: Let me turn that around: what can you tell me? Why do you even have a job? You know nothing about the sport, you never raced, and your voice is annoying.

PORINO: That really hurts my feelings. I thought you might appreciate the opportunity to be on camera for no apparent reason.

RICCITELLO: Project much?

(Yeah, I fabricated that entire interview. Nothing coherent was actually said by either party; it was stillborn as Riccitello was pulled away after like five seconds.)

Simmons gets a little photo-op with Pogacar.

That’s Simmons’ dad who snapped the photo. I guess facial hair runs in the family.

They interviewed Pogacar but it was mostly boring. The only interesting thing he said (which I am not making up) was, “We had doping control at 2 a.m., and when your sleep is ruined maybe you’re less concentrated on the descent. Maybe these events [the doping control and Vingegaard’s crash] may be a little bit connected so it’s sad to see.”

Simmons wins the Combativity award for the day.

Now they interview him:

INTERVIEWER: Well, you were really close to a stage win!

SIMMONS: Not that close. [Chuckles.]

INTERVIEWER: You must be happy with your form, anyway.

SIMMONS: I always come better and better in the race, I start off really hurting in the first week, now I’m getting stronger each day. I’m fully here to support Mads, it’s clear that’s the team’s priority and they write my paycheck so I’ll do what I’m told. If I can help him win the green jersey I’ll be happy.

INTERVIEWER: That’s a very humble thing to say. Given your resemblance to General Custer, I expected something along the lines of, “There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry.”

SIMMONS: Who are you?

INTERVIEWER: Literally nobody. A fictitious character. A figment of a blogger’s imagination.

(Note: some of that interview was fairly accurate. You get to guess where I started freestyling.)

Well, I think that’s enough for today. Check back this Saturday because I’ll cover the queen (and penultimate) stage featuring three hors categorie climbs and finishing atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez! If Evenepoel is still sitting second on GC at that point, Stage 20 will be either his finest hour, or his Waterloo…

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Things That Could Push Me Over the Edge

Introduction

To begin, I want to assure you that I’m a pretty even-keeled sort, and although in my youth I had quite a temper—my brothers referred to my not-infrequent rages as “fire-ups”—I am very good at keeping it together these days. Still, I know that everyone has a breaking point. Probably it would take the perfect storm of annoyances to push me over the edge, not just a single irritant (such as the incessant call of the whip-poor-will in James Thurber’s eponymous story). The purpose of this post is to give anthropologists, biographers, or police detectives some good leads if somebody, someday, seeks to figure out why a calm, easygoing person like me actually went berserk. So here’s a list of the kinds of things that could, if chained together under the right circumstances, finally push me too far.

Anything involving a fitted sheet

Could it possibly be that in 2026 nobody has improved on the weirdly quasi-rectangular, never-correctly-sized, inexpertly-elasticized fitted sheet? This product’s job is just not that complicated: to stay put on a mattress. Sometimes fitted sheets actually fit, and thus recede into the background, but so often they misbehave: for example, a corner peels away, so you wake up with your sweating skin plastered against the mattress, perhaps imprinted with its weird texture. And where fitted sheets really drive me nuts is when they’re not on the bed. Unlike a top sheet, they’re impossible to fold … no matter how precisely you try to line up the edges, you just end up practically wadding the thing into a ball. And then when you try to mount it on your mattress, you can’t get it oriented—it it behaves like pizza dough you fail to stretch into a disc, only you’re trying for a rectangle. Finally you find the little seams that (if you’re lucky) delineate these edges, and then you’ve got the sheet covering most of the mattress, but that final corner is either way too tight, so you can’t tug it far enough down, or it’s too loose, and you have all this slack to fold under. Every time I deal with a fitted sheet, I almost want to just give up and go sleep on the couch with a sleeping bag.

Stuff stuck in my teeth

I should only eat nuts at home where I have a gum stimulator tool. Otherwise I have all this shrapnel in my teeth I can’t work free, and my tongue gets tired and sore. When this happens on a hike I’ll sometimes pull a thin twig off a tree to use as a toothpick, in which case my wife warns me the twig is poisonous. (The worst part of this scenario is that she actually knows what she’s talking about.) But things get really bad when some sneaky bit of food gets stuck so badly right between two teeth that that it actually hurts. In this case, a toothpick doesn’t always help. In fact, the worst case scenario is that either a toothpick actually breaks in there, compounding the problem, or a piece of dental floss shreds in between the teeth. At such moments life seems literally hopeless.

