i first bought a moped from my friend lindsay cooper in march of 2008. she told me that it would either be the best thing to ever happen to me, or the worst. it feels like a lot longer ago than a year and a half since she told me that. since then mopeds have completely consumed my life. i have a garage filled with mopeds, moped parts, tools for working on mopeds, various oils and fluids, and stinky greasy rags littering the floor. i have grease stains on most all of my clothing that isn’t black. many of my weekends consist of either riding mopeds, working on mopeds, or going to out of town moped rallies, or sticking around and drinking with moped friends. my time on the internet is spent mostly on mopedarmy.com communicating on message boards with other mopeders in san francisco, and across the country. i spend as much time on moped army as i do on facebook and gmail combined. i hardly spend any time on my previously favorite website, flickr.com, unless to upload photos of mopeds, mopeders, or moped rallies. my friends that i see more often than once a month are mopeders, and i see them multiple times a week. if i invite a few of them over for dinner, it turns into an unwanted party of uninvited mopeders. i got my sister on a moped, and she met a hundred new moped friends instantly, moved across the country to moped more, and has moved back and settled with a nice moped riding boyfriend. i have a moped riding boyfriend, too. my job is at a shop that sells moped parts where i work with three friends to distribute aftermarket moped parts nationwide. two stroke oil and spark plugs are must haves in my bag along with my wallet and keys. when i show up somewhere, i stink. i permanently have a scar on my knee from one crash, and a pain in my shoulder from being crashed into by a car. i have spent thousands of dollars on mopeds, parts, tickets, i’ve gone to court twice. this is my life now, it’s nothing like it was a year and a half ago, and mopeds are both the best and the worst thing to ever happen to me.
i am willing to accept that my form of transportation is also a time consuming tinker toy of a hobby. i am also willing to accept that this is my job for now, because it is a great job compared to waiting tables like i was doing last year. i love the friends that i have made, because it takes a really special type of person to get so excited about something old and smelly that constantly falls apart, and those people are often people who share a similar appreciation for food and art and music, too. what i am not willing to accept is the amount of time and energy that ends up wasted with “moped drama”. where there are large groups of people with similar interests, and there are internet message boards, there is inevitably drama. because this hobby has consumed my entire life, i have taken the good with the bad, and i have wasted so much time and energy that could have been better spent. i am rethinking it all, and deciding what i want to take from this life of mopeds, and what i want back from my old life. for one, i want to spend time with my old friends again. and i want to invite them over for dinner without them having to be subjected to a room full of people talking about mopeding. i want my free energy to be spent on furthering my creative career, and that can’t be done when i’m getting drunk with mopeders, chatting on the moped forums, or brainstorming my next powder coat color for my maxi frame.
the first step i have already made is i have removed myself from the moped “gang” the creatures of the loin. its not so much a gang as it is a group of 55 people who ride mopeds, some are artists, some are students, some are professionals, some are dear friends, but most are acquaintances that i see more often than my own mother. i think that this step will really help me prioritize my time and my friendships.
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