I can't Believe We're Still In New York City, Vol. ???:

The sun is bright and their air is damp, pleasantly morning cool - crickets and the smell of the ocean. I'm at work in the field and my colleague is saying, "...the seagulls pick up the crabs from the shore and drop them in this square to open them up. Two days ago one hit me in the shoulder!..."

I'm daydreaming. Miles and miles away.

I Can't Believe This Is My Life, Vol. ???:

The phone rings at 7.29 AM. "Sir, the car service you requested is on location at 1071 Intervale Avenue."

Ski jumping.

Holy crap.

That is all.

Grant Peterson is some dude who owns a company dedicated to making fun, rideable bikes, on the idea that racing bikes are stupid and not for everybody. Pretty neat stuff, especially considering the fetishization of technology that exists in a lot of bike stuff.

Anyhoo, he's got a nice little piece called Tips for Happy Riding, which I shamelessly plucked off the blog of somebody who i've never met but seems really cool and thoughtful.

Inspired by Peterson's sensibility, I put an easy gear ratio on my bike, flipped my flat handlebars way high up in the air, and passed up the third in a five-part race series (in which I'm doing well) to go to the beach with friends on Saturday.

It was a very good decision.

On Monday night's prospect park race, I had fun racing again - I had the feeling I wouldn't, so I was pleasantly surprised. I stole wheels and blocked some wheel-steals, then hopped on the wheel of a breakaway and had a deadly fast first lap. Wound up coming in 4th and scoring some points - not bad!

My sister has moved to town, and this is a nice thing. We had dinner on Monday night.

You know, in Boggle, when you shake up the cube filled with letter-cubes and you have to keep on giving them little shakes until they settle? But there are always a couple that are lying at odds on their corners?

Shake shake shake.

My band, Maxwell's Demon, is playing a show on Saturday. We have been intensively practicing and writing music and are planning work on a new album - we've got a great start and I am just getting more and more excited to see this develop.

I wish I could take a couple months off work to see this through... I still feel the strongest urge to play hookey, to go somewhere new each day, to wonder where I'll eat my next meal, to explore the corners, to sing songs loudly, to see Manhattan from new angles and heights. But sighing, I return to work every morning.

As it happens, I am back at my desk at work. The morning was humid and damp, and, unfortunately, the flowers on my desk - this beautiful surprise waiting for me when I got back from vacation - are wilting. So it goes.

I'm restless and antsy. My pedal unscrewed itself from the crank on the way in this morning - why? I don't know - that's not supposed to happen.

I'm discombobulated!

I got back from vacation in Salt Lake City and feel somewhat defeated, deflated to return to a routine that is bracketed by time spent at work. Not unhappy or depressed, but rather, aware of the importance of experiencing new things and the extent to which a 9 to 5 job fetters that, binding the will, energy, and ability in manacles.

I have a sudden claustrophobia, I'm realizing - I need time and space. I need a long afternoon to myself, I need to clean up my shit in my house. I need to listen to REM on repeat. I need a day that doesn't end. I need time for liesurely bike rides - not commuting, not racing, but fun and exploration. I need, again and again, to go places I've never been. I need the clarity of a mountain top, the exciting heartbeat of thin air.

In the past - in more punk rock days - I would dogmatically spew lines about how selling one's labor is the death of the soul, that life it too short to do so, that sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul, that product is the excrement of action, that lived experience must be elevated to the status of art... slogan after slogan... and yet here I am. Quagmires - student loans, health insurance are what keep me at the desk.

I'm thinking of foregoing a race this weekend in favor of a ride to the beach. I was just thinking about how I haven't been in an ocean in a log time. Might be good for me. Shake some of the cobwebs out of my brain.