balding angrily

These people write better than me or are smarter than me, and that makes me want to light them on fire:

• Izzle pfaff!
• Quick Little Splinter
• One Good Thing

Here’s the challenge in a larger-than-it-has-to-be nutshell. I admire people; I’m also deeply insecure. So, when I see someone doing something better than me at something I would like to be doing better at, I involuntarily hate them. It’s not my fault; it’s in my genes.

The other night, a friend, who I haven’t formally introduced you to yet, challenged me. He said, “Listen. I was thinking I want to do the MS150 next year. And I thought it’d be fun to wipe the asphalt with you; it’ll help me do better if I have a goal.” His strategy was to play to my non-existant, typically heterosexual competitive side.

I said, “Sure. I’d love to train with you. That’d be a lot of fun.”

He frowned, and we changed subjects.

A week later, making a show for the group regularly subjected to his braggadocio and me, he said, “Listen. You didn’t respond right the last time I told you I was going to ride circles around you. You gave me this mamby-pamby, gay, lets-work-together thing. I don’t know what to do with that.”

He continued, “I need something to get me going again. I need a new challenge. So how ’bout it? I’ll cream you next year at the MS150. Hm?”

I repeated, “That’d be really cool. It’d probably help me to train with someone.” He looked disgusted and made a sound like a snake through his gapped teeth. I shrugged as if to say, “I don’t know how I can help you.”

Jerry spoke up then. “What you don’t understand, Pubic Hair Head [his just-bequeathed internet name], is that Alex is actually really, truly at his core…very competitive. He likes to act like he’s not, but he’s kind of sick with it.”

I had to admit it then; I do not like to lose. Ask the person who I trained with last year for the MS150. He hadn’t been on a bike in years before he started training with me. On our first ride out together, I was a quarter of a mile ahead of him, and I pretended, probably non-convincingly, to be supportive. I said things like, “You’ll get there. Look at me! I was worse off than you when I started training!”

The next time we trained together he was a quarter of a mile ahead of me. He gave advice; he said things like, “I read in a magazine that you’re supposed to be pedaling much faster than you are.”

Under my breath I grumbled, “Shut the fuck up, asshole. You were behind me 2 months ago.” But to him I smiled and waved as if to say, “Okey-dokey! Be right there! Sunshine and cedar chips! Moonbeams and sunflowers!”

On the ride I had to separate from him on the second day. My pride couldn’t take looking at his ass the whole ride. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to ride together again; I am that petty.

If you see Pubic Hair Head and you want us to ride together next year for blog fodder, I have no suggestions for you. I don’t know how you can simultaneously play on both our egos. If you light him on fire, it’d work for me, but I think you’d go to jail. I’d rather you not go to jail; I need all my readers to live free and spread the word about me.