James

Bad, bad, bad.

My brother and I have had a lot of fights in our time, but tonight...

Jamie and his fiance want to get married in January of '07, but mum doesn't think she could handle it so soon after dad's funeral. He doesn't see it from her point of view, and he is making it very difficult for her.

So, eventually he said a little too much. I yelled at him and he yelled at me, then I punched him and he punched me and it went from there. We've never had an actual fistfight like this before.

Anyway, since then we've smoothed everything over and mum has stopped crying and there have been hugs and whatever. It's just too much at the moment I think. It's so hard for everyone to deal with and it's making it easier for us to argue and fight.

The trip home in the car was kind of difficult because we kept playing CD's with songs that dad used to sing and I kept seeing him in my head, up on stage, singing those songs, and I was having a really hard time of it.

Anyway.

Umm, so I had an accident on my motorbike coming home from my parents place. I was taking a corner (I always slow down a fair bit on the corners anyway, so I was lucky), and there was a bigass rock in the road and I didn't see it in time. I hit it on the wrong angle and the bike slid from under me. I ripped up my jacket pretty bad, scratched up my helmet (I took a nasty knock to the head, but no real damage), and other than that I just got a lot of scrapes and bruises. Some on my back from where my jacket and shirt came up while i was sliding, a scrape on my arm from the mesh inside my jacket and a few cuts and bruises on my hands (I was wearing gloves but they were only half-finger). I also hurt my shoulder. The one that's been giving me trouble already. So anyway I'm off to the doc at about 3, just to get myself checked out and make sure everything is ok. There was only myself and a bus on the road when it happened, and the bus was in front of me and saw it happen, so they stopped to help me. I was kind of dazed so they sat me down to stop me from wandering back out onto the road.

But anyway, I shook it off, got back on the bike and rode 10km to the next town, then I went to the ambulance station to get checked over. The guy there fixed me up, bandaids and gauze pads, then I was back on my way. I rode another 100km or so, and stopped for a break, then when I started the bike back up I had no power to my speedo, trip meter, or indicators. My dad and brother ended up driving 4 hours out to get me and the bike, then driving me another 3 hours down to my place. Being in a roadhouse for 4 hours is boring, especially when you can't move around much. So anyway, I have today and probably tomorrow off work, I get my bike fixed up tomorrow (there was very little damage to it), and then I should be right. I just need to make sure my shoulder is going to be ok.

Uh. So. Yeah. I'm an idiot. And now I realise why I'm always so careful on the bike, because it really doesn't take a mistake on my part, or any other drivers on the road for that matter, for something bad to happen. I also understand why everyone gets so worried when I take trips on the bike. I'm ok though, and that's what matters right now.