May
24
Drunk text message exchange about “Lost” finale
May 24, 2010 | 1 Comment
11:37, friend: That sucked
11:40, me: I dunno. what could they really do except happily ever after for everybody and redemption for jack? i thnk the island still remains a mystery, which is fair.
11:41, me: I am totally a lost apologist
11:42, friend: Sucked.
11:43, me: Na. says a softie apologist. also: tipsy apologist.
11:44, friend: By far worst season finale
11:46, friend: Way too easy to kill mib
11:48, me: Well yes. but what could they really do? once they got all god-y, the only option was a fucking scene with all those religious symbols. eh. i hoped for more dharma-science. even aliens!
I write text on a phone remarkably coherently for a drunk-ass.
May
22
This blog is dying
May 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment
All blogs are dying, as we all get dumber and more Facebook/Twittered. Or, I am merely going to retire mine. Slowly but surely, I am taking down old, miserable-ass postings and eventually – well, let’s see what happens. Total cessation, or very slight intermittent updates?
Thanks, bostonbiker, for hosting, whatever happens.
May
10
Depression, drinking, and bicycles
May 10, 2010 | 5 Comments
What are blogs for but sharing too much? My readers, all five of you, have seen my foolish journey through a failed Bikram yoga challenge last fall, and all kinds of other hints to my generally dark moods over the years I’ve kept this blog. But here’s some more! Yippee!
I’ve always been a depressed kid. It didn’t help that my father was probably depressed, and his father before him, and I grew up an only child of two pleasant enough but distant and fairly emotionless people. I didn’t get along with the other kids, I was super-sensitive, and I found my refuge in books and records. Still do, I guess.
Turning 21 was a surprising blessing, because finally I could buy my own booze. I’ve always liked drinking (hell, I used to drink my parents’ Retsina when they were still at work), and never had any qualms about engaging in the maligned habit of drinking alone. When I started grad school, I drank a lot, for a number of reasons including: shitty living situation, overwhelming workload, fear of failure, anxiety-worry-terror, the whole thing.
I’m not sure how regular my drinking was through those years of grad school (probably pretty regular), but I was fortunate enough to also have picked up the bicycle as a mental health salve during grad school. Oh yay, a good-for-me activity which would balance out the bad-for-me habit of having at least two drinks every single night. Or so I hoped.
It’s been better and worse over the years. Sometimes I rode so much that I didn’t have the energy to drink much. Sometimes I rode so much and was so depressed at the same time that the only thing I thought about during the entire course of my ride was getting home to start drinking. There was even that one time when I couldn’t decide between having a drink or going for a ride, so I poured some gin and recovery mix into a bottle and went for a ride. It was a super-fun ride, but I was definitely plastered by the time I got home. (Don’t worry, I was riding in a straight line on a bike path the whole time. And for the record, gin and recovery shake taste awful together.)
I had a pretty shitty breakup four years ago that I’m not entirely sure that I’m over even now, at least in the sense that I still haven’t managed to meet someone new who wants to go out with me at the same time that I want to go out with them. Let me tell you, dating makes drinking even more desirable. And an ongoing sense of the failure of my personal life in the face of everyone else’s relationships and home-buying and baby-rearing (not that I want a condo or a baby) doesn’t make me feel very good, ever.
I get the impression that there’s a fair amount of drinking in the bicycle industry, which has also been a delight for me. Having a few beers at the end of an exhausting Saturday with my coworkers from the shop is a nice come-down. It’s an industry of underachievers, after all, and only the real hard cases go to the extremes of cutting beer and sweets out of their diet. We’re more healthy and active than the average American, right? So we can get away with drinking beer, because we also burn thousands of calories on the bike!
Well, now I’m in my mid-30s. And it’s been at least a decade of regular drinking. And, I am heavier than I have ever been! Sure, I’m still rail-thin compared to most Americans, but not compared to my body from a decade ago. And sure, I am much, much stronger and more muscular than I was a decade ago, but I didn’t have a wee beer belly then. It looks like the bike riding isn’t balancing out the drinking so well anymore.
What would happen if a regular drinker – also a regular exerciser – in her mid-30s decided to try an experiment and quit drinking? Or at least cut down very abruptly, because I would be sad to miss the shop beers and rock show beers and the barbecue beers. Apparently the trick would be to cut down on the superfluous everyday drinking, like the “Tuesday night ‘Lost’” drinking and the “Thursday night ’30 Rock’” drinking and the “any old night I don’t have something to do” drinking and all that other shit.
Oh yeah, and I forgot about the depression. It’s better managed now, thanks to a decade of therapy and six years of antidepressants. The exercise helps with it, a lot. But the drinking – well, that probably neutralizes the good effects to some degree, right?
