Don't try this at home, kids

(above) Things look five times brighter (right) than usual (left)
when you get smacked in the head!

I've been repeating my story multiple times; in part because the story is written on my face. On Saturday, a CRV suddenly cut off my bike path. From 30-40 kmph I flew over my handle bars, and broke my fall on Cambie with my face. Although I drive past Cambie a lot in my car, surprisingly asphalt is not all that smooth when you rub your face against it at that speed!

Joking aside, I count myself as lucky.

Lucky in that I have not suffered broken bones, just bruising and cuts. They look serious, but all in all I am unscathed from what could have been a more tragic incident.

Besides the novelty of dripping skin and other grotesque facts of how our body is covered by this epidermal layer, I am most touched, intrigued, thankful and surprised by:

• Generosity of strangers...these shadows of individuals who tended to me on the sidewalk and looked after my belongings. I had thought that we had lost those people in Vancouver to the anonymity and apathy of urbanity. A woman who called 911, a male physiotherapist who told me everything was ok. These are people who remain as blurry faces with voices than ring in my head. In fact, in the moments after the fall, everything looked 5x brighter than normal: the buildings were all there, but the sky was this blinding white colour! Tripping...

• Callousness of the driver...the person in the blue CRV who did not shoulder check before cutting me off left. No, it was not a hit and run, but the guy or gal just disappeared. You would think that if a bicycle suddenly went up, and its rider went flying less than 10 feet away from you that it would KINDOF catch your attention. Nope: up and on with their day.

• The bike helmet...initially I had forgotten to wear a helmet while rushing out that morning; returned after changing my mind to wear it. Hence no brains on Cambie.

• My girlfriend, her best friend and my mom...all came to see me in the halls-of-walking-wounded Emergency room where I got checked out. I was originally not particularly of sound mind when I declined the ambulance driver's query about taking me to Emerg - changed my mind after thinking it through. "You're not completely with it," I told myself. "What would my safety conscious girlfriend say?", I asked myself. It was then that "yes" to go to hospital came out of my mouth...

Sunday was the first opportunity I had to scare my niece and nephew with my new look. My niece is probably a little young to understand fully what causes such large wounds on faces and hands . . . but she was quite honest when I asked her if she liked uncle's new face. A terse "No." was the answer I got....."It's just an early Halloween costume", I told her. I just forgot to tell her and her little brother not to try my experience at home!