Sunday, April 8, 2012

I’m a Ponderer

In the mid-90s I and my then-boyfriend left Seattle on bicycles, heading north on the Burke-Gilman trail. We cut across Washington, traversing five mountain passes along the North Cascades Highway. The ride was exhilarating and painful (my mantra as we muscled up the inclines was “never again, never again”). After pedaling through Idaho, we made it to Glacier National Park, where we powered over Rocky Mountain peaks, then continued across Montana to Havre, smack in the middle of the state.

Pretty impressive, huh? Here's another version of this story, also true:

In the mid-90s I and my then-boyfriend set out from Seattle to bike cross-country but we only made it to the middle of Montana, where we holed up in a Havre hotel for three days watching bad TV and scarfing down Dairy Queen Blizzards before hopping on an Amtrak train to New York.


Doesn't pack the same punch, does it? It’s all about how you frame the story.

I’ve been thinking about that as I ponder creating a profile for the online personals. How did I come to live with two pitties? What's life with Tommy and Louise like? What version of that story do I tell?