on with the dance, let joy be unconfined

--Mark Twain

I haven’t been racing much at all, for almost two seasons.  I wicked miss it and the challenge of pushing myself and finding the Edge, and being strong and in shape and the feeling of being one with my machine.  I miss my race buddies and trash talking and the chilling first fall nights hanging out smelling leather and wearing gloves holding a cold beer.

I go now to spectate and catch up with my buddies.  And to curse, because anything goes at the track!  I had to miss an important race weekend event in May because of my boys’ first communion religious ritual.  I was annoyed about it, remembering a time in life chasing fun. 

I feel like I don’t really have fun anymore, not the smelly, sweaty, twisting, glowing type of fun I used to have.  I suppose that is OK, it’s a part of growing up and being responsible in this other stage of life.  I do have other kinds of fun.

But sometimes I really would rather be involved in the smelly hedonistic world of concerts and dancing and racing and greasy fingernails and red mist than in my offsprings’ stuffy religious ritual of eating small pieces of squished wheat products pretending to hallucinate Deity.  I once lied and blew off mother’s day and final exam with my partner in crime for the smelly hedonistic world of an Allman Brothers concert.  Outcome was suboptimal, though it pretty much peeled the paint off the walls at the time.  

Thems were the days.