And speaking of dental floss, even it doesn’t shred, trying to throw away a strand of it can seem futile. I pop the trash can lid up, try to drop the strand in, and it clings to my fingers, or misses the can, or only half of it goes in so it dangles over the side, or—worst case—it falls on the floor and (because I’m usually so exhausted at bedtime) I have trouble even finding it. Can’t Dyson create some kind of Floss-Vac, so that when I’m done flossing I can just press a button and have the floss ripped from my fingers and sucked into a vortex where I never need to think about it again?

Janky POS at gas station

Paying at the gas pump should not be complicated. Every company designing this point of sale interface should just copy an existing design that works. And yet the Service Station Industrial Complex seems to need to innovate. Sometimes it’s loud video ads or byzantine car wash options, or else it’s half a dozen loyalty card options. If I try to use my Safeway card and don’t have any award points, it sometimes hoses the whole transaction; other times, it weirdly gives me the Chevron member discount (which is a mistake, but hey, I’ll take it!). This confusion is only slightly annoying, but what kills me is when the POS wants me to pre-select something. The other day an Arco POS display said, “Enter amount.” Amount of what? Gas, or money? I guessed and put in “6,” figuring consumers care mainly about how many gallons we need, vs. the unpleasant matter of how much we’re forced to pay. Well, I guessed wrong and the pump gave me $6 worth of gas … a little over a gallon, which is of course nearly worthless. But I was like, okay, fine, it wants a dollar figure. So I tried again and put in a generous number, which should have worked, except that after pumping for like 30 seconds the POS realized, hey, this same card was used twice at this pump—an obvious sign of fraud! Stop the fueling! So I got like another half-gallon, plus it locked up my credit card, so I had to call my bank. Amazingly, this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened. Whoever designed this interface should be force-fed gasoline through a beer bong.

Car blasting horn at cyclist

Look, I understand that when I am out bicycling, sharing the road with cars, occasionally a driver will want to make sure I’m aware of his car bearing down on me. A little toot of the horn from, say, 30 feet away is completely appropriate. But I also encounter motorists who wait until they’re five feet from me and then blast the horn. It’s not like I didn’t know they were there, but that unexpected loud blast can just about make me jump out of my skin. The horn is supposed to be for safety; why this need to weaponize it? When this happens, I generally flip the driver the bird. This response might seem strange to you: I mean, what if the driver overreacts? Well, think about it: what’s he gonna do, come after me? He’s ahead of me! If he screeches to a halt, I’ll ride right past. If he waits for me at the next intersection and wants to fight, I’m all for it. After all, I’ll be the only combatant in a helmet.

The last time this happened, a couple weeks ago, I flipped off the driver, and then my riding buddy said, “There were kids in that car.” I grasped his point immediately: I had lucked out! Consider: the driver is an asshole; his young kids know it; and now I’ve taught them an important gesture they can make to their dad on a regular basis. I only wish I could give them a better tutorial, emphasizing that the ring and index fingers don’t curl all the way in, but are positioned such that their knuckles line up with that of the bird finger. But I’m sure those kids will refine their technique over time.

Resurfacing earworm

I am cursed with the ability to remember rock songs in great detail, whether I like them or not. Obviously in the case of a band I love, like Pink Floyd, it’s natural I’d remember every word of every song, along with all the instrumentals—but also intact are all these songs I never even meant to listen to but encountered secondhand because they got a lot of radio play. This means I also know all the lyrics to, say, “Piano Man” by Billy Joel, even though I only liked the song briefly, when I was like seven. Mercifully, lots of the  music from my youth has failed to pass the test of time and, due to zero airplay, finally fades from memory.

Until it comes back. And this, alas, can happen at any time, for no reason. Some minor song like “One Step Ahead of You” by Split Enz will suddenly pop back into my head, and I’ll be like gosh, that’s strange, but then it’s kind of understandable that one would resurface because “one step ahead of you” is a household phrase. But occasionally a song I always despised, and which hasn’t been played on any Bay Area station in decades, and has no reason to be remembered, will pop into my head and then become the soundtrack to my latest anxiety dream, so I hear it all night as I sleep. Most recently the offending song was “Hair of the Dog” by Nazareth. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s the song whose chorus (which is like 90% of the song) goes, “Now you’re messing with a / Son of a bitch!” Why does my brain do this to me? Am I punishing myself for something?

