:: Friday, January 31, 2003 ::

I am making a grocery list.

Peanut butter.

It is written on this blue notebook. It has notes from every damn thing I have done recently.

I am getting my life in order. Making lists is a great way to do that. The computer is my enemy. Unfortunately, In a battle between computers and notebooks, computers win because they are more distracting. As I compile my list, I get email, instant messages, message board responses, all distracting me from my work.

Blink a couple times and look back at the notebook.

Peanut butter.

Today is Critical Mass. On the last Friday of every month, at 5:30 pm, urban bicyclists all over the world take over the streets. It is a pro-bike protest and a big party wrapped into one. Tonight we are riding from downtown to the Baby Doll Polka Club, which is clear out on the south-west side near Midway Airport. Imagine there was a small town that would only exist for a few hours a month. It would have a friendly, welcoming community who you could wander around large urban areas with causing mayhem and merriment, and then dissolve into the night. There are no rules, but everyone gets along. Now put the whole thing on bikes and you have Critical Mass. I can't wait.

But first I have to go grocery shopping.

To do that I must kill the computer.

:: Ira 12:20 PM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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Hibernation.

No work this week because the school is closed for semester break. (Semester break in late January?! I'll save that for another post.) This mean no mandatory downtown bike rides. No blasting through frost and snow. No beardcicles, which thanks to Andy have become a regular topic of discussion on the Dirt Rag Forum. I am turning into a bear. I've read that bears don't enter true hibernation because their body temperature doesn't drop. They just go inside and sleep for the winter. That is me this week.

I've only gone out of the house three times in the past two days. They all involved food. In the mean time I am doing web design for this online lit mag. It feels nice to make something and get paid for it. I am afraid the prolonged computer time and lack of human contact is turning me into an underground goon. "Wut? Me live in basement. Me have no social skills."

In the Northwoods where I come from, there is a trend that a lot of men stay out on the homestead all winter. The only time the leave is to work or buy supplies in town. If they have a wife or partner, she'll usually go to town instead. The men just stay home and chop wood, take care of livestock, build things, or when they get some free time, tromp around the snowy woods like a bunch of hermits.

Chicago isn't a good place for this behavior. I need to get my butt out and socialize. Anyone want to go for a nice snowy bike ride?

Thanx to the slush, I set my bike up with a full rear fender. Isn't that hot?

:: Ira 9:45 AM [+] :: [comment/respond]
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