Goodbye. Hello.

I was running around frantically Friday, tying up loose ends I should have dealt with earlier. I Monday morning I had a fight home to catch, and I hate to leave the next guy holding the bag.
  
Around noon the phone rang. "Hey Mike. Can you stay an extra week?"
  
Fuck me.
  
Sure, why not? It's not like I couldn't find something to buy with the money. I called the wife and got her blessing, then told them I'd extend my hitch.
  
I'd much rather go home and be with my family. I have things to do. I'm tired of the King Salmon-Naknek highway and the constant wind. I miss my goofball Labrador retriever, Jackson. My wife has a golden retriever puppy arriving in the near future, and I want to be ready for that. Shortly afterwards, I'm likely going to be bringing home another Labrador of my own. Then there's camping and riding my bike and... life.
  
But here I am.
  
I shouldn't complain at a time when so many are unemployed and live in a world that is literally falling apart at the seams. Things could be much, much worse for me, and I know it. However, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that things aren't perfect.
   
That night as I was contemplating getting kitted up for the wind, it started raining. It was 45F already, not including the wind, so instead of riding I collapsed on the couch and opened a beer.
   
Partially thanks to a bed that's equally hard and lumpy, I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since I've been here. Three or four hours at a stretch is about all I can manage. That seriously affects my motivation to get out and fight the wind on the best of days. I'd rather just take a nap, which probably doesn't help my sleep schedule at all. I wake up sore, and have to stretch just to make it out the door every morning. Part of the fun of getting old, I guess.

Tonight I'm going to make a real effort to ride. As Eddy Merckx said, "Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride." Without a goal or a target or anything else pending on the horizon to drive me, this is about the best I can do. Throw a leg over the top tube and see what's in the legs.
  
I read somewhere that it takes 66 days to make a habit an automatic behavior.
  
Day 1...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sad

Recently a judge accepted a plea deal. A drunk and stoned young woman backed over a local cyclist, then drove away while he died without rendering aid in any way. This is not in dispute by anyone, on any side of the courtroom. She received 1 year and 10 days in jail.   I've tried to wrap my head around this from any number of directions, and it just makes me sad. Not for her. As far as I'm concerned, she has no place in society anymore. This is not her tragedy, as much as the defense tried to paint it that way while deflecting blame to the victim. I've harbored evil fantasies of vengeance that I'm not at all ashamed of. So much ink has been thrown out there about this that I'll just include a couple links to provide a more complete picture for those of you who haven't followed the story: http://www.adn.com/article/20150812/prosecutor-teen-used-drugs-alcohol-hit-and-run-collision-killed-cyclist http://www.adn.com/article/20150819/anchorage-teen-receives-1-y...
Read more

Perhaps Where I need to Be.

  The last time I was in Biloxi was in November of 2016. I was recovering from a broken collar bone, but otherwise was relatively fit, lean, and getting fitter and leaner. Because I had nothing else to do and energy to burn, I rode a lot. It was wasted effort that translated into burnout during the trainer season, but I really didn't care. I hadn't been riding at all. A handful of road rides before the season ended. A couple fat bike rides when the trails near my house were packed well. Mostly I've hiked, cross-country skied, and sat on my fat ass. Primarily the latter. I knew I was going to be spending the month of February in Biloxi. I swore I was going to get back on the trainer in preparation, but I never did. I came in cold. I packed all sorts of warmers and raingear and stuff that I have yet to use.I forgot all sorts of tools. My tires were excessively worn and my tubes weren't in great shape either. I ended up buying new ones after a horrible first ride led to 4 ...
Read more

No FOMO.

Ever since I fell down, something interesting happened.    I don't frequent Facebook as much anymore. I don't spend time scrolling through other people's posts, scared that I might miss something important. Facebook isn't important.    I don't visit cycling websites obsessively, mainly because it reminds me I can't ride myself at the moment.   If I do get on the interweb, it's to look up parts for the RV or look for how-to articles/videos. Nothing about the bike.   I've even stopped listening to NPR as I drive to work, but that has more to do with the constant stream of negativity that characterizes the world at the moment. Without my daily dose of endorphins to blunt the onslaught and put it into perspective, I find I just can't deal with it at the moment.   I have no fear of missing out, because I've opted to ignore the world for the moment and concentrate all of my energies into a smaller space where I ha...
Read more