A word or two before this semester is over...

This blog post is a bit different from what I usually do here on Two-Wheeled Tourist. This is a mind dump and completely unedited as I am studying for my last final of the Spring 2018 semester. Some of these thoughts may be fragmented, but perhaps I can share some insight amid my ramblings while I try to clear my head. Continue at your own risk.

Thought #1

One of my course readings for this class (and a featured part of this final exam) is a book named Leading with Soul (2nd Edition) by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal. It's about the emotional, unteachable side of leadership as told in an allegory form about a worn-out, yet successful businessman who seeks the wisdom of a sage who identifies with his pitfalls because she has lived them herself. In many ways, the ideas in this book transcend leadership but also moving forward from the situations that make us feel like we've lost our way.

“The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.” (p. 47)

Exactly four years ago today (not kidding), I began my motorcycle courier work in Westwood, delivering fresh donuts throughout the Westside. I continued to log in over 1500 deliveries of God-knows-what over a two year period, and that journey even led to one of the most extensive delivery jobs, I have ever done; dropping off healthcare correspondence in two counties in an eight hour period spanning over 250 miles. Aside from my long-distance Iron Butt runs, that was one of the most exhausting riding missions that I had ever subjected my body to endure. By the end of that run, I had consumed nearly a gallon of water via my Camelbak and had lost about five pounds. Pony Express got nothing on this bitch.

Why does that story come to mind? It was a dark time in my life. My marriage was ripped apart and the divorce was barely finalized. My mentor had passed away a few months prior, my job prospects were looking slim, several people who I thought were my friends walked out of my life, I had my motorcycle, and I had nothing else to lose. I drowned myself in work and thought that was okay because I had no other recourse but to simply survive. Four years later, I am not in the dark place that I was before. Sure, my job prospects have returned to a similar state (lucky me, right?), but what I need in my life has changed. It's not that I have nothing else to lose, it's that I have everything else to gain, and the ones who chose to leave will leave. No unnecessary tears will be shed for them.

“It is in passionate leaps of faith that we propel the human spirit forward." (p. 63)

One of the hardest practices that I have had to learn after two decades of being emotionally suppressed for my own survival is accepting that embracing my emotions is both difficult and necessary if I want to completely embrace myself. This has also required me to take a lot more chances in multiple arenas. So despite the sometimes straightforward approaches I take to my thinking, I have to deliberately stop myself to process what is not only going through my head but also what my heart tells me. This is weird, but it is liberating. I'm getting better at it every single day.

In response to Bob Marley's quote, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice," once you've figured out how strong you can be, find your way back to a place to where it is safe to be vulnerable again, no matter how long it takes.

Thought #2

My study guide is mine to do what I will, including writing directions specific to me.

Thought #3

This academic year can go shove it deep up the wrong hole. It has been a rough ride both at a professional and at a personal level.

In this 2017-2018 school year alone, I have seen the ins and outs of two school districts and all of the empty promises that come from the lack of recognition of the humanity that, in an ironic fashion, builds the foundations in which these systems exist. Because of this, I have temporarily suspended pursuing rejoining organizations that supposedly exist for the purpose of serving it. My own cynicism has caused me to shield my own heart until I am strong enough to throw myself to the wolves of service again.

I have seen the sputtering and the crashing of a relationship that should've died last summer when I had the ability to cut the cord and the knife was in my hands. But I gave that last chance and threw the life preserver instead of letting you drown, some futile attempt to allow the even remote possibility that there would be a turnaround. But alas, you did take that life preserver. And for just a little while, your life offered you to hope again and yet you still chose to float along at my expense. And then you chose to blame your failures on me because I couldn't carry you anymore. I cannot live for two people, and the only mercy you provided me was that you let yourself out, even if it was in the most cowardly of all fashions.

I have proven that I care. I am loyal until the end. I have also proven that sometimes, I can care too much and fight too hard to keep something that was tearing me apart rather than building me up. Never again. Nowadays, I remain guarded yet hopeful because I have nothing to lose now. Or rather, I am reminded that only the best people deserve me and that I am worthy of unconditional love.

I will not drag you to the finish line. I will not tell you how to get there because it is not my right. Here's what I will do. I will reach for your hand and hold it. I will watch you fall and laugh with you, not at you. I will be there with that jug of water when your body has reached the point of failure. I will have faith in your life journey and cheer on your progress. I will support you in any way I can as you rebuild your mind and soul. But at the same time, I am on a similar journey of rebuilding my own mind and soul and can only hope that you can continue to be there despite my wounds, even if it is just your presence and the gift of your time. And all the while, I will keep reminding myself that I deserve to let my guard down and trust that I will be safe.