Modern light bulbs

I understand the benefit of modern LED light bulbs: they use like a tenth of the energy of traditional incandescent bulbs. And I’m all for saving the planet, of course. I like to run my lights on a dimmer (which also conserves energy) … but it’s strictly hit or miss how the new bulbs will behave. The same make and model might work this week but not next. How they fail varies quite a bit. The LED bulbs designed for above my stovetop don’t do a damn thing. (I found some non-LED ones on Amazon but they refused to ship them to California due to state law; I had to have like 20 of them shipped to my mom’s place in Oregon.) Other LED bulbs seem to work on the dimmer but occasionally, spontaneously they’ll start flickering like crazy, causing seizures in my epileptic houseguests. Or they’ll just occasionally stop working until I futz with the switch a bunch of times. Completely maddening.

The other issue is, even though these modern bulbs barely use any energy, I can’t get a bright enough bulb for the bathroom. When I shave, I want that bathroom lit up like an operating theatre (and the rest of the time it’s on a dimmer, remember)? But all these LED bulbs max out at some piddly lumen number.

Does your neighborhood feature people leaving totally cool stuff out in their driveways for anyone to take? Sometimes it’s crap, like worn-out, depressingly faded or dirty toys, or waterlogged books. But more of the time it’s great stuff … we once got a beautiful drafting desk, and another time some elegant drinking glasses, and once (as celebrated here) we found a sweet toaster. But perhaps the most satisfying item ever was a box (in front of this old geezer’s house) of old-school incandescent bulbs. I couldn’t believe my luck! I mean, these you cannot buy. It’ll be a sad day when they finally burn out. Just like me I suppose.

People who can’t use calendar software

Among workplace productivity applications, perhaps the most useful is the shared calendar. How did we ever set up meetings before we could instantly see what day and time works for all six attendees? It’s great! Which makes it extra frustrating when colleagues—whom I have no option to avoid having meetings with—choose not to participate. They break the whole system. You go to set up a meeting and their schedule looks like Tetris—they’re triple- or quadruple-booked all day, every day, for the next five years. How many of these meetings are bogus? Answer: all but (possibly) one.

And if you’re attending a meeting, accept the invite! Don’t keep me waiting! I mean, what’s the problem … are you holding out for a better offer? Just keeping your options open? Look, if you don’t accept, I’m either going to have to hassle you, or reschedule, because believe me, I wouldn’t invite you in the first place if you weren’t absolutely necessary to the discussion. Chances are I don’t even like you.

If I were a manager, I would tell my employees, “If I ever see you double-booked on your calendar, you’re fired.” (You might think this would be frowned upon by leadership but actually, I’d be a hero, just for finding a novel way to get rid of more employees.)

Malfunctioning smoke alarm

Is there anything worse than being awakened in the middle of the night by a shrieking smoke alarm? Not only are you jumping out of bed, but you’re legitimately alarmed, especially because so many of these don’t only detect smoke (which at least you can smell) but carbon monoxide (which could silently kill your whole family). So you’re trying to figure out if you need to evacuate the house or just silence the damn thing. And half the time the “Silence” button doesn’t work. After all, the thing is malfunctioning.

It was bad enough when all you had to do was take out the battery—but now there are these factory-sealed models where you can’t. So you have to bury the damn thing like the telltale heart, smothering it in a clothes drawer so you don’t have to hear it anymore.

Bonus points: a certain model I seem to have a weakness for buying has a switch on it called “Deactivate.” It’s so tempting to throw this switch, except you can never go back. I mean, what’s the difference between using this switch and just smashing the alarm with a hammer?

I actually got the manufacturer to warranty a unit recently. The support rep asked what happened. I said that it wouldn’t stop alarming, no matter how many times I pressed “Silence,” and then finally it went silent but now won’t respond to the “Test” button. (I confess I left out the part where I repeatedly beat the alarm with my fist and then threw it on the floor.)

I was traveling recently and my daughter, who was visiting (or I guess technically housesitting since my wife and I weren’t there) called to report a smoke alarm wouldn’t shut up. Before I had a chance to actually advise her, she said, “Oh, wait, here’s a ‘Deactivate’ button!” Before I could stop her she’d thrown the switch. “Thanks a lot, “ I snarled. “You just bricked it.” Then I felt like a jerk, which hurt especially bad because I know it’s true.

Synthesis

I just realized what’s probably going to push me over the edge one day: I’ll be asleep, having an anxiety dream, with “Rock Me Amadeus” playing on infinite loop in my head, and then the smoke alarm will go off, and it won’t shut up, and in my frenzied attempt to smother it I’ll end up trying to wrap it in a fitted sheet!

