Of course, a great deal of it is the sun talking. A bike is the most perfect transportation solution for me! I should not get a car, which is terrible for the environment and increasingly expensive in a number of very troubling ways, including ethically, environmentally, and physically speaking, even! I just paid my taxes and cannot afford a car anyway! Not to mention the fact that shopping for a good used car that will not blow up, explode, detonate or die quietly in any number of ways smacks of a great deal of effort and also exceptional luck, of which I have a very small-to-nonexistent amount. This is why I do not push my luck. This is why I need a bike!

When I first moved to Littletown, here in the heart of Utah, I was pretty convinced that I would die horribly and alone without owning a car; that I would be isolated, cut off, dependent, and always out of milk. It turns out that--well, it would be very convenient to have my own wheels, to be able to make a grocery run without scheduling it with other people and hoping the dwindling of my supply of yogurt coincides neatly with their requirements for whole wheat pasta and US Weekly. It would be nice to be able to run up to Target whenever I needed to, to be able to head out to the coffee shop that's a bit of a hike without making elaborate plans, to be like, totally free! It would be nice. But I am, as ever, surprised at the difference between what is nice and what is necessary.

A while back, when it was still snowing and icy and cold, my crazy landlord said, "You know, you should really get a bike." And I smiled and nodded and said okay, crazy landlord! You crazy landlord, you. Have you not noticed that it is cold and blowing and icy and cold? I think it was also the fact that he is generally crazy, which turned me off the idea. That and the fact that I am pretty convinced I'd immediately find myself knee-deep (upside-down) in a snow drift, if I were to try and ride in the winter.

But now I sit in the living room with the windows open and the curtains blowing and I watch tens of thousands of people on bicycles go by, pedaling happily away with their baskets and panniers and trailers and backpacks and, sometimes, boxes balanced on their handlebars, and I am struck by the fact that maybe he isn't entirely crazy, my landlord--that maybe there is something to this whole people-powered transportation that I was previously entirely overlooking.

There is not much in my little residential neighborhood that is immediately accessible--but with a bike, my radius becomes that much larger, my handling capacity that much greater, and my physical fitness--you cannot deny the cardiovascular power of the bicycle is far superior to that of the car. Even one with a sticky manual transmission.  With a bike, I'm less dependent on other people for a good chunk of my errands. With a bike, I can rule the world! With a bike, I don't have to spend 3,000 dollars I don't have. With a bike, I might even ride for fun, sometimes.

When I have a bike, I hope I actually keep riding it. And that I do not fall off it, or ride into traffic, or spill or tumble or explode. I'm actually pretty terrified of riding a bike and dying horribly. I'm a little nervous to spend the money and sit in my house and be afraid of dying horribly, or expending effort, or it being entirely too hot and really, can't I just lie here on the couch and perspire in a lady-like fashion, please?

We'll see what happens. I'm looking on craigslist. I will walk, this weekend, to the various thrift shops around town, and maybe I will find something cheap, and cute, and maybe I will become a bike rider.