I have a bruise on my ass the size and shape of Tennessee. I was singletracking, as the experienced say, on my mountain bike. But I am not experienced, nor was I in any way expecting to experience the act of singletracking. Stairs lifted out of the earth--I had to go up them and down them, and remain on the singletrack. The alternative was to crash down the steep ravine. Giant logs appeared that I had to jump over or risk the fanatical singletracker from behind jumping onto me.

I got the blackened brand of country music land because I took on a hill that is best described as being pitched forward. It's only about 20 feet, I said to myself. Half way to the top, my tires lost traction and started spinning in the dirt. Peddling madly, amid a roar of dust, I felt my fate. The ridge was so steep that I was going to somersault ass-first. This is exactly what happened. After my hindquarters hit the seat, they hit the ground, where a large rock had dug in, baring pointy edges just for me. Fortunately, since my weight and the bike were hurtling backward, I escaped the thrash of the handlebars to my chest and a secondary whack of the seat to an even scarier spot.

So now I have a bruise on my ass that's as big as a Southern state. This makes wearing my sexy low riding jeans tricky. This makes changing clothes at my gym even trickier; the women's locker room is very petite. Then again, my ex-husband's new wife, who also belongs to this gym, if she was to see my hideous Tennessee bruise, I could happily deadpan, "I keep choosing the wrong men."