I keep my bike seat relatively high even when I'm just commuting; doing so gives me better leverage and makes the whole ride a lot more fun—with the small sacrifice of balance when stopped. I can't quite reach the ground when I'm on the saddle, which usually isn't a problem—sometime during freshman year I learned how to swing one leg over the back of the seat as I applied the brakes, and stand on one pedal until it was slow enough for me to start walking alongside it. The trouble with that method is that the leg-swinging thing requires some very small degree of flexibility, of which I was completely devoid today. Let me tell ya, it made for an interesting ride to work this morning. And it's all yesterday's fault.

Yesterday, I played on a mostly-Stanford pickup team for women's club (as opposed to college; no student-status eligibility requirements, and their season is in the summer/early fall) sectionals. There were Molly and Milch from Superfly, a former UCSC girl, two women from the coed club team Ebb and Flow, E and a seminar-mate Clare, and myself. A full spectrum of experience, from Clare who'd never ever played ultimate before to Milch, a Fury practice player. Though we only played two games, it was pretty exhausting with exactly one sub versus the other teams' full seven or more on the sides, though I still like that all of us got to be in on the action, all the time. We were pretty even with Santa Cruz until the half, when they really pulled away to beat us 13-6, but then we started working together more intuitively and creamed a mostly rookie Berkeley team 13-4.

Clare: she'd never played before but was a generally athletic girl who'd had a crash course in throwing and strategy from Elizabeth... and was super friendly and enthusiastic and stunned us all with how quickly she picked things up. On the dirt path back over the hill to the parking lots at the end of the day, she marvelled at how self-regulating the game was: how receptive it was to newcomers and pickup teams, how we made all our own calls. I think I'd been taking them a little for granted, but hearing those things verbalized got me really excited for this upcoming season. I think my personal bests for the day were in the first half of the Berkeley game, but I also had some really erratic, stupid moments as well—most memorably, when I kept thinking how silly this Berkeley rookie chick was for not being in the stack when it was actually our team's disc and completely my fault... a way off-course forehand... a floater when I was pretty much open in the endzone and should have actually ran ahead and caught it facing me instead of trying to do it overhead. With luck, more frequent practices and drilling will get my throws to be more consistent—at the moment, they're better than last year but still not entirely dependable—and I can get into better cardiovascular shape to keep the cuts coming. Anyway, that was more for my own selfish documentation than any public enjoyment, so I'll stop now. Now I'm all stiff and cracking—even coughing hurts 'cause I laid out onto my ribs a few times—, but it's the contented kind of soreness that comes after using your body to the max so it's not just okay, but great. Or it will be, in retrospect.

E and Clare whined us into going down to Carmel for their SoCo barbecue by lying through their teeth and saying that it was only a half-hour drive. When we got there, we saw Ben, my next-door neighbor last year in Branner, and a bunch of other cool people I'd known before or was connected to via one degree of separation. Though we'd just beat up our bodies earlier that afternoon, we started playing another informal 4-on-4 game on the sand, which was exhausting to run on but made for some spectacular dives and wrestling. Then, to wash off the sand, some of us ran right into the water. Though it was the Pacific, an entire summer of warming up plus the warm, sunny late afternoon made it surprisingly tolerable, and even pleasant.

What Clare and E hadn't lied about, though, was the food... I'd already heard about their legendary fare countless times and the corn and kebabs and fish and salads and prawns were every bit as good as promised. S'mores around a fire, too... yum... some more frisbee in the dark, and then it was time for Molly and I to make the drive back up 101. Without traffic, it went pretty quickly, and I was back at Dire Wolf by 10.

A friendly, happy, summer day outdoors. Cheers.

So I'm saying my farewell to Dire Wolf by stripping some grungy floral wallpaper and repainting the kitchen wall and cabinets: leaving my little legacy, of sorts. It's something I'd been harboring thoughts about all summer, and got jump-started when Jessie started painting her new room. If I have time, I'd like to tile a small section of the counter, too, which would make a more useable surface than painted wood.

Rob's been around a lot recently, Jessie's home more often, Collin's moved back in, and all of Birdsong (the house across the street that Rob just sold)'s furniture and appliances are on our front lawn for the few weeks 'til the new house on Embarcadero is ready to be moved into. We've had some good times tie-dying, moving, painting, and Foreman grilling (Jessie's purchase; we had an inaugural dinner on Friday, and I am a thorough convert) last week, but I'm also a little sad. All of this signals that summer. is. over. The three loners dynamic of August and early September wherein we were rarely awake and present in the house at the same time was something I'd gotten really comfortable with, but I have to stop being selfish and realize that I'll be living with other people come Friday. Beyond our very different worlds, Sean and Jessie were intelligent, funny, open-minded people and I'd like to think we kept each other well entertained during the second half of the summer.

Anyway, to work I go!