Remember when I said I haven’t been home in days? I did make it home Monday night to sleep for about three hours before getting up again to provide a ride home from the hospital in Tacoma. That all worked out fine, by the way. Yay. Bike parts await me in Georgetown, but I’m really not rested enough to think about much more than what is right in front of me. And I’m a bit distracted as of late to boot.

I have two things I’ve wanted to write about for a while, one being Google interviews, and I forget the other. They both deserve their own posts as I recall. Hrmpf.

Uhh, what’s been happening this week? Lots of hackery at the office mostly. And actually, a bunch of personal stuff I’m really in no condition due to exhaustion to talk to anyone not close to me about, let alone write about, mostly due to continued distrust of emotional honesty not causing a resonance cascade.

I’m finally reading again too. I think it’ll be a little longer before I have the nerve to start interacting with GoodReads again though.

Something about the second photo of Daniel’s photos from July CM of me and friends reminds me in a deep way that I live here and these are my people.

I haven’t been home in days… Since Saturday morning when I woke early to go up to Copper Cross. This was a good time. I particularly liked the single track section being fast but more technical, than speed. All the U-turns in the fields were just exhausting. Relatively small turn out, which was kind of nice. The one person I talked to that I hadn’t met before said he was a messenger and this was his first cx race. The results I saw before I left put me 8 of 12 in the Cat 4 Men. I don’t know if they’ll bother posting final results online. It doesn’t look like they did in the past. Again, I dropped a chain. I stopped into the bike shop later to order a 46t chainring to drop down from the 48t. I tried to find a decent chain guide. Everyone is out of the Rohloff, I wonder if they’re still making them or it’s just increased demand due to the season. Most of the chainring guards top out at 44t, maybe I need to learn to spin some day. I ordered some matter of chain deflector to keep the chain from falling off the inside. Probably need to put some testing into that this week.

I ran some errands, switched bikes and headed downtown to do a bit of work before a date later. A late night chatting left me with little sleep come Sunday morning. After breakfast it was too late to make the opening SCX race, so I joined Bike Sabbath instead. I spent the entire ride out to Marymoor chatting with Jeni. By the time we made it there she had to turn around to get to a bike shop before close, so I raced back with her. Unfortunately it came down to the line despite our hurry (with an impressive 60 miles RT behind us, with no breaks on the return) and we got dinner instead. Great day! Exhausted though.

Made it back to the office to reboot a downed server (gotta get those DRAC cards going some day), watched some daily show and crashed out. Up early this morning, with a lot on my mind. Big week.

Sometimes I believe I live in the present better than most. However, I’m vulnerable to the past.

My step-father telling me in high school that I’d start getting along, be normal, dating, soon enough; always sticks in my memory. Particularly my memory of whole-heartedly appreciating the effort but knowing he doesn’t know me.

Turns out, there are many moments like that in my life. Being told she imagined we should date other people then get back together. Smiles, nods, makes me feel so alone. Not because I am alone, contexually (and hey, fuck that old old history. you know the one), but because it is more smiles and nods on a long journey of having to let others be happy believing whatever they want. As the cliche goes, whatever lets them sleep at night.

I’ve never been good at sleeping at night.

Looking at a starheadboy checklist over my desk yesterday, I focus in on “I put my energy into what is meaningfull”.

Not a bad idea.

We need the fuckin space to nail the next fool martyr.

Some pointy-three
Pull off to the monkey with friends
It gets quiet, too much stirs inside
Pull off again

Alone

Past the bucket without tears
Stop. music, leg warmers, go
Mash. Don’t stop. Mash.
Home in thirty minutes

while napping in the shade in a city park, a woman comes up to me to let me know that the police moving a homeless woman out of the park nearby has been eying me.

Good time in Portland. Sure are lots of cute girls here to chat with. Work seems a little sorted out. Cross aside I’m looking forward to specifically spending some late mornings with friends upon my return.

Stopped by Powells thinking about picking up ‘effective cycling’ ut got a cross book and the latest Kidder book which advertises being bout forgiveness. There’s one person I’m due to forgive so I picked it up and got a couple chapters in over dinner. we’ll see.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the sheer amount of tactful negotiation and compromise lately. I used to have this book, I think I loaned to a girl I dated for a week and never got it back, about this adolescent from NY that went to northern Maine in search of his uncle. The uncle turns out to be this old hoot living in a cabin deep in the woods. Eventually the nephew learns that his uncle isn’t all backwoods and unlearnded, and chose to live that way consciously.

I keep thinking the day is coming sooner than later that I’ll need to retire to a farm or deep into the woods.

Back in Portland for a few days. Glad to see my friends here again. My heart is still elsewhere, and I’m a little confused by that. I may need another weekend spent entirely in my shop with no time spent talking to anyone about anything of depth. Of course, with it being cross season and all, I’m not going to get any weekends anytime soon.

Who wants to get into backpacking with me after cross season?

I’m sure I’ve quoted this before. Whatever.

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Just got awfully sad all of a sudden. Not entirely sure what this keeps being about. Off to find a park bench to watch the sun and listen to the rest of this album.

Came in 31st. The final results for the first race put me in 35th. Some how my MFG points let me start in the second row, which Matthew let me know was called a call-up. I felt a little out of place. The new bike worked awesome except for dropping the chain once, I’ll order a guard this week. SCX starts next week, may buy a pass for that too since that and MFG don’t conflict. Once today’s results get posted to MFG I should have six points and a reasonable series standing due to my attendance. Also learned, “run-up”, which is apparently infamous for its 250+ feet.

After lunch I got mom to drop me off at the Point Defiance ferry and I rode Vashon with Meg, meeting up with her friend Laura and her at a beach for a little hanging out in the sun and snacking. It was nice to some miles in the nice weather.