As if you haven't heard enought about it!

I feel like this should be updated, but there’s so much to say, I can’t decide where to begin.

Biker Boy and I moved in together. It does strange things to my mind to see our stuff mingling. We made dinner last night and used my skillet and his wooden spoon, my table and his silverware. There are two toasters in the cupboard. Our bikes are on the same tension pole. It’s wonderful to know that every night we get to crawl into the same bed. It’s hard not to have all my pig stuff out. It’s nice to cook for two people. It’s hard to have to be quiet in the morning so I don’t wake up Biker Boy, but end up waking him up anyway. It’s nice to have access to his huge stores of music. It’s hard to find time to listen to my music (does anyone think that Biker Boy wants to listen to “Back to LA” or “Two Beds and a Coffee Machine”?). It’s great that I don’t have to drive across town daily. I miss the cats.

It’s really amazing. It’s so much easier. It’s better for our relationship. But I feel a small piece of my hard-won independence cracking away and it’s a painful crack. I don’t want it to sound like I’m unhappy – completely the opposite, as a matter of fact. But there are two sides to every story.

Last Wednesday evening, I was at work. I was teaching a class. It was me and five other women in the classroom. My phone was going insane, every time I glanced at it, I would see another missed call. I rolled my eyes because it would happen that everyone would call me on the one night a week I couldn’t answer my stupid phone. Around 6:30, a man burst in to the classroom. He was sweating profusely, wearing bike shorts and a bike helmet. I grinned, thinking he must be in the wrong classroom. One of my students said in the voice we all would if we saw this happening, “Dad?! What’s wrong?!” He nearly scooped her up in a hug so big I still get tears in my eyes when I think of it. “The bridge on 35 collapsed and I thought you might be on it.”

Without a word, I grabbed my phone and immediately tried to call my parents. I didn’t want them to hear about this and have any doubts about my safety. Unfortunately, that’s what everyone in the 612 area code was thinking and I couldn’t get my phone to work. I used one of my student’s phones and made a call to my sister and left a rather frantic message for her, assuming she would pass it on to my parents. I couldn’t get another phone call made, so I wandered back into the classroom. Everyone was staring at each other, not knowing what to do.

I couldn’t get my voicemail. I had missed about six calls and had three or four text messages, including one for Biker Boy. He, too, was at work. I text messaged him back, letting him know I was okay. And then I began to teach again. But, this was no ordinary class. Students kept leaving as their phones rang. I stopped the lesson and began a vocab quiz. I did what I could to keep some sort of normal atmosphere, but ended up letting them leave a few minutes early. I left once to answer my phone to let my best friend know I was okay. She’s eight months pregnant and I saw no reason to let this upset her.

I drove across the Mississippi on the Washington Avenue Bridge to pick Biker Boy up. Considering that one of the main arteries crossing the River was closed, the Washington Avenue Bridge was not congested at all. But once I got off at Cedar Avenue, the traffic was overwhelming and it took me almost ten minutes to drive the four blocks to the bike shop. I wasn’t scared, but even in that drive, I went over two bridges. The city is built with a river running through it. Bridges are a fact of life.

The city has been subdued since this has happened. Despite the constant presence of politicians, including our governor, senators, the president and the First Lady, the city has been quiet.

And here I am worried about how I can’t put up my pigs. Stupid. Really stupid.