Today’s Image

While we were having dinner, Mike Sokol commented on my recent post about joining a car share program. He said that, judging by my needs, upon which he was obviously an expert, I was better suited with buying a motorcycle.

Thed, who was also dining with us, said that he could never see me riding a motorcycle. Mike disagreed, slamming his empty beer mug onto the table. He said that I could, in fact, be imagined on a motorcycle: ‘Not a crotch rocket,’ Mike explained, ‘but an older bike, like a Honda.’
A motorcycle, after all, is basically a bike with a motor, and we all know how much I like bikes. Thed said the only way it could work is if the bike had a sidecar, like in Garden State. Alex, my special lady friend, would ride on the back like Natalie Portman’s character, minus the epilepsy.

I remarked that it would be great for when The Mitten Project started touring.

‘That’s stupid!’ Mike Sokol yelled. ‘What’re you gonna do, put your cat in there?’

I said: ‘Alex could wear her guitar on her back and ride on the back of the bike. I’d keep my omnichord in the saddle bag. And in the sidecar would go our cat and a miscellaneous child.’

‘Not your child, though,’ Thed reiterated.

‘No, just a random anonymous child,’ I said.

The three of us fell silent, the image of myself, my special lady friend, a cat we don’t own, and a child we don’t have all spitting dust trails down some barren desert highway, blending, as one, with the setting sun.

‘That’s stupid,’ Mike said.