June 5, 2006

I didn't realize that a weekend could be this boring. Friday I decided to go lift and run, then reward myself by heading to the local watering hole (Partner's). The bartender is nice and the drinks are strong and cheap, and that's a good enough combination for me to go. I was there for an hour or two, of course Ricky didn't call me back so I had to call him. He was at Flanny's and of course I was welcome to come.

I went over there for a few drinks and saw two guys that I work with at the bar (Timothy's). One of them mentioned going to a bar over at one of the local hotels, so I dragged Ricky along. I also invited one of my friends from High School that I hadn't seen in a few years. His parents moved close to Dayton and he was in town after spending time in BYU and on a two year mission trip. It was nice catching with him, and it wasn't too awkward seeing as how he is Mormon and does not drink.

I convinced Jacob to buy Ricky and I some Taco Bell, so we got some food and went to a party over on campus. I talked with Jacob for a while longer, then I went back to the apartment for bed. Jessica called at about 1am, after I had been asleep for about an hour. We talked for a while, she had gone out and was missing me. She got another call, so I was on hold for about 10min before I hung up. She called again, but I didn't pick up and she left a message. Then she called about 3 minutes after that and we talked a little longer. It was nice talking with her.

The next day I worked out in the morning and waited for my internet and digital cable to be hooked up. I sat around for a while and watched movies. I also put about 300 pictures up on facebook. John came and we hung out for a while, had a few beers. Ricky came over and we had a few more beers. Then we went over to Scott's house before I had to work at the bar at 11. It was a good time. His house is very creepy. They are not allowed to go into their storm cellar, but we went to peek around anyway. It was fun, but scary. Then I went to work and ended up IDing all night. I had a few drinks and talked with some friends from sophomore year. For some reason, a wedding party came in to party for most of the night. The bride was walking around the nasty bar in her wedding dress for the entire night. I did make a good tip out, so it wasn't all bad.

Sunday I went and did some cardio, then took Ricky to Chipotle. Then I layed around all day and watched TV. I hope the weekends get better.

Well, I got my first kiss a couple of days ago. It was ... odd. It was in the back seat of a car zooming down the road at 90 mph listening to booming loud rap music. I didn't enjoy that atmosphere and so for that reason... it was uncomfortable. That and...

I didn't kiss back. I am such a dumb ass! Here she was holding onto me, doing things to my hands and fingers that made me explode with feeling... or something (laughs). Rubbing my chest, leaning on me like she really cared... And then, something warm and wet against my mouth; it was her mouth! She took my bottom lip, I sort of thought the woman took the top lip, but oh well. And then she tried to put her tongue in my mouth... I wouldn't let it through.

I know I'm not gay because it felt right (and I had a lot of precum in my tighty-whities when I undressed for bed that night), but somehow it felt wrong.

I am 20, she is 36. Is age a problem? I don't think so, but also, I didn't particularly care for our driver.

Michael said "She kissed you first, man. She didn't stop because she gave up, or was dissapointed, she stopped because she wanted you to meet her halfway, that's all. It would have been cool, she was telling you it was alright..."

I asked if Crystal could drop this girl and me off at the lake so we could talk. I tried to talk so much, but all Donna did was hold me and nod, and murmer little incoherant responses to my comments. She said "I just got lonely." I told her to imagine the feeling of being sad and not knowing why, doing things you used to enjoy and not getting the fun anymore, and finally going to sleep in a bed that felt entirely too big and empty. She nodded, and I told her to imagine feeling that way for 20 years... she didn't know what to say.

Apparently, it had been about a year since she had been with anyone. A lot of really angry females tell me she was more than likely out to just get laid by a nice young man, but I like to think there was more. At any rate, my mother, as always trying to run Baby Dumpling's life (I'm a grown man, Mom, I have to live MY life... it's not your life, like my hair, It's MY hair, I grew it long because I wanted to. You remember when you used to say it looked like shit, and now you tell me my ponytail looks beautiful going down my back...), Mom ruind it for me.

I had a girlfriend for a day, and she was snatched away from me. This girl... woman... might have actually really cared about me... and I will never know now.

Why do I feel like I lost some part of myself? Even when she first reached out and took my hand... it felt unnatural, because my mother has destroyed my desire to be with a woman. I am hers, until the day she dies...

She has another thing coming to her. I'm tired of this bullshit, and it's going to stop.

There will be another chance down the road, I know it. And it will feel better, because we won't be zooming down the road and killing our eardrums, and I can take the time to explore, and I will see what is going on.

And my Mom, if she is still around, won't know a bit of it. I bathe this woman. I rub the dead skin off of her back. I cut her hair. I put the food on our table. I pay our bills. AND I NEVER DO ENOUGH! I have taken care of my mother.

I guess I'm kinda fucked up, huh? But I'll get straightened out eventually, won't I?

*** By the way, there was no intercourse involved in that night. I am still virgin, and will be for the rest of my life if Mom has anything to say about it.

