How quickly it all fell apart; my optimism, my strength, all depleted by your departure. A mourning crash in the wake of our short-lived dance of love. Why, I ask, couldn’t it have lasted forever? Why couldn’t we have at least said a proper goodbye? Well, the blame all falls on me.

Oh delicious cupcake, I ate you far too fast.

In humour, we are honest. You’ll forgive me for the embellishment, no? Life isn’t as sweet without my cupcake, and I’d rather use humour than angst to express myself. One needs to try to be happy, as difficult as it can be for some. There are those who have never had a cupcake, so let’s be thankful.

It was the best cupcake I never thought I’d have, and it’s gone. Will luck ever bless me again?

Suddenly, a pizza cupcake strolls up to me…

Alright, talking about cupcakes is tiring and tempting. So let’s discuss my ass. While training for this silly Niagara bike adventure, I’ve quickly rediscovered the discomfort of riding a bike for too long. Clearly I am at fault, so it’s up to me to figure out what is comfortable. Perhaps some numbing medication? If the gumption arises, I’ll ask a fellow biker. An ass conversation, not enough of those around.

Of course the real problem is the sudden boredom that occurs within me. After about 5 miles of remembering how to operate my bicycle, signal, and alert others on the trail (*tring*tring*), oh and politely saluting everyone you cross, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. This is often the case in any setting you decide to place me. “Tell me the rules, okay, that’s all? Now what… whelp.” The mind wanders so soon when not challenged. Fortunately, this was an excellent time to consider why it is what it is. Could it just be that I lack focus? To concentrate solely on the road and the stress my body feels? You expect me to ignore the fuzzy bunny or the cardinals and bluejays flying around?

Perhaps.

Something did catch my eye, and mind, eventually. There were plenty of others on the trail. Joggers, walkers, runners, and bikers. On top of checking some out, I began to notice the faces of a particular set of people. Rochester has quite a few, oh let’s face it, if you think of it, then Rochester has a social circle for it, in this case it’s those extreme, probably competitive, bicyclists. You know them when you see them. There is a calm intensity on their faces. There is that concentration I wonder about. When it comes to bicycling, clearly, I am not there.

But give me a pen and a pad of paper, or a camera, and I’ll probably share their gaze. (Not as exciting, though, is it?)

It’s a focus, losing yourself in a world of your own, where all you do is true. Everyone has one, or should. I’ve seen it on the faces of jugglers, bakers, and drummers. The cool concentration, the tension that builds, and the wave of relief when they’re done. It’s about being interested, rather than interesting; that is what draws a crowd, what hooks the audience. You are enjoying what you are doing, with little care if the world watches or not. Which is why it doesn’t matter if you perform for one or a thousand, it should be your best performance, always.

It’s a beautiful thing (especially the drummer).

Dustin Hoffman in ‘Marathon Man’ had a great face. Heck, Gary Oldman’s face can do no wrong it would seem. There’s always talk about the eyes; sure, it starts there, but everything else should follow. I may be able to work on my eyes as a bicyclist, but as of now, clearly the body and mind need to catch up. That’s my impression of acting. More than pretending, you have to become, even if just once, so you can remember that character’s world. This is what occupied my mind while riding, hopefully my face looked alright.

I am very curious, though, if this Niagara trip will leave me with some new face.

Then you have to consider those who would exploit such a feat. A crude example being simply to dress up. Anyone can do that and immediately become someone else. For the most part. And that will work on just about anyone. Look at those people who want your votes so that they can be in charge of something silly. What do you think they dress like at home? What does their face truly show? OH, but there are those that can fix that too. So how about their voice? That too! Clever clever apes we all are, and yet….

In Oliver Sacks’, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, there is a chapter that discusses aphasia, a communication disorder, and a particular person’s speech. This ward was full of patients with global aphasia, watching President Reagan’s televised speech:

Why all this? Because speech – natural speech – does not consist of words alone, nor (as Hughlings Jackson thought) ‘propositions’ alone. It consists of utterance – an uttering-forth of one’s whole meaning with one’s whole being – the understanding of which involves infinitely more than mere word-recognition. And this was the clue to aphasiacs’ understanding, even when they might be wholly uncomprehending of words as such. For though the words, the verbal constructions, per se, might convey nothing, spoken language is normally suffused with ‘tone’, embedded in an expressiveness which transcends the verbal – and it is precisely this expressiveness, so deep, so various, so complex, so subtle, which is perfectly preserved in aphasia, though understanding of words be destroyed. Preserved – and often more: preternaturally enhanced….

Thus the feeling I sometimes have – which all of us who work closely with aphasiacs have – that one cannot lie to an aphasiac. He cannot grasp your words, and so cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, that total, spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, all too easily…

We recognise this with dogs, and often use them for this purpose – to pick up falsehood, or malice, or equivocal intentions, to tell us who can be trusted, who is integral, who makes sense, when we – so susceptible to words – cannot trust our own instincts.

And what dogs can do here, aphasiacs do too, and at a human and immeasurably superior level. ‘One can lie with the mouth,’ Nietzsche writes, ‘but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.’ To such a grimace, to any falsity or impropriety in bodily appearance or posture, aphasiacs are preternaturally sensitive. And if they cannot see one – this is especially true of our blind aphasiacs – they have an infallible ear for every vocal nuance, the tone, the rhythm, the cadences, the music, the subtlest modulations, inflections, intonations, which can give – or remove – verisimilitude to or from a man’s voice.

In this, then, lies their power of understanding – understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus it was the grimaces, the histrionisms, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for these wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words.

This is why they laughed at the President’s speech.

I wonder how Oldman would do with such a crowd? So I thought about a lot while on that bike ride, mostly about appearances and what is true. And how to prevent bum soreness. In the end, you should just be honest, especially if you’re a bad liar. Actors sure do have it rough. Then again, as the audience, we want them to succeed, we want them to be great, so we fool ourselves into believing and accepting their performance. Just like we want to believe Mr. Politician. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so difficult to lie to people all the time; that is, if you’re capable of living with yourself, you evil bastard you. As a kid I thought I could figure out whether someone was trying to lie to my parents, mostly because I didn’t pay attention to what they said and just ‘listened’. Weird kid, yeah, I was. Before, you’d say I was just being an asshole, now science says it’s a skill. That’s my nonsense defense, just go with it.

Nope, I couldn’t just ride my bike, I had to go and start thinking…