Thought #4

Goddammit, I am a nervous wreck sometimes. Am I doing life right? Have I reached the threshold that this question no longer carries any weight?

Tales on the Courier Shift: Large Packages (and those that lack one)

On this episode of "Tales on the Courier Shift," I get to see the worst side of customer service, as in the side that's lacking. I get it, service jobs are hard and have their share of difficulties. However, that gives nobody free license to act like complete a-holes to their peers, regardless if they're not working for the same company. We're all trying to make a living here so spending additional energy to make someone else's day a bit more difficult is a bit counter-productive and downright cruel.

What makes this incident particularly more evil was that I was being targeted specifically for the vehicle I was operating. I received the brunt end of the rage of the night manager of C&O Cucina (3016 Washington Blvd., Marina del Rey, CA 90292) because of an unfounded fear that I was going to destroy the very food that I was being paid to deliver. Obviously, my role there was not to sabotage a delivery, but there he was, giving me a hard time in front of other delivery drivers.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Demon Barbers and Dates with my Aerostitch

In this episode of "Tales on the Courier Shift," I have to throw in a couple side notes. In regards to the "logistics" mentioned below, I had an arrangement with a roommate to where he could borrow my car to drive to work. With that being said, there was a slight miscommunication one particular weekend and I had to make other plans aside from hockey. At the least, I was able to bring in a little cash for the inconvenience.

I had firemen on the brain because it was another one of those "forever alone" Valentine's Day weekends. A guy I was dating at the time had dumped me the week prior in the an awkward fashion (right after a nice lunch together of all-you-can-eat Brazilian pizza...thanks a lot). So to feel a little better, I went on an impromptu photo shoot at an IKEA and then proceeded to watch Fifty Shades of Grey (alone) on opening weekend. Note to self, that's the last time I'd ever date anyone, break up, and then date again. You had your chance, dude.

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.  His skin was pale and his eye was odd. And he lives in Marina del Rey. Okay, I made the last part up. But it was cool to find this street and take a photo of it.

One perk of picking up food from various restaurants is that I get to preview places that I would consider revisiting on my own time. In the case of Wirin Thai (2308 Lincoln Blvd, Venice, CA 90291), a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place on the corner of Lincoln/Venice, it was my post-shift dinner treat. I shared the food with my trusty Aerostitch Roadcrafter jacket, a companion that has laid itself on the line several times and lived to tell the tale. The Thai tea was pretty good, too.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Closing of a Chapter

By the middle of January 2015, the initial rush of courier deliveries that I had with Postmates was past its peak and was on a sharp decline. The holidays were hard, not just because I lost three weeks worth of work due to a sudden death in the family, but also because delivery assignments were far and in between.

In addition, I was transitioning work to a new delivery service, and I will have to say, there were quite a few rough spots during the early shifts that tested my mental fortitude. By the way, I am forever boycotting Poulet Du Jour in Hermosa Beach (233 Pacific Coast Hwy, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254) due to their mistreatment and disrespect of me when I just came in to pick up food for delivery. This restaurant may claim to have some of the best rotisserie chicken in the South Bay, but I don't pay money to get verbally abused.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Outside deliveries warrant a dessert.

In this episode of Tales on the Courier Shift taking place between 1/31-2/1/15, I received a request from an outside courier company to deliver mail correspondence to residents in the San Gabriel Valley. It was so impromptu that I was at the courier hub within two hours of the call and out on the road for the next ten hours after that. This one was particularly grueling because I was just thrown a list, the letters to distribute, and left to my own wits and mapping skills. Fortunately I had the combination of a standalone GPS, my smartphone, and my Sena SMH10 Bluetooth Headset to get me through the night.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Close Calls Amid the Boredom

In this episode, I have a couple rough days on courier duty. From January 29-30, 2015, workflow was slow and I was left to pass the time waiting for the next delivery request to come along. In addition, I had a near head-on collision from a vehicle who decided to use my direct path of travel as a dangerous passing lane. Needless to say, the burrito and free horchata at the end of the night was well deserved. As fun as it was to be a courier, it did have its workplace hazards, not to mention that I was sitting duck as an independent contractor with minimum health insurance. But bills had to be paid while I kept trying to find something more stable for work. 