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Ask A Book Club Veteran

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I am a relative newcomer to my book club, but the others have been going strong for years.  I’m not about to rock the boat, but what do you do when nobody seems to want to spend much time actually talking about the book? I mean, we touch on it, but most of the time we’re sidetracked on a seemingly limitless range of topics. Any hints on how to tighten this up a bit?

Mandy S, Portland, OR

Dear Mandy,

This is a known phenomenon, and it’s called “book club.” In other words, par for the course. If members really wanted to knuckle down and focus on the book, they’d go to college. The reality is, people need an excuse to get together and this is one of them. As for your desire to keep things on track, just watch for opportunities to drag the book back into the discussion. For example, when someone is talking about her dog, you can say something like, “Did anybody else think it strange that all the dogs in this book are male?”

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I am thinking about starting a book club, and even have five or six members lined up. But I’ve never done this before. Can you suggest a few rules that have served you well in your years at this? I don’t want to be draconian but there are probably pitfalls you’ve learned the hard way…

Rhonda V, San Antonio, TX

Dear Rhonda,

My book club has just two rules, and we generally follow at least one of them. The first rule is: every book we choose must be available in paperback. This obviously makes it cheaper for those buying it, and also increases the chances we can get it from the library, vs. newer releases that have like fifty people ahead of you on the hold list. The second rule is: nobody has to finish the book if they don’t like it, but we’re supposed to hang on for at least 70 pages. (Why 70? I can’t remember.) Once in a while I dislike a book so much I break this rule, as do others, but at least most of us try. (There’s also an unspoken rule that spoilers are totally allowed during our discussion, even if it’s a mystery novel and a member is only 20 pages from the end. I mean, that’s their problem for not finishing, right?) 

Dear Book Club Veteran,

Help! We had a guy join our book club about six months ago who totally dominates the discussion. He wasn’t so bad at first but now that he’s comfortable in the group, he acts like he’s like a professor or something. Nobody knows him well enough to confront him; ironically, the person who invited him has since quit (coincidentally or not). Is there some accepted protocol for kicking a member out?

Sarah V, Denver, CO

Dear Sarah,

I don’t know of any tactful way to ask a member to leave, and the question of who should tell him would be really tough. Plus, if you saw the guy around town afterward it would be super awkward. But I do know a workaround, which my mom’s book club resorted to: though it had been around for over 15 years, its founding members announced that the book club had run its course and would disband. This they did, or pretended to do; once the loudmouth was gone, they quietly reassembled (coordinating via clandestine emails) except for the one unwanted member. You could give that a try!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

How do you hold up a heavy hardback with those limp wrists of yours?

Clint B, Topeka, KS

Dear Clint,

Since you presumably know nothing about my wrists, I’m guessing you’re trying to be funny, insinuating that there’s something gay about a man being in a book club. Maybe you’re some kind of Manosphere cretin. If so, this isn’t the first time my masculinity has been impugned based on my book club. I was once playing poker with a bunch of men (as part of a fundraiser for my kids’ school) and was betting low and folding a lot, so I wouldn’t have to ante up a second time. Finally I got a great hand and bet big, and someone said, “He must have a good hand to bet that high.” Another said, “Maybe he’s just got balls.” A third said, “No, he’s in my wife’s book club, so I know he doesn’t have any balls.” The difference between what that guy said and what you wrote me is that he was actually funny.

I don’t know why book clubs tend to be female, other than the fact that many book clubs only allow women. Here’s an idea: as your first step in rehabilitating yourself, you should start an all-male book club … if you’re man enough to risk it.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

We’re all pretty busy people in my book club, so we only meet for an hour and a half. Of this short time, it seems like we always spend at least half an hour picking the next book. The host selects five, and prints out synopses and reviews and such, and we pass them around and then vote on little slips of paper and it’s just so inefficient. Any suggestions on streamlining this?

Angie W, New York City

Dear Angie,

My book club used to pick our books that way, but then during COVID, perhaps because so much else in our lives was going digital, we switched to everybody submitting a suggestion and then voting on them via SurveyMonkey. This gives everyone time to peruse the options at their leisure, and nobody has to print anything out. The only issue is that it’s a lot of work for whoever gathers the suggestions and produces the survey, not to mention tabulating the results. Chances are you can’t all take turns running the survey because not everyone would have the patience or math chops to get it done. (I award three points if somebody votes for a book as his or her first choice; two points for second choice; one point for third. It’s simple arithmetic but requires  a very methodological approach.)

