Easing Back Into It

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The past week was its normal whirlwind of December holiday madness: travel, no riding, family visits, eating, weight gain, gift giving, gift receiving, more eating, occasional vomitorium visits (followed by quick weight loss), Boxing Day footy watching, a dash of stress, mild boredom, more weight gain, and lastly more travel (to which I set a personal record, making it from Pittsburgh to Mt. Peezy in 6:01, crushing my old record by 14 minutes!).

I always bitch about the holidays (mostly because I loathe them like an annual bout of gonorrhea), but every year they turn out pretty darn OK. Every year I look up at the faces I grew up with and those who helped create me, as well as the family I married into and realize that like it, love it, or not, these are the people in my world. Like they say, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family. Despite all the differences that we choose not to really get into and are content to leave hovering on the surface of our mental skins like infected spider bites, they are good people. There are lots of folks out there with worse problems, that’s for good-Goddamn sure.

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A Brief Respite

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After 3.5 days of being ill, it was so awesome to wake up on Friday morning and not feel like I’d been drug through the street by a group of angry Stevie Wonder fans. It was even nicer to get me and my Goblin-ish chins and belly on the treadmill for a three-mile lumber, and nicer still to get out for a quick but satisfying 1:45 ramble on Michiganderburgh dirt roads via the Farley on Saturday. But…

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It Doesn’t Make Sense

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Sometimes to stop something from driving you insane, you have to share it with someone. Since the therapist that I never really got around to making an appointment with–even though Wifey, my family, PCP and local law enforcement think I did–is off doing whatever nonexistent therapists do (I assume listening to NPR friendly Spanish guitar music whilst cutting the address boxes off covers of waiting room bound volumes of Architectural Digest), I will just share my thoughts with the Interwebosphere: Stevie Wonder is a prick!! Here’s why…

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The Cure: Beer & Beans

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The photo above is not from today, nor are the ones below. They could’ve been from today, but they’re not, they’re from a week or two ago when I was rolling dirt roads and shooting film with the Holga 135. One reason they could’ve been from today is because the sun FINALLY showed its face here in mid-Michiganderburgh again! Lord Jesus! But the main reason they’re not from today is because sadly, I did not ride. Boo!

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The Waste of a Week

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I had high-ish hopes for riding this week, especially with most of next week being occupied by Christmas travels and festivities madness. Unfortunately I came down with some sort of flu-like crud on Monday night and most of my time over the past few days has been spent coughing under several layers of blankets in the stinky confines of the Chamber of Farts. With that said, I haven’t been on the bike since last Sunday and I am starting to feel like I have a giant, cottage cheese filled ball sack for a chin and an extruded stomach that bounces and sways when I walk. In other words, I feel like the Great Goblin from the Hobbit.

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Fogged Up, In, Whatever

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The past two days seem more like one long, soggy day. Both days featured pretty OK temperatures (for December in Michigan), gray skies and a fog so heavy that it coated all of Michiganderburgh like cold, stank, three-day old, dirty dishwater. In fact, after two days of riding through the fog on muddy, dank, dirt roads, I feel pretty much the way the photo above looks. Everything is cold and wet and we’ve not had actual rain or snow since Monday! What the stink?

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Studless

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Monday night we got an inch or so of super wet, super sloppy snow. Here in town it is pretty much all gone. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about it since Tuesday morning when I was outside cleaning it off the driveway in my PJs; until I hit the dirt roads today.

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A Love Affair

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I may or may not have mentioned this before, but in the world of beer (in which I am a well steeped lover), Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale just MIGHT be the beer that has retained most of my affection over the years. I could seriously make love to this beer… it has everything I could ever want in a beer and more. I don’t drink it all the time, but GODDAMN, when I do I sort of get all tingly in the nipple and crotchial regions.

That’s it, carry on, a more thorough blog post about nothing is forthcoming.

Later.

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Photo: Soiled Chamois file photo from last weekend.

That Sort of Day

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Yesterday was my typical and not-so typical Monday. Typically, I was super busy with stuff through the day but oddly enough, in the evening I found myself out at a local watering hole with a couple of friends. Believe me, that is NOT a typical Monday evening for me, but Wifey was throwing a “welcome party” (I had to Google that) for a woman she works with that just adopted a little boy and wanted me out of house, as was going to be overrun with lady folk, and she was pretty sure I would just sit around farting and burping while they were here. As luck would have it, a couple of my college teaching friends were up for going out since their students are doing nothing but taking finals right now and they can goof off a bit.

So, I was able to waste a couple of hours, catch up with some friends and drink a few good beers on Monday night. An unusual Monday night for me, but fun nonetheless.

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