So I'm hungover right now. I guess this experience would go to show you that sleep is important for getting rid of hangovers. I got 4 hours of sleep last night. I drank 8 beers, which is not even as much as I drank on my birthday (11 or 12), when I woke up not hungover at all.

Yesterday, work was alright. Then right before I was about to leave Julie said something mad awk. Julie was between Ashley and myself and we had been talking about relationships and shit and I was walking into our office as she said "You two need to hook up." Then I just said "Ashley has a boyfriend..." and then I did say "that's an awkward thing to say." Fortunately I was on my way out, so I just left then.

Got home, talked to Steve a little about his STP experience and riding. After that I left for the Burke Gilman. Decided to go south/west toward the U and Gasworks. As I was going by the University I come up on a situation, which, at the time, seemed like no big deal. There were two people to pass on the right and they were coming up on a person on the left side of the trail. The trail is plenty big for this to not be a problem in the least. I notice one of the people on the right is waving/saying hi to the person on the left. At the last minute they decided to go hug the person and by this time, it was already too late. She had her arm out and I tried to go between her and the other person but there was no space so her arm hit my right arm. I'll admit I was surprised by how heavy the arm was, when I hit it going 20 mph I would have expected to just blow right through it but it was a collision. So, my right arm getting hit made the wheel turn right and I fell, with the bike, to my left. I fell on my left side while rolling which led to scraping up my elbow, knee and the left side of my abdomen area, then continued the roll onto my back and slamming the back of my head onto the pavement. This was probably as hard as my head has ever been hit, so I was concerned about not having a concussion more than anything. Instinctively I start to get up and decide it's probably a good idea to lay down and center myself to make sure I'm not fucked up. Everything seems okay and I'm taking it slow. The lady says "I guess I should have looked before crossing". I'm not mad at her. Of course the situation sucks, but what she did was human, had she seen the person and immediately wanted to hug her she would have looked but instead her mind was occupied with the indecision of going to hug the person and forgot she was on a public trail where she was likely to be passed by cyclists moving a lot faster than herself. My handlebars got hit so they were no longer centered, had to fix that, not a problem. One of the shifters got hit out of place, fixed that easily. As far as I know, everything is alright on the bike, although the bottom bracket seemed to act up a little bit more than usual on the 5.5 miles I had to ride back to my car.

Got home, iced my elbow and knee, went to Safeway for dinner because I wasn't feeling up to making anything at home and got chicken strips. Fell asleep watching Brazil in my room. Then went to The Ram for Trivia Night. Met Aly, her roommate Kati and two other guys there. It was fun even though we didn't do all that well. We left around 11:45, headed to the U Village QFC for beer. Brandon and I got PBR 40s. Then we hung out at Aly's apartment until 2, which was the time that I said I needed to be home. It was a pretty fun night, how could it not be with 8 beers, right?

When I woke up, my phone alarm was already going off. That meant it was already 6:30. I'm used to waking up around 6 and hitting snooze a couple times to ease myself into the day, not today. Felt like shit but at least my knee and elbow don't hurt too bad. I think the most extensive injury I have is that my neck muscles feel strained. The ones on either side of your adams apple, slightly below the adams apple is where the soreness is, with more on the right side than the left. I remember last night it kind of felt like my head was going to roll off, just like my neck didn't feel like functioning properly.

The worst parts of this happening would be the mental aspect and the fact that it's going to be nice today and I should take a day to rest, so that'll suck. The mental aspect being that I have never crashed my bike. All things considered it turned out pretty well. Seems that my bike is not messed up, my body's only temporarily messed up, it wasn't my fault (it would really suck to crash and have it be my fault). I am going to be a little more timid, probably don't want to head south/west on the Burke Gilman anymore. I really just think it's a culmination of probability, maybe the odds of a collision in a situation are 1:100, 1:1000, whatever and it's gotten to the point that I've encountered that situation a thousand times and it was basically bound to happen. Not necessarily the best way to assess the situation (placing the blame outside of the parties involved) but there's always a chance that something like this will happen, and that means the more you do it the higher the probability of a negative outcome, overall.