Saturday night lights

I haven't skated in many days, because of adult things. Nervous anxiety coaxed me out to the bridge right before lights went out. It was almost empty, although the detritus of a major session was strewn all around, and a couple of homies were still here. J was there, with new ink (antihero sleeve) and soon after, K showed up too. He had a a bad week, the kind you tend to have in your mid 20's. He skated hard as fuck. I always admired his speed, and the consequent brutality of watching him try tricks. He has guts. That's why I know he will survive the mid-20's shit. He skates faster than lubbed fucking.
Some people have a bad day and show up at the spot and it has the same effect as if it had started raining. You can still skate, if you really want to, but no one really wants to go for it anymore. K is the opposite. He showed up and started blasting around at running speed or faster, in the dark. We had some TB's and I cruised home. I actually got lost. That is a rare experience for me nowadays. It used to happen every night, before I had an internet telephone, and I used to wander my way home based on the tops of the skyscrapers I could see. This time, I saw a fami down an alley, and I needed a TB, so I ducked down the covered sidewalk towards it. I don't get lost much anymore, but I still get stared at as much as ever.
Taipei has a few species of metal grates in the street. The smallest is a square, about as far across as a skateboard. The next size up is a man-hole cover. After that, you get rectangles, about the length of a man-hole cover's width. Sometimes, these are severely sons of bitches, and for some reason, the metal grating is super deep on top, and if you roll onto one of these son-of-bitch grates, you will eat shit into the asphalt like someone stuck a stick through your front bicycle tire. The largest grate is a huge metal pizza circle, and it took me a bit before I could ollie those while cruising.
I roared around the corner (wheels are loud at 3am in a one lane alley) and a couple of people stopped in their tracks to stare. I ollied the biggest pizza grate and grabbed a TB. Inside, half a dozen people stared me down, not so much in hostility as in shock. I came out and I was lost.
You notice more when you're lost. If feels like you've gone farther. Unfortunately, I came around a corner to a main road and quickly got unlost.

We ruin what we love by our intimate knowledge thereof.