A twelfth [spell] I know;
when I see aloft upon a tree
A corpse swinging from a rope,
Then I cut and paint runes
So that the man walks
And speaks with me.

Shhhh… Don’t tell my percheron horse Toby, but I’m getting a motorcycle. A black, sleek, shiny one.

No. It’s not a Harley. OK.? Most likely a Suzuki or a Honda. Smaller. 800ccs. Something I can learn on but still get that wind in my hair thing going on.

After a visit to the Harley Davidson shop in Albuquerque a few weeks ago, I’m convinced that their marketing people lay awake at night trying to figure out what scares each and every one of us the most, and how they can fill the void they're counting on in my soul.

Heck, Saturday over at the Harley shop was an event. There were Harley Davidson folks draped around their Harleys in the parking lot. Posing, I think the British call it. Women in leather and fringe bustiers (and in one case a rather heavy duty boostier that fell within the category of an absolute engineering feat if you ask me, making all that flesh appear … well … positively ... perky). Men and women sitting at special Harley Davidson café tables inside the place, presumably discussing ... well .. their Harleys, and possibly the meaning of life, do ya think?, wearing Harley Davidson jewelery and head scarves, all beginning to look surprisingly the same to me in their Harley Davidson getups.

Now don’t get me wrong, Harleys are beautiful machines, worthy of drooling over. But I don’t need to assume some marketing super genius' persona, not even as I travel further and further beyond 45, to sleep through the night. You know, like, here, spend $2,500 on Harley jeans, jackets, chaps, under panties, etc., and voila! You are now Somebody. Somebody who positively laughs in the face of your own mortality astride one of these babies.

Now here’s a group of folks who know the deepest workings and yearnings of the inner male.

This is a Honda Valkyrie Rune.

My husband has been drooling over these. (He's getting a motorcycle too, you see. We are living out our mid life crises together we have agreed. Gotta love the man.) Rune gazing is happening in a big way at my house on Saturday mornings. Just check out eBay.

In fact, check out Rune. The runes are attributed with the power to bring that which is dead to life.

Whoa. Now whose the marketing super genius, I ask? You Harley people better get on the stick if you want the business of we mythologically inclined.

Then see Valkyrie. In Valhalla the valkyries “serve drink and look after the tableware and drinking vessels”. I suppose if you own a Honda Valkyrie Rune, she might just show up and serve you an ice cold beer after your ride.

Have you ever seen those older couples from places like Texas traveling in their cars on vacation? The men sit in the front seat? Their wives sitting in the back where they can't even see? That always just chaps my ass. No wind going on in that teased up blue hair. Not now. And probably not before either.

That's just sad.

We went on a vacation several years ago, and the couple we were with, people about our own age, actually engaged in this bizarre medeival practice.

Well, OK, they tried.

I pitched a fit, in private, to my poor poor husband, who would never think up such a ridiculous arrangement on his own and made sure it didn't happen again.

Well, I could possibly be talked into sitting on the back of a Honda Valkyrie Rune. (Although I suspect once you climb astride this machine, somehow or other, you wind up being its bitch. I suspect the Rune demands to be polished every day, etc., maybe worshiped.) But I draw the line at bustiers.

Unless maybe I could find a tasteful one to match this sweet little ride I've got my eye on--

I'm naming him Odin. Odey for short.