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.