There are benefits to taking on the work, though, if somebody wants to a) be helpful, b) save money, and c) never have to read a book he or she really doesn’t like. How? Well, as the survey master you can game the system a bit. For one thing, you’ll be the first to know which book won, so if there aren’t many copies at the library you’re first in line. Second, you can vote last, and if there’s a book you really detest, you can figure out what other book has the best chance of beating it, and throw your first-choice vote at that one instead of your own. It’s worked so far: I’ve never had to read the amateurish sci-book about the young, misunderstood video gamer who gains extraordinary power, saves the world, and gets the girl.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club isn’t doing it for me anymore. How do I gracefully resign? I don’t really want to lie; for example, I’m not going to claim I don’t have time because honestly I totally do. But I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Any ideas?

Megan A, Ventura, CA

Dear Megan,

I’ve only ever been in one book club (for something like 20 years now!) so I don’t have any experience resigning. One of our members was very candid when leaving, saying something like, “I’ve come to dread these meetings.” I thought that was a bit harsh—so I totally get your point. So here is one idea, that worked great for my wife. She was in a book club that hadn’t announced itself as being feminist-themed, but every single book the members chose were in this category. (She once asked me to buy the book for her, since I’d walk by a bookstore on the way home from work, and I couldn’t remember the author. So I asked the staff if they had Eight Bald Chicks. The bookseller hadn’t heard of it and asked, “Do you have any idea what it’s about?” I replied, “It’s probably some feminist thing.” At his he laughed and said, “Oh, you must mean 8 Ball Chicks!” Which turned out to be correct.)

Eventually my wife wanted out of the club but didn’t want to look unsympathetic to the cause. At the same time, since the club had never said they wanted to focus on feminist literature, she was free to choose any book when it was her turn. She chose Remembrance of Things Past by Proust, and wouldn’t back down when they protested its length. For this she was summarily kicked out of the club on the basis of it “being a poor fit” for her. Fair enough, and at least they made that judgment.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club is mostly great but there’s this one member who’s always sneaking smut into our reading list. She’ll describe something as, say, a historical romance so we’ll go ahead with it, and then fifty pages in there’s this jump scare smutty bit and we’re all like whoa, enough! 

Alicia C, Los Angeles, CA

Dear Alicia,

Evidently you’re not getting anywhere letting this person be the judge of smuttiness; you’ll need to rely on a wider, crowdsourced reading community to help police this. Platforms like BookStagram and BookTok employ an informal rating system based on chili pepper emoticons (🌶️). Decide as a group whether two peppers (i.e., explicit scenes being relatively brief, infrequent, and not very graphic) or three (steamy, highly detailed) should be the cutoff. Leave it to the offending party to delve into all this, as one reader’s three could be another’s five and you don’t want to be guinea pigs.

Dear Book Club Veteran,

My book club’s members take turns hosting. Whenever I host, my husband wants to participate. I wish I could tell him it’s a women-only book club, but it’s not—we do have men. The fact is, I love my husband but get plenty of him every day without him being a part of book club, too. What can I do to, frankly, exclude him without making him feel, well, excluded?

Francine B, Boston, MA

Dear Francine,

That’s a real tough one, but I do have one idea based on my wife’s writing group meetings. They invite spouses to come—not to all of the meetings, but to some—and the spouses form a “splinter group” and watch a movie or go bowling together. With this arrangement your husband wouldn’t feel singled out, and it would keep him from sulking in his room and/or making little trips to the living room on one pretense or other. Talk to your club’s members and see if they like the idea!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

What do you do when your book club is meeting and the talk turns political? This happens occasionally in my club—especially around election time—and though we all basically agree on our politics, I find it really tedious nonetheless. It’s usually one or two troublemakers initially, but then the blathering catches fire and is hard to snuff out. Recommendations?

Mark T, Boulder, CO

Dear Mark,

I’m really sorry to hear that … political talk could ruin a book club (not to mention a friendship or a family, in this day and age). And you’re right, even when people have similar views, it’s still a drag, because it’s usually a stupid little game of one-upmanship. Besides, what point is there sitting around agreeing about something, particularly when it probably has nothing to do with books and reading? 

