The last of our guests left this morning. What will we do without extras milling around the house, without things to show and things to tell? What will I do now that I must hike alone? I have the day mostly off, maybe a small clean this afternoon. I was just talking to the neighbor next door, and she suggested I join a group called the Divas, a womens mountain bike group which meets on Thursdays. In theory, it sounds great. However, a plethora of trivialities leave me a bit skeptical. I'm not that good. What if everyone is better than me? I don't wear spandex. Will everyone else wear spandex? I might even venture outside in it if I could afford the stuff. But I can't, so I bike in my black cotton shorts and hiking boots. Hiking boots- what if everyone else has those funny lookin bike-y shoes? Ok, so if I had enough raw talent to drown out the laughter, I might consider. But if I am really bad, maybe nobody will want to talk to me, and they all know each other and I know no one, and I will be lagging behind, feeling sorry for myself, in my flatlander gear and lack of skill, and I will have ruined something that is so much fun, and all mine, and something that is sacred because it is one of the few things Bob and I both enjoy and are at the same level in, making it so easy for us to connect with each other and the great outdoors.

Later- I didnt do one thing useful today. After I had the house to myself, I paced and roamed around a bit, and fretted about the Divas, and worked myself into a stew of self-doubt, and finally, filled my Camelbak with water, grabbed my bike, and pedaled away with only the smallest notion of a plan. Ten miles later, I found myself in Keystone, wondering what to do next. I turned uphill and rode along a trail which I do not think was a designated biking trail, and dumped myself in a stream. At least I did not sit down. The rest of the day, I sloshed when I walked. With a sureptitious glance around, to assure myself nobody was watching, I grabbed a low-hanging willow and pulled myself back up to my bike. Nope, definitely not Diva material. I prefer to crash without a slew of unnaturally fit super-women type suburbia moms, who look as though they have never even thought about kids, let alone squeezed out the required two or three, watching.

What is wrong with these people? It exhausted us to jeep over trails they regularly ride. They refer to obscure landmarks in obscure basins and valleys down roads less traveled, and everyone knows precisely what they are talking about. They back-slap and guffaw about falling off narrow boards laid across streams or fallen trees, "because we were too lazy to walk across". And they do all these things in spite of having small children and jobs. I think they have a mutant strain of some sort. Joke about mountain women, about leathery necks and faces, hairy legs and armpits, lack of deodorant, who can write their name in the snow with urine as legibly as any man. The truth is, nobody messes with them. They redifine one's notion of femininity. I think they're great. I never would have made a southern belle anyway.

So here I sit, nursing a sunburn on my soon-to-be-leathery face, trying not to stretch my shirt over my very tender shoulders. A tank top over a sports bra under a camelbak did not leave sexy tan lines, only large, round patches of raw skin over my shoulder blades. I feel awful, because my sunglasses were in Bob's vehicle all day. My head throbs and my eyeballs burn. If I had to change diapers yet tonight, cook a large meal, provide maternal comfort to some miniature one, I dont know what I would do.