7:07am. Milan.

I’m woken by two texts from my coworker. “Thought we were meeting in the lobby at 7:00. Heading to the train station.”

The train leaves at 7:20. “Well I can’t…” or can I?

Clothes on. Glasses on. All toiletries swept into purse. I run like hell.

There’s a pedestrian underpass, but I Frogger across the road and through the square. I’m in the station with a minute to spare and I’m still somehow running. My shoes are shabby Converse and the floor is polished marble. And I’m 45.

Things are going as ok as any of that can be until I have that out of body moment when I know my foot to forward motion ratio is incompatible with staying upright.

I lunged into the fall, made an extremely satisfying “splat” sound, and skidded several horizontal meters on the marble floor. Two or more nicely dressed Italians look at me in horror, but I’m not physically hurt. Big smile. I thought about Mary Catherine Gallagher-ing it with a victory pose, but just got up and kept running.

Made the train as it was pulling out, brushed hair/teeth once i caught my breath. Moved to the correct train car at the next stop, and met up with my colleague.

We had a nice day trip and the waiter was horrified at how much wine we drank at lunch.

we were marching on Mar-a-Lago. the police had blocked the public sidewalk with concrete deadmen barricades. I was the first person to the barricades, and I stopped. the second person was a pudgy guy with an antifa flag, who hopped over the barricade, turned around, waved the flag and yelled, “they can’t arrest all of us!” and started walking.

it hadn’t occurred to me until he said that that he was correct, so I hopped over with the wave that followed him. the police set up a riot shield barricade just before the private property line, which we weren’t planning on touching anyway. I believe two people got arrested, a protester and a counter protester, who got into a fist fight.

they couldn’t legally stop us from using the public sidewalk, so the threat of arrest for crossing the first set of barricades was empty.

Raced into incoming traffic to overtake a couple of large vehicles in front of me holding us all back for atleast half hour with no regards to basic lane manners.

I can still imagine the look of horror on the face of the driver whose lane I dove into. He hoped I would back down, but I accelerated more. Luckily, he switched to his adjacent empty lane in the nick of the moment giving me the opportunity to complete my overtake missing a major RTA with barely a few inches to spare.

Later, I felt deeply sad for endangering the lives of innocent people that day and have never again lost my cool while driving no matter how much of an asshole I meet on the road.

Followed my then-girlfriend, now-wife on a wing and a prayer from Australia to the US over 20 years ago. Still living in the US and I haven’t caught a bullet yet \o/

Sketchy passing manuover in a charity motorcycle race.

To be honest we were racing honda 90’s (honda passports in NA) so every pass was sketchy, but this is high on my daft list.

Diceing with a pro rider for a couple of laps, huge fun, close racing, a long lefthander coming up, I knew he had a big advantage here, his skinny ass could lean more here (ground clearance is a problem on soggy commuter bikes) so each lap he’d gain a little lead here, this time i’d nailed the corner, got close, two back markers ahead, didn’t lift, passed the pro guy, dived between the backmarkers, over a greasy kerb, massive highside/slapper, kept it pinned and pulled away, I think I scared the pro because I didn’t see him until it was all over.

I had the biggest shit eating smile under my helmet the whole time.

What’s YOLO moment?