Dumbass.

So everyone has those little "moments" on their bike...you know the one I'm talking about. You're spinning along, riding the same route you've ridden 1,000 times, daydreaming, on complete autopilot. Your hand are only loosely on the bars, and you're barely aware you are even on the bike as you think about what you're going to have for lunch or what other movie that actor was in you were just watching before you left...when - BUMP! - you are shaken from your reverie just in time to recover your form and get your hands back on the bars, with a sheepish grin, hoping nobody just saw you...

Sometimes.

I couldn't shift my weight back over the rear wheel quick enough and thought, "at least I'm not going that fast," when whack! I was on the ground. Just past the Oak Street Beach curve, I'd hit the last of those big asphalt scars on the lake front path, and completely lost control.

The next thing I knew there was a passer-by who helped me up and asked me if I was OK. I don't remember much of what I said, other than maybe, "I'm fine." So then I'm alone, and as I look down the path, I realize I can't remember which direction I am going. Or where I came from. Am I going to work? Or coming from work? I remember looking at my phone for the time and seeing it was it was 2:45. After what seemed like only a couple minutes of sitting on the steps along the path trying to get my bearings I looked again and it was 25 minutes later.

Again I looked down the path and struggled to remember. Where had I just come from? What was I doing before this? And as I struggled the synapses began to reconnect. I hit the Recent Calls button on my phone and rang Katy. Thankfully she answered right away, and I must have seemed pretty foggy still because she said she'd be there immediately. Later she told me that I'd asked her if I was with her that morning. It also took me until then to remember that I'd lifted weights with a teammate that morning, as well. Soon it was all back and I asked her to call work for me since I couldn't seem to get connected through 411.

My face hurt and I noticed my knee had a hole in it on my winter bibs as I walked under the overpass to get to the Chicago/LSD intersection to wait for Katy to come and pick me up. I looked in the glass on the law library and I was missing a little skin on my swelling left jaw.

She watched over me last night, making sure I didn't fall asleep until it was time to go to bed. We had pizza and watched bad TV while she sewed up my torn balaclava and winter bibs.

The head feels fine, no other symptoms such as nausea or dizziness, other than my skin missing a layer of skin on my jaw. My knee is a bit painful, and I was in fact on my way to the team ride this morning when the knee pain got a little bit more than tolerable, and I realized it was probably better to rest it.

So here I am, blogging of course, when I should be catching up on house work, and drinking coffee. But I have my memory, for now at least, if not my pride. In one more week I have health insurance again, and then I can have these dumbass moments all I want.

In the meantime, I'll just pay more attention.