Basically I am an idiot. But I’m an idiot who is single and who lives alone in New England, where the winters are long and dark, and there’s not a lot to do with myself a whole lot of the time. Except drink! The bike has been great, but it hasn’t fixed this problem. Or any of my other problems, really. So what now?
One week of detox, for starters. Let’s see how it goes.
Apr
26
Urban cyclists: some stuff you might want (locks, pumps, brake levers, cogs, rear wheel)
April 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I’m unloading some odds and ends. You guys get first dibs.
New: Kryptonite New York Fahgettabouit lock, three keys $10
New: Surly 18 teeth track cog, 1/8” $8
New: Maindrive BMX freewheel 17 teeth, 1/2” X 1/8” $5
New: Sram PC-1 1/2” X 1/8” singlespeed chain $8
New: 42cm drop bars, black $8
Used: Jalco DRX2000 rear wheel with flip-flop hub, 16 teeth fixed cog, $40
Used: Cane Creek SCR-5 brake levers, tan, $10
Used: Shimano Super SLX brake levers, black, $8
Used: Surly Singleator, barely used, $10
Used: Surly chain tensioner, $8
Used: Reelight front and rear battery-free lights $15
Used: Zefal HP1 frame pump $9
Used: Zefal HP2 frame pump $9
Used: Kryptonite Kryptolock, one key $8
Used: Elite bottle cages (2), $3 each
Used: Profile Design drop bars, 40cm, with quill stem, 1”, $8 the set
Used: Park Tool chain tool (CC-3) and spoke wrench (#1059), $8 the set
Apr
11
A little advice for novice bike shoppers
April 11, 2010 | 1 Comment
A few observations from this weekend in the shop.
1) Don’t pick a bike just because you like its color. Consider fit, please, and how it feels when you ride it.
2) Don’t tell me about how you were incorrectly using the secondary brakes on the tops of your 80s ten-speed bike and expect me to try to make it possible for you to continue to doing that on a modern bike. I won’t.
3) Don’t tell me about all the other things you know a lot about in the great big wide world. If you still don’t know anything about bikes, then you still need me to help you.
4) Don’t look so deflated that there aren’t any boys around who can help you right now. Just because I haven’t got a penis doesn’t mean I don’t know anything, or can’t help you just as much as anyone else (or more).
And finally, a little off-topic:
5) Don’t call the shop on a busy Saturday and expect that someone will be able to talk you through a repair. Especially when you don’t know all the applicable words, and instead refer to parts like “the rubber thing that goes on the metal wheel-like thing.”
Mar
18
Still trying to figure out the track saga…
March 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The folks now running the Londonderry track have a new website. Including some remarks about how change can be “uncomfortable.” Thoughts?
http://northeastvelo.com/
Mar
11
Gah! 1 through 3
March 11, 2010 | 2 Comments
1) Brits and their dental problems: “[Mark Cavendish] has recently had a full dental brace fitted and will wear it for a year to avoid any more problems and possible consequential muscle problems. It seems the pain and problems of the pre-season are in the past and he is confident his form is rapidly improving.”
Egad!
2) Cute MIT cycling team kids:
Q – “In light of this morning’s sprint clinic, what’s the physics behind rocking the bike?”
A – “The rocking motion helps you use power from arm and back muscles. It’s the same idea as flexing your ankles through the pedal cycle to increase power. From physics, we know that Work = Force * Displacement. Given a fixed pedal force, if you can reduce the displacement of your main cycling muscles (upper legs, lower backs) by pulling the pedals closer with your arms and using your ankles, you can offload some of the fatigue to upper body and lower leg muscles. Or, with the lower displacement, maybe you can get a little extra force and therefore more sprint power. Rowers understand the concept much better. Get on an erg/indoor rower. See how much power you generate just pulling with your arms, with your legs stationary. Then, try just pushing with your legs with arms extended. When you combine the arms and legs, you get way more power.”
Sweet, lovable nerds. Seriously, I mean that in the nicest way possible. The MIT racing team have been nothing but delightful, charming, and very pleasant in all my experiences with them. (Including one January training camp!)
3) New England Velodrome?
“… this planned takeover was orchestrated by Jeff Palter and Kurt Begman of Cycleloft who attended our track and disingenuously expressed their support of what we had accomplished through hard work coupled with a collective passion for cycling.”
More info please?
Jan
23
New song, new year
January 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Actually, old song. Well, from 2009. Thanks to Ana for this one.
An Horse: Camp Out
Dec
28
Boy waiting by the phone
December 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Making it through the “A”s and foiled in several prior attempts to post songs contextually.
So what the hell.
The Secret Machines: “Alone, Jealous And Stoned“
Dec
28
We all have our ghosts
December 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Gordon McIntyre in one of his solo-ish projects, Money Can’t Buy Music.
