If I’m found by the side of the road dead, the first suspect should be my bike seat

I’ve sweat off half my body mass in the past week and have developed a tan to rival James Brown’s, but I’m loving every minute of it. In addition to playing with my new bike, I’m training for the second annual Geezer-thon Cross-State Bike Tour, coming up the first part of August.Last week I told you about my new Wonder-Bike, normally a crazy expensive road bicycle I purchased off Craigslist.com for $95 from a woman determined to give her ex-husband (the bike was his) an apoplectic fit. Since then, I’ve put nearly 300 miles on the thing, despite the fact temperatures have been in the high 90s nearly every day.

Last year, I pedaled from Port Huron to Stony Lake, near Lake Michigan. This year I’ve planned a slightly more modest route, from Grand Rapids to Traverse City and back, about 300 miles as the bike rolls.

I’m not sure how many days it will take me. Originally, I thought about doing four 75 mile days back-to-back. Then last Saturday I did a 70 mile ride and it nearly killed me. Seriously, it took me about 20 minutes to extricate myself from the car when I got back home. My knees were stiffer than the Tin Man’s prior to Dorothy’s application of oil. My butt felt like it’d gone 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali in his prime.

The problem is the seat that came with my new Wonder-Bike. Like the rest of the bike, it’s a miracle of modern technology and French engineering; part carbon fiber, part titanium alloy…if the Space Shuttle came with bicycle seats, they would look like this thing.

And because my Wonder-Bike was designed to be raced by guys like Lance Armstrong, the seat is about the size of a postage stamp. It weighs next to nothing. In fact, if detached from the bike, it must be tied to a string to prevent it floating away like a helium balloon.

Plus, it looks really cool! So cool, in fact, that I left it on there during my recent 70 mile ride. I could have achieved similar results by sitting on a rabid porcupine.

Since my butt looks more like Homer Simpson’s than Lance Armstrong’s, the cool seat and I are not precisely simpatico. The seat is small. My bootie is big. It’s as simple as that. One good bump in the road and I’m off to the proctologist’s office. I’ve heard the outpatient procedure for bicycle seat extraction is not pleasant.

So I broke down and bought a new seat. Like my own backside, it is somewhat wide and somewhat padded. It doesn’t look as cool as the old seat, but I can perch on it for hours without whimpering like a wet kitten.

And when I get to Traverse City sometime early next month, there’s a good chance I’ll still be able to walk.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available online at mtrealitycheck.com or in eBook format from Barnes & Noble, Borders and other major booksellers. Email Mike at mtaylore325@gmail.com.

Zombies make for one strange book signing

I had the dream again last night. The one where I’m standing in front of a roomful of people, 30 or so, all of them gazing at me with the silvery, shimmering eyes of corn worshippers in a Stephen King novel. They’re expecting me to say something; something funny.

I open my mouth to speak, but my throat is stuffed with cotton; I can barely breathe, much less articulate.

“Mpfhhhh,” I say. “Mumpfhh itthit wuhmpah.”

Thirty sets of silvery eyes continue to stare. No one smiles. No one laughs. One man in a grey business suit glances impatiently at his watch. In the crazy clarity that dreams sometimes bring, I see it’s a Rolex, with a blue face and ostentatious diamond marking the 12 o’clock hour.

Great pools of sweat accumulate beneath my armpits. I realize I’m sporting a tan sports coat and slacks, a great improvement over the buck naked I usually wear to this dream. Both items of clothing are soaked through, the jacket from perspiration, the pants…well, I don’t want to think about why the pants are wet.

I am scared.

I take a sip of water from the plastic cup that magically materializes on the podium, which also has just appeared before me. The cotton inches down my throat like a sandpaper-coated slug, until finally I can speak.

“Um, I’m sorry,” I gasp. “This may have been a mistake.”

As one, the silvery-eyed group stands and, zombie-like, arms outstretched, shambles toward me.

I wake up screaming. Or dreaming of screaming.

And that’s why it has taken me so long to get my book finished. Because once you write a book (which is fun) and get the book published (which is cool) and see your first copy (which, I’m sure, will be exciting)…after all that, you have to promote your book.

You have to talk to real, live people. You have to make them believe you have something on which they should spend their $7.95. You have to do readings, and signings, and tap dance recitals for all I know.

I’ve been told by people who should know, people who’ve been there done that.

I don’t wanna. I want people to just buy my book without any encouragement from me. It’s a pretty good book; not James Thurber, but better than some stuff I’ve read, and there are very few typos. That should count for something.

Oh, OK, OK. I’ll talk to the book clubs. I’ll address elementary school classrooms and tell ‘em to not do drugs. I’ll shamelessly hawk my book at any store willing to give me 60 minutes and a card table. I’ll get out of bed at 5 a.m. to chat with the host of a local access AM radio program.

I will do whatever it takes.

But I swear, if I see just one pair of silvery eyes, the whole deal’s off!

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.