Breakout

A midday ride through the northside green tunnels. Small victories count.

The thing about being a grown-up is you have so many justifications at your disposal to rationalize bad choices. Spending 14 hours a day online is necessary for the BIG IMPORTANT WORK I am doing and if I don't do it, who will? Nobody. That's who will.

If I don't wake up in the middle of the night worrying about it, then who will? Better that I should pace the hall at 3:00 A:M than to let the hall go unpaced.

If I just push on and get this form 242c out the door and finish evaluating the evaluations from the evaluators then things might slow down and I can go for a bike ride.

I would like to ride but I have to caulk, rake, drag, plant, and change the lightbulbs. "You know I want to ride bro', totally, but dang."

All such bullshit. I have said it here myself- everything works better when the bicycle is in the center of everything.

Thanks to Nate for the rally yesterday. Clutch play dude.

Juancho

To the Nub

I think today is going to have be a personal wellness day. There aren't going to be many as pretty as this one and for the time being the hounds are off my scent. I'm thinking I will start with a lollygag and build momentum towards a good wander. Life is hard. I'm exhausted. Health Care Reform. Norovirus. Cats stuck in trees. That irritating Maggie Gyllenhall. It has all been too much for one man to keep track of by hisself.

If less is more than give me less.

Juancho

Call of the Wild

Even the most domesticated lapdog dreams of the hunt. Stretched out on the cool tile floor, belly full of kibble, the neutered hound kicks his leg in pursuit of dreamy game. Those breeds so far genetically removed from their wolf ancestors still hold the seed of the hunter and as they sleep the seed sprouts briefly and they give chase with blood-filled nostrils and bared jowls. I am alpha! They howl. I am predator!

You may see them wake with a snort, the curled lip and furrowed brow give you a nervous jolt from the loyal friend and companion you thought the hound to be. What dreams this killer who sleeps beneath my roof? Will the hunt stay in dreams or will the hound one day chase the prey to wakefulness?

As I watched my friend double back to the expert jump on the Cadillac trail I thought none of these things about lapdogs and wakefulness. I thought how odd it seemed, this impulse. "I just want to take it easy today. I haven't been on my bike in weeks." This he told me not 45 minutes prior as we met along the trail.
Now, from some deep place, the wolf was running. Straight off a cliff.

With great speed he charged the ledge, assuming he would fly safely the ten feet necessary to land in the trough of packed clay, between the oak trees below. I was spellbound, a victory cry poised in my throat as he charged into space, then dropped like a cinder block into the steep slope below.

Moving in the slow-motion surreality of watching a car crash, I was helpless to turn events another direction. The time for intervention had unceremoniously passed. Arms and legs splayed out like a scarecrow, he tumbled down the hill with great violence.

Asleep no more, he hunted.

Juancho

Mull it Over

Get it? Mull it? Hilarious.

It looks like I am getting my wish for abundant sunshine this weekend, at least until Sunday when ironically (and not in the Williamsburg/Brooklyn way but in the literal sense of the word) there will be no sun.

A sunny day does not a mojo make though and so I will have to bring something more myself if fella is ever going to get his groove back. I would just like a couple of days free of worry, free of concern. I want to rock out. Get sunburned. Follow my bliss man. Take a little pedal off the beaten track.

I hope the internet can get along without me.

Juancho

That straightjacket picture was creeping me out.
I'm hoping for a beautiful weekend for long, sunny miles.

Another tweet from-

Juancho

Back in the day (like three years ago) I was working the best time to work ratio of all but the trust fund class and the unemployed. A cursory review of these archives tells a story of a man golfing at one o'clock on Tuesday and riding at eleven on Wednesday. On the frequent occasion the man would travel out of town for work the site becomes a travelogue of southeastern trails and streams. The man was a showoff and a braggart with his excessive lifestyle. He would stop and ride small town 3 mile single track loops just to check them off the list. How many of you have ever bothered with the Troy State trail en route to Oak Mountain? Few.

Things have changed since then.


The election, the recession maybe, I'm not sure exactly when he began to push the pace. He worked fiendishly hoping the next accomplishment might be the one that capped the geyser and got everything marching back to a life of squandered hours.

Yesterday the man rode out of the house in a trance. He rode through the humble southside neighborhoods throwing peace signs and saluting tiny children playing in the street. He rolled into the forest and along familiar paths sandy and dusted with cinnamon and sugar. The sun went low and the shadows went long and leaning and because he rode alone he rode as fast as the wind and he rode as fast as the wind because he rode alone (if you catch my drift.)

He rode back to the house in the final dusky moment and showered with the spring air coming in the bathroom window. He put on the same dirty jeans he's been wearing since the fourth of July and he went out and drank beer in public, among people interesting and disappointing. He toasted the moon and the stars and in general felt a little less crazy for a change.