Tales on the Courier Shift: Tipping is Not a City in China.

On this episode, highlighting bits from early 2015, some action didn't even require me to clock in for work! For full disclosure, I was actually on a date with someone at Venice Grind on Venice Blvd. when this incident happened. The part that sucked was that I still received a ticket after all was said and done. When I did deliveries, I had to make sure that I budgeted for at least once parking citation a month. Fortunately, I never exceeded my violation average in any given month.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Delivery #500 and Trapped With Rich People

It's another installment of tales on the courier shift! In this episode, I acquire cookies and ice cream. I'm also so liked by my customers that I just couldn't leave. And those stereotypical movie images of multiple exotic cars parked on the lot in front of a giant mansion? Yes, that's real.

These assignments were completed at the end of 2014 as I worked through the holiday season that year. It was a good diversion and very needed since I was still dealing with the loss of a dear friend who had suddenly passed away in early December that also resulted in a three-week hiatus in all freelance work. It was good to get the wind therapy.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Some guys are from Mars, but there are women who understand you.

I had to pull from the archives for this collection of posts.

Two months after I came home to Southern California for my last job in the motorcycle industry as an assistant parts manager, I was laid off in April 2014 along with a service tech, service writer, and the janitor. That sudden turn of events forced me to scramble for a source of income, and after a bit of research I came across an up-and-coming on-demand courier service based out of Santa Monica looking for motorcycle riders for work. So Eleanor and I headed out there and became a part of the original fleet for Postmates Los Angeles. I even wrote an article about my courier work that ended up in Women On Wheels® magazine in early 2015. I worked for Postmates until February 2015 when I switched over to another delivery company and was there until about January 2016. The last company in my delivery life (so far) had me relegated to my car for the most part, but there are some interesting tales from that.

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...chicken and waffles.

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...nice suits and nudity abound.

When it comes to my motorcycle courier deliveries, this has easily become my most frequently told stories. What started as a routine delivery for Friday night "necessities" (a.k.a. beer and cigarettes) became a little more awkward thanks to how my customer answered the door. I guess it's Hollywood, so perhaps it can be justified.

So, the next question I have is: Do you like Brazilian? Enjoy.

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...how this all started.

After throwing on a few screenshots of my motorcycle courier shift status updates, I realized that I didn't share how this all started. I have to say, it was a bit of a learning curve, trying to figure out how to manage the streets of Los Angeles while managing my time in between dispatches. Practice made perfect, and fortunately I have the right bike for the job, complete with luggage and multiple places to strap things down.

Not every delivery was perfect. Sometimes, things would spill in transit or an order would get screwed up. It happens. I have to say though, one side effect of being able to order delivery was the large amount of customers who indulged in certain herbal products. I was so glad this kept them off the streets.

The convenience of getting "anything anywhere anytime" made delivery dispatches from the richer (and more isolated) areas of LA more commonplace. Because of this, I frequented mansions who would often order hundreds of dollars worth of food without blinking an eye. However, lots of the "normal" people utilized the service as well, even for little things...

Okay! Now back to normally scheduled programming.

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...continued.

The shenanigans on the night shift continue...

Tales on the Motorcycle Courier Shift...for starters.

I haven't touched much on this topic, but I think this needs to be on this blog since it is about motorcycles and travelling. Sometimes travelling just means going around in circles, over and over again.

Since I was laid-off of my full-time job back in April of this year, I started doing courier work for Postmates, a startup based in San Francisco. I've been doing this since the first day of launch in May here in Los Angeles, and it's kept me busy when other gigs were far and in between. While most people do deliveries in a car, I took advantage of the carrying capacity of my touring bike to actually make decent money with this, even developing a system that makes it easy to respond to dispatches that come in on my phone.

I usually work the dinner shifts to try to avoid the traffic of the day, and some of the things I've encountered while taking this from Point A to Point B have been quite amusing. I've shared most of these things on Facebook with my friends, but I think some of these screen snippets definitely detail my level of amusement on being "paid to ride."

As I had mentioned in a previous post, Eleanor was gone for a month due to repairs and long-awaited maintenance. Once I deemed her road-worthy again for the daily grind of the night shift, the stories came back. When I have a chance to sift through some of the posts from earlier this year, they'll appear in a future blog post. But for now, enjoy.