Biking @ MindSay

I was hoping for a "fun-filled" weekend in my last post, and that's exactly what I got, despite running into the XTB (that would be the ex-to-be :P) at Target yesterday.  Mountain biking and dinner out on Friday, a Nikon Introduction to Digital SLR Photography class on Saturday (yeah, I know, I shoot Canon, but I still highly recommend the class to anyone thinking about or just getting into DSLR photography), and Iron Man yesterday (good movie!)  I feel infinitely better than I did last week and somewhere in there, I feel like I took another big step in the right direction.

I rather wish that I lived close enough to school to bike there.

I'm halfway considering some sort of arrangement regarding J's house, that involves me driving there, taking my bike out of the back, keeping my car there during the day, biking to class. Just until we start getting decently slushy, or the end of the semester, whichever happens first.

I seem to have far many mental arrangements regarding J's house. Where do I crash when I've gotten home from a gig ridiculously late, and I know I won't be able to drive back to my town? J's house. Where do I want to study when I need someplace quiet and comfortable? J's house.

J's actually quite awesome. She's savvy, musical, has a deep love of literature, and takes no guff from anyone. She's decent about listening, she can point out the flaws in my plans that I can't see (we have very different perspectives), and she really enjoys cooking. My parents see no reason to worry when I'm over there, so that contributes immensely to the value of her being okay with me crashing when I need to.

Unfortunately, she's out of the country right now. I rather miss her.

And I still need a biking arrangement. All my other connections on that side of town are connected to Knuter. Actually, J is too, but it's not so much through Knuter.

I can hear T barking at me. "Suck it up. Your car works fine." Makes me laugh.

We went for a bike ride last night along the Niagara gorge- and I broke my camera... grrrr, it still takes pictures but I have absolutely no idea what they look like until I download them, lol.

Before I broke my camera I took the picture of the chipmunk and the moon, the rest are all lucky shots. What you're seeing is Canada across the water, and that is the largest pagoda/temple that I've ever seen but then I've not been to China. The chipmunks btw are friendly, my son was waiting for us to come down the hill and the chipmunks were running around his feet- at which point he thought they were going to run up his legs- now that would have been a picture!

The cable car runs over the gorge and you couldn't pay me to ride on it... ever since I had the kids I get nervous about certain things- like giant cages of metal suspended on itty bitty cables over rocks and rushing water.... Although one of these days I swear I am going to go sky-diving- but for that you get a trained person jumping with you- and they pull the parachute, lol.

The last picture is of a black squirrel. I don't know what it is but I am fascinated by black squirrels, they're just as cute as the brown kind but there's just something about them that gets me to shout (every time I see one) LOOK! A BLACK SQUIRREL! My mother and the kids just say, uh-huh while I stare at the squirrel until it scampers away.

I have more funny material about my parents coming- stay tuned!

I went shopping for a thong on Friday. That's right, Justin's first thong.  It was an uncomfortable, yet necessary, purchase, since I somehow got talked into doing the World Naked Bike Ride on Saturday night.  Even though it's the "naked bike ride," clothing is optional.  I definitely opted in favor of some coverage.  I figured a thong would give me some coverage while still letting me be quite naked.

Biking through the streets of Chicago in a thong is quite a liberating experience.  At first it was downright uncomfortable and embarrassing, being mostly-naked in front of a group of strangers, but everyone there was a great sport and really got into it.  Everyone got together ahead of time and put on paint and really got into the whole thing.  I guess you have to psych yourself up somehow if you're actually going to go around naked.  Especially on a bike.  Let me just say that biking in a thong isn't the most comfortable thing I've ever done, but after awhile you feel better. :)

All in all, it was a better experience than I expected.  I went into it grudgingly, but ended up actually enjoying myself.  I'm sure the alcohol helped in that regard, but I met some great people who really got into it, too.  And we raised awareness for oil conservation, which is always a good thing.  Heck, I may even do it next year.

If I wasn't a bike commuter this morning would have made me one. It was a touch chilly (maybe 10' celsius) but the sun was up and there was a beautiful translucent mist over everything. Right now, sitting in my office, I can barely see the causeway that's only 300 meters away, but it's that kind of mist that makes everything look like it's overexposed and possibly not even really here. I found myself regretting that the ride was only two miles... on a morning like this, I could have gladly stretched it out twice as long, especially if a lot of it was along the ocean.

 

Then again, I'm due to run five miles today, so that probably wouldn't be the best idea.

 

Had a decent birthday... hung out with my friend Jodi and ate barely adequate Italian food (she recommended the place and then kept apologizing over and over and over about how bad the place had become since the last time she'd eaten there). It was entertaining, though (the restaurant, and well, just the evening itself), and I was glad to just have been dragged out of the house. Plus, she bought me ice cream afterwards, so that made it all good.

 

Soaked for about an hour afterwards, read for a while, and had an argument with my cat. I think he got seriously worried that I was in that much water... he leaned up to look at me a couple of times, and then he sat just outside the bathroom door and meowed at me every few minutes. If I didn't say anything back to him, he meowed again, louder. I'm not sure what he would have done if I didn't answer... drag me out with his claws? (Actually, as big as the little bastard is, he could probably do that.)

 

If you haven't already, go look up Epitaph of a Small Winner. Phenomenal. The guy's life isn't even that dramatic, or at least no more dramatic than the average person's is, but the things he says about it are stunning. Now, I'm just finishing up The Regulators (still want to see how it ends, but I should have known... it was definitely written in his crappy nineties period (anything he wrote between Dolores Claiborne and Wizard and Glass I thought really really blew.)

 

Oh, and I rediscovered the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard. I read all (or at least most) of the pastiche novels when I was a skinny geeky kid (rather than a filled out geeky adult) but I used the excuse of the new definitive edition of the stories, republished as they originally were in the '30s, to reread them again. Looking at them as someone who's read a ton of literature since then... well, there are a few writing flaws, but they're actually pretty good, tight stories, with more going on than sword-slashing and bodice-ripping. Plus, I've working out some new ideas for my next writing project and I think these stories will help get the nuggets out of my head.

 

And I've been putting it off long enough... I've got to finish my fourth-draft revision of "Ward B." Still need to try to publish this damn thing. Anyway, wish me luck.