All right, tell it like it is– what was the best and what was the worst of 2010? Movies, music,books, meals, events personal and public, what needs to be celebrated or derided before the clock runs out on 2010?
Juancho
This is a picture of me as a child standing next to my blue ribbon winning turkey I raised for an FFA project. I named him Pontius Maximus and I used the money I earned from selling him to pay off the mortgage on my grandparents’ old farmhouse that the bank was trying to steal. That is all beside the point. I pulled this picture out of the family album because I needed a good representation of what 35 lbs looks like, because 3 days ahead of schedule I got my Christmas wish and clocked in 35 lbs lighter than I was on October 2nd. Good old Pontius Maximus. I hope he had a nice life with the Turkey Circus that bought him at auction.
Now it is over 60 degrees and the sun is shining. After I hit send on this post I am out the door and headed to the trails. There’s no time to waste today if I’m going to ride, make my tee time, and still get to yoga by 5:30 P:M.
The holiday schedule can get so hectic!
Juancho
It is a relief to get back to the mindless logging of bike rides on this site. During the summer of 2010 (hereafter referred to only as the Darkness) I ventured into psycho-analysis, just plain psycho-ness, religion, politics, dental hygiene, viking revenge fantasies, role-playing scenarios, geopolitics, practical and theoretical lexicography, and H8ing on most anyone and anything that stepped into my jaundiced cross-hairs.
Now? Things are much better under my new regiment, I mean regime, no-regimen actually. Much better. So let’s recap what is going on around here.
The 86 list
Caffeine
Sugar in all its evil forms
Flour/Wheat (occasional slice of Ezekiel 4:9 is the exception)
Alcohol
Nicotine
Fruit
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Eggplant
Salt
various and assorted non-supportive individuals
MSG
Processed meats
3 squares a day
And now let’s take a look at the Wellness Team
Yoga- Started as a way to fill two nights with something other than wine, Yoga is now a cornerstone of my program. I do it in the car, on hotel floors, and standing in lines. I’m even doing it right now.
Brown rice
Greek Yogurt- who knew the Greeks made such good yogurt?
Greens
5-6 meals a day
Mint tea
nuts
Tomatoland Produce on Thomasville road. (Love ya TL!)
TKM (secret healing practice)
Spirulina
Vitamin D
Highlands County Wellness Camp
Holmes Beach Resort and Spa
PDGA
Jake Gaither Municipal
Results after 90 days- I have lost enough butter to carve a butter sculpture (a turkey maybe?) I am enjoying reading Infinite Jest- a tome that intimidated me for years (turns out it is just a book)and I am riding stronger than I can remember since I began this blog 16 years ago. I haven’t had the chance to take it to the extreme and log any huge mileage days, but for now- I’m pretty happy.
There is nothing easy about self-exile, but you can’t argue with results. Me though? I’m going to stay humble, grateful even, that the Great Magnet has chosen me for this regeneration, and I see no need to stop now.
Namaste Y’all
Juancho
That’s what I found yesterday in the middle of a cool, drizzly ride out to the landbridge and back. Just a single spot of blue sky and a ray of sun banking off the railroad berm. I admired the beauty of it for a moment as I rode on past, then I realized my mistake and returned. I hacked my way through the smilac and kudzu husk into the crepuscular glow. I tried to get into that empty mind place, el pizarro en blanco, and I kind of did, for a few seconds. Mainly though I thought about just what a miracle it was to be sweaty in a chill dusk air riding my bike at all.
We all have a sunbeam out there somewhere, just for us.
Juancho
Another friend suffered a near-catastrophic injury a couple of weeks ago. I refrained from writing about it until the pins and screws were placed in his wrist and his memory was partially restored. This time it was a 12 foot free-fall interrupted by some cold concrete. Lucky for him he hit some large beams and a table saw on the way down, which helped orient him into a non-neck breaking position. He was sleepwalking at the time so we have no clear forensics on the accident. The dogs licked up the blood leaving scant evidence. This fellow is notably more hale than your average 40+ office pogue and so with broken wrist and an open wound in his head he climbed back into the loft and tried to go back to sleep.
He found sleep to be elusive.
Now he is resting comfortably with some serious hardware and a new appreciation for ambulating un-somn-.
This brings the 2010 body count to an impressive level. I can’t remember this much carnage since the summer of 1991, and most of that was the same person (Darin).
We still have a couple of weeks left in 2010 so it is not too late to take your lick and be counted. As far as I know, the stats look like this-
The Torso -broken shoulder (Acromion dislocation) I think + unspecified internal injuries. Cadillac Trail.
Myself- Well documented dislocated shoulder, broken humerus. Skateboard.
Sasquatch- multiple broken ribs- road bike/ recycling bin.
Wrecking Ball- just read about it here.
GM/Bird- aforementioned sleepwalker.
I think I am leaving someone out, but that is enough that if I had a point to make it would be made by now.
Juancho
I am so busy with work this week that I have not been confronted with the choice of going outside to ride my bike, walk, golf, disc golf or anything else. By the time I am free to act like an independent being, or at a minimum enjoy the ornate constructs of denial in which I have long invested, it is dark and cold. If not for my humble yoga mat I would be stalled out completely.
Oh well, if I were not so busy of course I would be out there, riding away, enjoying the brisk 17 degree air. By complete coincidence my schedule opens up tomorrow as the temperatures relent and rise to 70 degrees.
This is a good post. Nothing controversial, takes advantage of time honored niceties, a couple of unnecessary nouns (constructs?) it really is everything one looks for in a blog post don’t you think?
Juancho
I know it is considered rude to use it in polite company. There are so many other ways to say it, that to come right out and be blunt is just crude. No matter what your intention to let it utter from your lips is to put a target on your back. If I could think of any other way to say this, believe me I would gladly hide behind euphemism or innuendo.
I guess I will just have to take my chances.
I feel fast.
Juancho
If it is not a rocket, a marine vessel, or possibly vomit, then you don’t launch it. That goes for Oprah’s new network, your new Etsy website, or your bold new initiative to offer free AK-47’s with the purchase of a pick-up truck.
I am here to tell you, if we just let such wanton hyperbole weasel its way into our vernacular, before long we won’t have words to adequately describe such a prestigious and awe-inspiring event as the launching of an actual rocket. Oprah’s new network isn’t launching, it is “fixing to get started up” and your new Etsy website is “now available online” and your offer of a free AK-47 with the purchase of a pick-up is “getting going on Saturday.”
We really need to be a bit more demure in our presentation. I think this is part of the America everyone else thinks needs to get over itself.
Launch this Internet!
Juancho
By tomorrow night I will have completed a rigorous 6 days of labor in 3 cities and 2 states, and Friday is not looking like a gimme.
That is why I am thinking of a Saturday morning adventure that takes me into some frosted and crackling cold beautiful place. It could be a bike ride, as I am enjoying a pro-suffering stance these days. I would prefer a simple walk somewhere. Perhaps to visit the steaming sinkholes, which will look like hot springs at 72 degrees? The coast to get the full icy effect of the wind and take some deep cool breaths of abundantly fresh air?
I don’t know, but somewhere.
What have you got?
Juancho