Once again, my book club hasn’t had this problem to any great degree (and when it has, quick-thinking members led the discussion in a gonzo direction that made sincere political discourse impossible). For your group and others caught in this situation, I recommend something a Berkeley area breakfast club implemented decades ago: a formal prohibition against talking about politics, punishable by a $2 fine (which could go toward refreshments or something). See if enough members support this idea to make it an official rule!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

One of our longtime members had a history of neglecting to read the book, but in the last year or two he has always seemed prepared—but his insights seem pretty simplistic and a little too pat. I strongly suspect he’s resorting to AI summaries just so he can (try to) sound smart. How can I “out” this person?

Kate R, Seattle, WA

Dear Kate,

I admire your fighting spirit … if you’re right about this guy, he needs to go down, hard! I think you can test your theory and expose his fraudulent ways at the same time through a two-step approach. First, respond to one of his insights by delving deeper and bringing something really arcane into the dialogue; for example, “I’m interested in what you said about Pnin being a spiritually complex character, revering life, memory, and beauty rather than any specific deity. But what would you  say about the ‘dazzling Greek-Catholic cross’ he wears when sunbathing?” If this kind of specificity doesn’t cause an incriminating level of visible discomfort, employ the second step: ask about something that categorically is not in the book to see if he fakes having noted it. For example, you could say, “Good point about Clarice’s anxiety. Do you think it was realistic, though, that she ended up fearing her neighbor was  a vampire?” If this member says anything other than, “Honestly, I have no recollection of that,” you can prove (at least to yourself, or publicly if you’re feeling feisty) that he’s an AI-synopsis-reading fraud!

Dear Book Club Veteran,

I don’t know how else to say it, but my book club is pretty nerdy … nobody ever suggests anything lighthearted or fun, it’s always serious stuff like a presidential biography, nonfiction like Guns, Germs, and Steel, or some socially responsible novel about wretched oppressed people. How can I inject something exciting and novel (no pun intended)?

Jill M, Omaha, NE

Dear Jill,

I’m going to reach out to another reader, Alicia in Los Angeles, to see if she’ll put you in touch with the member of her book club who is always sneaking smut into their reading list, disguised as mainstream literature. That person might just become your book club mentor!

A Book Club Veteran is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Book Club Veteran,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXX

Introduction

This is the thirtieth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. (No, XXX does not mean it’s rated X … it’s more like PG-13, maybe R, we’ll see what makes it in. If this ends up being my most popular Bits & Bobs post, I’ll know why.)

Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, Volume XXV is here, Volume XXVI is here, Volume XXVII is here, Volume XXVIII is here, and Volume XXIX is here. Are you thinking “pump up the volume?” (Didn’t think so.)

So what are albertnet Bits & Bobs? They’re generally passages from letters I wrote friends and family back in the days before email (or excerpts from emails, in the days after). If this sounds boring, bear in mind I’ve always wanted to be a writer so I tried pretty hard to be interesting. Also, these snippets are pretty candid, and in my youth I was socially clumsy and also tended to ride my bike at speeds some would consider dangerous … so read on because there’s always a chance you’ll enjoy some schadenfreude, righteous indignation, or relief that it wasn’t you.

The Bits & Bobs in this post are in chronological order. The different volumes are all over the place and can be read sequentially, simultaneously, serially, seriously, surreptitiously, scrupulously, sensitively, and/or sanctimoniously.

All of today’s dispatches were written when I was attending UC Berkeley.

September 17, 1990

Today I was out on my new Guerciotti, just having the time of my life riding. It was early evening, starting to get dim, when I barreled down Claremont Ave, this wide, smooth, slightly twisty road, something like a 9% grade. (The low bottom bracket of the bike makes it really stable—although I did hit a pedal yesterday at like 45 mph which was kind of scary.) Anyhow, I’m flying along and suddenly I slam into a pothole or something. There’s this incredibly loud noise and for a split second, I’m completely blinded. I still can’t figure this out; I really couldn’t see a damn thing. (My best theory is that both retinas detached from my eyeballs because of the impact, and then they reattached. Or maybe it was like a cartoon of some kind and my eyeballs spun around in their sockets.) Anyhow, when I can see again, I’m in the left lane and there are cars coming towards me. Not like right in my face, but approaching pretty fast because I’m doing 50 mph. (I noted this later, of course—it’s not like I was looking at my bike computer at the time.) Did I mention that both my wheels were basically caved in at this point, and my back one was a potato chip? It felt like somebody had removed my rear wheel and replaced it with a jackhammer. I actually didn’t have a chance to be scared; my mind was totally tied up trying to respond. All in a split second, I’m aware of several things: 1) My rear tire, and maybe my front, are absolutely guaranteed to explode at any moment; 2) The chances of crashing are so high that all I can really do is cut my speed and try to get back into my lane so that at least all I hit is the ground, instead of the unforgiving windshield of a ‘73 Plymouth Reliant; and 3) If I use my back brake, the rear wheel will definitely slide out from under me as soon as the tire blows, if not sooner. So, I slam on the front brake, which grabs on the caved-in section of the rim and lurches the bike around even more, but somehow I get my speed down to about thirty and get back into my lane just before my rear tire blows up, then the front.

