Is it me?

I read somewhere that men have "their time of month." Unlike women, who are at 28 days or so, men's cycles are around 46 days. You become emotional and more sensitive. I wonder if I'm in that cycle right now.

I spent the last 24 hours with Dave Peckham from VBP. He's a guy that just lives his values in a way that I respect so much that I get sort of weepy thinking about it. While he was here, we had a small dinner gathering where I met a woman whose life work is helping refugees who are fresh of the plane -- and often one or two days removed from a loved one being shot, raped, or just gone missing -- to integrate into an American life in Spokane. I got the same weepy feeling talking to her about her work.

This week, I saw the real result of tons of work by tons of people to make Bike to Work week a success. Monday morning, despite chilly wet temperature, about 300 people showed up in Riverfront Park. My mother and step-father donated their time through my mom's catering company to make 400+ muffins and scones for cyclists on Monday morning. Thinking of them staying up until 12:30 AM wrapping and labeling each treat gets me all misty.

So, as I sat down to eat a burrito at Slick Rock today, I was again impacted after reading this spot in the "Buzz Bin" of The Inlander:

You can still horn in on Bike to Work Week. Just pedal in on Friday, then go to the party at the Steam Plant Grill from 4:30-6:30 that afternoon and impress people with stories of the irate motorists and potholes that you dodged all week. Be sure to wear lots of brightly colored spandex.

I'm used to seeing this kind of broad brush stereo typing in general media. Where some media outlet, in an attempt to be witty and urbane to its mostly non-cycling audience, reinforces the swaggering, spandex-clad, iron man-uberjock stereotype of urban cyclists.

It's usually not worth a second though of my time. But maybe because it's my time of month or maybe just because I'm close to a lot of the work that has gone into this event, this particular trivialization and backhanded insult hit closer than it usually does.

Is it me? Am I becoming one of those hypersensitive advocacy humourless bike freaks? God I hope not.

If so, I would appreciate some recalibration from anyone reading this. If not, I'm interested in knowing that too.

Full Disclosure:
Since Jon Snyder, the owner/publisher of Out There magazine (Spokane print monthly magazine), was the first to comment, I should make my relationship with him clear. I must mention that I get paid to write a monthly column for Out There. For what it's worth, all income from my writing in Out There is donated to Pedals2People.