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...

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