From here on out it’s easy; I mean, hell, people bring bikes down from 30 mph after dual blowouts all the time, no problem. God, what a rush. Both wheels are completely totaled. The bent sections of rim look like beer cans that a party animal has flattened against his forehead. I couldn’t even roll the bike home; I had to carry it. I feel lucky to be alive, or at least lucky I’m not dead. But at the same time, I feel cursed that this freak thing happened at all. Half of me says I should go out for pizza to celebrate still being alive, while the other half says I should save my money for the new rims I have to buy now. One thing is certain: I’m not going to spend my evening studying. I’ve been through enough for one day.

September 23, 1990

It’s taking a while to make friends up here; as you know, for most of my life I’ve been pretty shy. In the last couple of years I’ve become a lot more outgoing, but because I was shy for so long, I don’t have nearly as much practice socializing as, say, you. At UCSB I had the benefit of being on the cycling team, where I had a leg up socially because I was a fast rider and people respected that. That should help me here, too, but the Berkeley team isn’t nearly so social and we won’t really get together much until the racing season starts in February. So I need a Plan B, and I have one: my strategy is to show up early to class, plop down next to any random person, and strike up a conversation. Now, the only way this could backfire is if I chat up some dude and he thinks I’m coming on to him. This could be awkward if he’s straight, and even more awkward if he’s gay. I figure I better not risk it. So I only chat up women, because if they get the wrong idea, that’s totally fine—women are really good at guiding would-be romance into mere friendship. I mean, it’s practically a cliché, right? Of course, there’s the remote possibility that this failsafe process will go astray and some woman will not only think I have romantic ambitions but she will, too. So just in case that happens, I only chat up really good looking women. I’m not on the make … just trying to gin up some friendships and I gotta start somewhere, right?

So, at the beginning of the semester I chatted up this gorgeous girl in one of my English classes, and again the next time the class met, and so on, and eventually I tossed the dice and invited her over for dinner. (I guess going for coffee would have been the more logical next step, being a bit more low-key, but I don’t drink coffee, and last time I went for coffee with a girl, I didn’t know what to order and got all flustered. I mean, I could have had hot chocolate but then I’d come off like a little kid, right? And tea is so fussy with the bag and the string and the little paper wrapper the bag came in, and the milk in the tiny pitcher, I mean, I don’t know, it all seems kind of twee. I don’t even remember what I did order that time, but I never had coffee with that girl again, which is a shame because she was fly.)

Damn, where was I? Oh, right, dinner. So I made H—, the girl from my English class, dinner at my apartment. My friend B— (who graduated from UCSB last summer and moved to Oakland with me) was there, at least for a bit before finding an excuse to bail, assuming I would want privacy, like this was some romantic thing. He subtly razzed me about this: when H— complimented our apartment and furnishings (most of them B—’s), particularly our couch and its pillows, Brett said, “Did you know these are throw pillows?” He didn’t actually wink at me as he said this, but it was obviously a subtle reference to “throw the ho’s,” a phrase in surprisingly widespread use by me and my Santa Barbara pals. We will say, for example, “Call me Hector. Hector Throw-da-Ho’s,” or we complain, “No meet da ho’s, no throw da ho’s,” or simply “No ho’s.” Of course we don’t mean ho as in actual whore; “ho” is just a handy synonym for woman, or perhaps for attractive woman, just like “freak.” And the “no throw da ho’s” lament is mostly true; most of us have nobody to throw most of the time.

Well, dinner went fine, and then H— and I randomly started watching “Akira,” a movie B— had rented, which was this Japanese animated thing that started off pretty well, with young attractive people zooming around on cool motorcycles, but at some point the main character has some kind of weird bodily mutation with his arms growing insanely and becoming like tentacles. I could tell H— was pretty freaked out so we shut that off and went up on the roof. It’s not that high up but had a great view of the Golden Gate and all that. Then it got a bit late and we went back to my apartment and the phone was ringing, which doesn’t happen that often, and it was H—’s roommate, calling to see if she was okay. I was surprised that a) her roommate would worry, and b) she was resourceful enough to find my phone number. Or was this a precaution? (“If I’m not home by 10, check on me, would you?”) So anyhow, I walked H— home even though it’s a pretty good neighborhood. It was a nice night and when we got to her place, she invited me in.