Juancho

Same old same old

There is nothing good on the internet anymore. It seems like my Internet only has about 10 channels and I am tired of them all. Before Madison Avenue got together with Silicon Valley and learned how to optimize search results and aggregate findings there was a sense that conducting an Internet search was like transmitting a signal from your basement via ham radio. Anything might come back. Now you can bet that if someone publishes their manifesto from the public library stacks in Mitchell, South Dakota it will not appear in your top ten hits when you search the term "crop circle/ wal-mart intersect" and that is just sad.

We don't get to talk to the internet anymore. We only talk to sites that tell us, on their own good authority, what the Internet is thinking about today.

Juancho

Legendary Bromances

I am sure I will regret this post later when it inevitably turns against me, but I can't help myself. Some things are just worth it.

During the Great Cat Rescue a not so subtle subtext underscored the drama of the weekend. It didn't take much to notice that for Pa Ingalls and Tommy the weekend was all about trees. Trees and each other. The rest of us were entourage. What do you want for dinner Pa Ingalls? I can make whatever you want. Get in the backseat Juancho, Tommy called shotgun.

I can't bring myself to research the etymology of the term 'bromance' so I am going to credit Judd Apatow and leave it at that. Don't we get all of our modern euphemisms from that guy?

The term itself may have expired its fifteen minutes, jumped its shark or whatever, but the concept is timeless. Sometimes we 'mance on certain bros more than others. Its all about who can keep up, who gets us best, and who is smelling what we are stepping in the most. As Pa and Tommy swung from branch to branch laughing at each other's jokes robustly, the rest of us stood below, left out of the joke all together and shaking our heads in appreciative dismay. Those two were like movies and popcorn.

Hey, it happens. I'm happy for them.

So I'm wondering what you think are some of the other world class bromances you have been a part of or witnessed? I can think of a really obvious one from this little blog/bike community but I will let y'all have a go at it before I weigh in on the matter.

Juancho

Freight Train Blues

I left a trashed hotel room in Birmingham. I didn't want to, but it happened. Empty bottles of Pepto-Bismol and Pedialyte, a couple of boxes of ordered and uneaten take out food, a pile of towels drenched in sweat with traces of vomit. I would still be there watching television in a feverish dream, but the air conditioning unit conked out. I'm sure this was the result of me switching the thermostat from high cool to heat as my own temperature spiked and plateaued. I staggered out for one critical eight hour meeting where I'm sure I ranted and babbled about everything- my theory of hybrids, what happened to Tupac, and how I wear a suit sometimes to communicate respect, but I prefer sweatpants.

The environment at the hotel became like day five in the Superdome. No windows. No air.

Weak from hunger it took me three trips to carry my belongings down to the car. On my last trip I carried a coat hanger and a sock.

We can rail on about corporate America another day because I will kiss the ground Coca Cola walks on at the moment. That single can of Coke got me home. It might corrode a coffee cup over the course of a month, but it was the only thing I kept down in days.

I am also specifically not bringing up the diarrhea.

Now my spine feels like it is wrapped in hot coils and my kidneys ache. I think that is from the 15 hours in bed.

Juancho

This weekend was fun. Like one of those vacations that make you need a vacation afterwards. That's why I am going to Birmingham, Alabama today, home of Johnny Ray's BBQ. Wish I had more time with each and every one of you this morning, but I have to run. Pretend it's a tweet or three.

-Juancho

Mission Accomplished

Pa Ingalls rescued the cat in a daring dawn rescue effort.

-Juancho

More on Cats

In a bizarre coincidence the following happened yesterday:

I was on the phone discussing logistics with Pa Ingalls of Reddick, FL to come to town for some tree-venturing. We confirmed a 3:00 P:M arrival for today with all the equipment needed for major assault on some area Live Oaks and Giant Pines. This is referred to as "Arboring" I suppose.

Moments after we hung up- my cat, Iggy the Manx, rocketed 80 feet up a tree after being scared by the neighbor dog. This was at 6:00 P:M last evening.

Iggy is still in the tree, and Pa Ingalls is on the road.

This could have a few outcomes, we will have to wait and see.

I told that cat there was nothing outside for him but certain death.

Juancho

Kibble

If there is one enduring image I cling to it is the vision of myself as an old man eating cat food in the park. In a long history of morbid and sardonic humor this is the one simulacrum of my future I enjoy and fear the most. We all have that thing that waits for us in the night, that once stirred from our sleep cups us in its hands and is only shaken by a flick of a light or a cold chug of juice from the fridge.

I have never tasted cat food, wet or dry. Why, when I know there are mounds of kibble in my future and opportunities to cut my tongue on the tin lip of the can?

Will it be good? Will I like it? Will I get enough protein or will my teeth suffer from lack of calcium?

Tonight I took a step closer to finding out.

I watched S'quatch eat some.

He reported that it is oily, which I suspected, and granular, which I did not anticipate at all.

I will need a bench close to a drinking fountain.

Juancho

Idle Threats

Don't think I won't pack up this one act play and get out of here.
Don't think I'm afraid to leave this town.
The future is not written and everything doesn't happen for a reason.
Things need to pick up around this overlooked backwater town.

Are you hearing me Great Magnet?

Juancho