Disclosure placards in front of each dish:

1. Free range chicken prepared in a mixture of single pressed olive and flax seed oil, drizzled with a sauce of hydroponic tomatoes grown from heirloom seed, organic oregano grown in free trade coffee bean and mealworm compost, lightly tossed with gluten free pasta and prepared in a feng shui kitchen by a lactating, yoga instructing beam of pure light and positive love energy.

And then mine:

2. This is just something I made, and to be perfectly honest, I am not sure about the politics behind the chow, but I won’t cry at your funeral if you are weak and you eat this and die.

Racing in the rain is the great equalizer, a place where the driver's art matters more than the latest car or the most horsepower. Rain races are fun for the spectator, or race worker, because a lot more people screw up.

The reasons are simple. I have only a tiny bit of experience in the wet and that in RWD car with a welded differential. Which is to say no differential at all. The only way to make the car go would be to dirt track it around, and I didn't have the experience to do that. Cornering speeds are reduced. Braking distances skyrocket.. And with a higher powered cars you can have problems putting down all that power. I love GT-1 cars, but I'm sure they're beasts in the wet (if non-beastliness can be ascribed to any car with 700 HP and monster torque)

A case in point came this weekend at my region's national race at Mid Ohio. I was on the race committee, which means that I get my name on the Entry Form and I get to do whatever needs doing. Like singing the National Anthem, for instance, which I was thankful to pull off. But for me the real story was my friend Phil Alspach.

Phil races a D sports racer. D sports racers are small, lightweight pure race cars that can lap amazingly quickly because they don't weigh hardly anything, and because they are pure race cars. Long control arms, inboard shocks, and so on. All the technology in racing`may be used.. It's an increasing popular class because they are so fast and because motorcycle engines offer inexpensive power. Motorcycle engines don't produce much torque, but their short stroke and twin cam design allows them to rev to high heaven. Which means you can get a lightweight motor that will put out 170 HP very reliably for $3K. As race motors go that's dirt cheap. In GT you'd have a hard time right getting a cylinder head for that kind of money. A lot of DSR's were home built tube frame jobs. For many racers the thrill fo building the car almost matches the thrill of racing it.

Low engine costs and high speed brought a bunch of new competitors and the class swelled. The chassis manufacturers noticed. Several new commercial chassis have recently come on the market, the most prominent being the Stohr chassis. A Stohr costs $30K, (plus motor). Being a commercial piece, it employs all the tricks that a professional chassis manufacturer brings to the game, especially complete engineering and extensive testing. A Stohr is a very sweet car. But the cost of winning has now skyrocketed, with little end in sight. Titanium suspension parts are starting to appear in DSR.

Phil races an older chassis, an Ocelot. Twenty, even ten years ago, it was a pretty hot piece. But it employs technology way, way behind the Stohr's, and worse, it's 300 pounds overweight. Three hundred pounds is almost 40% of the legal minimum weight with driver, an enormous penalty. Phil can't afford radically built engines, so he runs near stock 1100cc Kawasakis. HIs tires are hand-me-downs from John Fergus. Phil can't afford to drop $800 on tires every weekend. He can't afford a 'built' motor that might be worth an extra 30 or 40 horsepower and would blow up twice as often.

What that means is that on most national weekends Phil tools around at the back, with the other guys with old or home built cars while the guys with Stohr's or other modern machines and bigger budgets blow on by. Phil sort of accepts this, but he is a racer, and racers hate to be slow. Getting lapped preys on the psyche. Slow makes people even more conservative. Why run on the ragged edge for 14th? But on this Sunday it rained.

Crew chiefs don't mind a downpour that much. If you know it's going to rain, you put on rains and soften the suspension. They love sunny days. You don't have to make a decision. What they hate the most are the times when no one is sure what Mother Nature is going to do. Phil raced the first session after lunch. The last session before lunch began dry, but ended in a downpour. Most the drivers went out on slicks. Which meant they were going far slower than I could in my Focus on street tires. Mason Workman is a very talented guy, and he made amazing time for the first sixteen laps on slicks. Unfortunately his talent ran out on the 17th and he performed a June Taylor dancers routine at several corners, giving up the win.

It was overcast after lunch, and while it stopped raining the track was still wet. Phil chose to go out on wets while most of the fast guys figured the track would dry and chose slicks. It dried all right, but not for a long time. Phil's car may be old, heavy and underpowered, but he had the right tires for the conditions and something else that really helps in the rain: years of experience. On this day the old, wiry veteran could keep up with the kids. In the corners he was faster. Phil smelled blood, and began driving with the will of sharks in a feeding frenzy. I've never seen him push that hard or well, and he never went off. One of the new cars pipped him, but not by much. If the rain had resumed Phil would have held on. A whole lot of more modern, lighter, more powerful cars got left behind. Phil even lapped some of the guys who normally lap him..

In a month or two, Sports Car will print the results of this race. Phil Alspach finished second in a field of nine DSRs most twenty years younger than his, with budgets one or two zeros higher. People will read the results and wonder what happened. What happened was the rain. Rain is the great equalizer. And on this day a wily, old veteran in a vintage eligible car showed a bunch of young, rich pups his tail.