Well, this was unexpected. I figured I’d just see H— to the door, and then head on home. I don’t think I was even speculating about a friendly little peck on the cheek because this wasn’t really a date, not as far as I could tell. I mean, how do you tell? Was she inviting me in just to be nice? Or was this like in the movies and was supposed to lead to (dot dot dot)? Obviously I was over-thinking things, as usual. Anyhow, eventually it came to pass that I found myself sitting down in her apartment. I don’t remember what would have made me decide to sit down other than perhaps our conversation was ongoing and I didn’t feel like standing anymore. So now it didn’t look like my departure was imminent. So what was I supposed to do next?

It occurred to me that H— might be waiting for me to bust a move, and if I didn’t, she might take that as an insult. I sure didn’t want to insult her, and besides, she was super fly as I believe I mentioned already. The opportunity (even if it’s only a perceived opportunity) to bust a move with a fine betty doesn’t come along every day. A decision tree formed in my head: if I don’t bust a move and that hurts her feelings, that could jeopardize our friendship. But if she’s not waiting for me to bust a move and considers us just friends and then I do bust a move, that could also jeopardize the friendship, though honestly she must know she’s fly so how could she possibly blame me for wanting to bust a move? I figured, worst case, I bust a move when she’s not actually expecting—or wanting—it, in which case she’ll just turn her head suddenly to deflect the kiss, and I’ll immediately get the message, and then I can quickly blush and stammer out an apology, following which there’ll be no hard feelings, and then she and I can go on being friends. Right?

The scenario that I didn’t actually even consider, for some reason, was that she’d actually respond favorably and we’d suddenly be making out. Why didn’t this cross my mind? Who knows. Perhaps I’ve just been shut down by girls so many times, to auger in yet again seemed almost inevitable, scripted even. So imagine my surprise when I busted the most awkward move ever and it seemed to work. I said something totally inane, like “I like your sweater” and then I guess I must have reached for her, or maybe she read my mind and came forward, but next thing you know she’s sitting on my lap and we’re making out! Pretty thrilling stuff and she paused a moment to say something similarly inane like “I like your sweatshirt, too,” but mostly we’re just mashing faces. And then I become aware of this strange kind of rhythmic pulsing—not a sound exactly, but not exactly not. Kind of like a hydraulic rushing you might say. And I realize I’m hearing her pulse through her chest, which is proximate to my ear. This didn’t occur to me right away because the rhythm was pretty high for a heart rate. I mean, I wouldn’t expect a typical resting pulse rate (e.g., 60 or 70), since making out is kind of exciting, but we weren’t running stairs or anything either. Since my arm is around her, I can see my watch out of the corner of my eye, and what the hell, I decide to track the second hand and measure her pulse. Granted, in all the excitement I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my calculation, but it seems like her heart is going at about 130 beats per minute. Is she just super excited? Or maybe frightened? Or could she be having some kind of seizure?

After a few minutes our embrace subsides, as explicably as it had started, and we say goodnight and I head home. As I walk along up Alcatraz Avenue, I ponder the strangeness of recent events, this sort of hybrid between a romantic comedy and “Telltale Heart.” The song in my head (there’s always a song in my head) is “Walking On the Moon” by the Police. By the time I get home I just kind of shrug the whole thing off as just another of those strange things that happen to me.

I saw H— in class the next day, and afterward as we walked across Sproul Plaza chatting, H— seemed just a little off, perhaps a bit stiff, certainly not behaving like somebody who has just embarked on a sweet romantic adventure. Honestly, I’d have been a lot more surprised if she did seem all excited about the passionate turn our evening had taken, though I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because I wasn’t that excited either; I was feeling strangely ambivalent about it all, probably because my excursions into dating so often end badly, so why would this be any different? And thus it seemed, like I said earlier, almost scripted when she finally came out with it: “About last night. I like you and want to be friends, but I don’t want to be … well, I don’t want to get involved.” I didn’t need to ask “involved in what”—the answer was “it,” as in “it all.” Which was fine with me. From that day forward we were just friends. Which, as you might recall, is all I’d really been looking for anyway.

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