Treated myself to a capuccino this morning. Noticed the headspace consequences all day. But it was tasty, and the aftermath is a lot easier to deal with when I know its source.

I didn't ride today, electing to tidy up the house a bit, and eventually getting around to changing my oil. Well, I drained my oil. Sears didn't have the torque wrench I want, and I want to tighten the relevant oil-draining bolts to something approaching the manual spec, so I delayed putting oil back in. (It's not hard to do it "good enough" by hand, but both bolts were really cranked down when I got to them, so I have no feel for torque levels.) Changing the oil doesn't really provide me with a normal tinkering sense of fulfillment, since about 90% of the work is preventing a huge mess with motor oil going everywhere. After loosening the drain plug, I realized latex gloves would make my life easier, which they did; good choice, since the damn oil filter is behind a 4-inch wide cover which drips oil all around its edges as soon as it's loose enough. Oh well. I'm looking forward to replacing the chain and sprockets, at least.

I had a whole lot more fun cleaning up all the plastics with Lemon Pledge. Since I had the lower fairing off (the grimiest and hardest to reach), I cleaned that, and cleaned the bug hits off the mirrors and the dust off the windscreen and everything else. She's nice and shiny now.

I shaved my head Friday morning. During the Bad Relationship it would sometimes help me feel better; this has been a hectic and stressed-feeling week for me, and I've been disliking my haircut anyway, so I figured it'd be a nice reminder that things change. I think I'll just grow it out again, though: it really does put people (especially women) on edge in a way that I don't like having to work around. I suppose shaved heads are no longer cool. Or I'm particularly creepy-looking. (One date reported that I have "that intensity, like the theater people I knew in college," which (a) isn't a ringing endorsement, and (b) is funny because I did theater for quite a while.) It's amusing because I think that if I weren't so aware of such obscure social cues--able to detect people's discomfort--I wouldn't make people uncomfortable.

But then I'd be somebody else, and we know how that conversation ends.

It occurred to me tonight that I want to be open again, and that's not something I've been doing the past few months (or, as a trend, the past few years). And that I have the openness inside me, to relax and accept and allow all of my contradictions to coexist. With practice, maybe I can keep it up.