In the closet with Dark Em

I've been in the closet all afternoon. I dragged a bar stool into my tiny and clothes-packed bedroom closet and set up the microphone on a stack of folded shirts. I made a sound booth out of my fleece bathrobe and a sweater-coat and sat with my computer on my lap, facing the back wall of the closet.

It's nice and acoustically dead, the environment you want for voice recording. I've read about three-quarters of kispexi2_2's story, but started fumbling badly, so I'm taking a break.

Here's what I've learned so far:
1. Turn phone ringer off
2. Take down the windchimes
3. Turn off the self-updating virus software that announces its activities
4. Pee before scootching into the closet on a bar stool, because scootching back out again is not the work of a moment

I haven't listened to any of what I've recorded yet. I don't know if a listener will be able to distinguish my Gojyo voice from my Sanzo voice. I hope I sound a little dramatic, rather than a lot lame.

But I'm having fun.

Eeeee! I bought a bike today!

I'm so excited! My sis went with me to River City Bicycle, which was hoppingOMG, where Kate the extremely nice saleswoman let me take a bike out for a spin. What's more, she let my sis take one too, and loaned us helmets.

So off we went, across Martin Luther King and down into the under-bridge realms, and across railroad tracks, and finally out onto the Eastbank Esplanade. Then we cycled along the river in the sunshine and the breeze, where lots of other people had the same idea, and rode to the start of the floating walkway, and I shifted gears, and rang the little bell, and practiced stopping, and then we turned around and rode back, and when we got back inside the store, I said, "I'll take this bike."

Here's where we rode.

It's not the fancy bike I had in mind last week. It doesn't have the enclosed gears and it just has a regular chain. It's the Globe Carmel and it looks like this. Red and all! It's a "comfort bike" which I think is just adorable because other bikes are what, discomfort bikes? But that means you sit up kind of high, with a straighter back, and they're supposed to better for riding in traffic, and better for your neck.

By the time I added fenders, lights, a rearview mirror, a lock, a pannier rack, a bottle-rack, a kickstand, a helmet, and helmet lights, it came to about one third the price of the bike I'd been fantasizing about. And it's red! And comfortable! And I pick it up tomorrow.

And then I'm gonna ride it home.