It's pouring rain out right now. This will come as no surprise to others in the northeast, and normally would present no appreciable vexation on a sunday afternoon, however in this instance . . . .
Getting up at 350-4am does not really agreee with me. That in combination with a tendency to ADD has led me to the unfortunate habit of leaving my keys in my bike and the headlight on. Bikes aren't like cars with just one on-swithch which you turn the key in, they have the key switch, start button, and engine killswitch. When I get home I occasionally just flip the killswitch but leave the key in. Twice this week my neighbor has knocked on my door to tell me my bilke's light was still on, and today I was going to go out, couldn't find the keys, and yes, my bke had the key still in it, the light had been left on, and my battery was quite, quite dead. A nice neighbor tried to help my push start the bike but to no avail. My kingdom for a kick starter. So I got on my pedal powered bike and headed off to wal-mart to get a battery charger. After wal-mart where I spent a vexing long time becasue the first unhelpful clerk I asked send me looking in totally the wrong place; I headed off to the video store to return a couple of videos that were due back today. Got maybe a uarter mile and I head this banging from my rear tire, I had run over a nail. And it was starting to rain. Just one of those fucking days. I had a tire pump and a tube but my prying tools were with my other bike. Fortuantely the tire was loose enough that I could get it off with just my fingers and pry it back on with a quarter. Then I headed off to the video store in considerable rain. Fortunately it was warm out. Got pretty soaked by the time I got back home. It's still raining though, which is not cool as I don't want to fuck around with the battery charger in the rain. I also may have to pry off the cover that protects the two bolts that hold the seat on my bike, because the key won't turn it. I gave it a good blast of WD40 before I left but we'll see. It needs to fucking stop raining.
My tall blond gorgeous archaeologist friend is now over in europe digging and having a blast. It makes me feel badly about having dropped the classics career path. I want to see the wonders and enjoy the company of other intellectuals, but the actual work of teachin latin, or the intense grinding study that my blond friend does in her archaeological research is something I regard with absolute utter loathing. The ADD does not make me suited to these sorts of tasks at all. I can design, hypothesize, theorize and analyze up a storm, but I'm not much for the long hard academic slog.
Maybe a month ago I watched Grumpy Old Men, and I remember Burgess Meredith's character, the 94 year old father of jack lemmon's character, was talking about how when you're as old as he is, his view is that what matters in life is the experiences. Another person whose journal I came across here on SG mentioned something about living for moments; the photographs taken by my former latin teacher girlfriend and my blond friend over in europe present an incredible feast of moments. And of friendships. But the actual work they do, the heavy duty academic grind is most antithetical to moments. Going into trucking is a calculated maneuver, to avoid the academic grind that I really don't handle well, and to find the moments that exist out in the open spaces in this world. There will still be deadlines and long hours and drives in the nighttime darkness, but there will still be sunrises and sunsets, vast open spaces, mountains and plains. A few dollars earned. An educated guess, a venture into a lifestyle that may offer some moments, as well as decent money. No guarantee that it will ultimately be entirely satisfactory, but you never find things out unless you try things. I guess that's about where I am right now. As well as being here blogging on SG. Used to hate the word blogging but I'm getting used to it.
Well, that's it for the moment.
Getting up at 350-4am does not really agreee with me. That in combination with a tendency to ADD has led me to the unfortunate habit of leaving my keys in my bike and the headlight on. Bikes aren't like cars with just one on-swithch which you turn the key in, they have the key switch, start button, and engine killswitch. When I get home I occasionally just flip the killswitch but leave the key in. Twice this week my neighbor has knocked on my door to tell me my bilke's light was still on, and today I was going to go out, couldn't find the keys, and yes, my bke had the key still in it, the light had been left on, and my battery was quite, quite dead. A nice neighbor tried to help my push start the bike but to no avail. My kingdom for a kick starter. So I got on my pedal powered bike and headed off to wal-mart to get a battery charger. After wal-mart where I spent a vexing long time becasue the first unhelpful clerk I asked send me looking in totally the wrong place; I headed off to the video store to return a couple of videos that were due back today. Got maybe a uarter mile and I head this banging from my rear tire, I had run over a nail. And it was starting to rain. Just one of those fucking days. I had a tire pump and a tube but my prying tools were with my other bike. Fortuantely the tire was loose enough that I could get it off with just my fingers and pry it back on with a quarter. Then I headed off to the video store in considerable rain. Fortunately it was warm out. Got pretty soaked by the time I got back home. It's still raining though, which is not cool as I don't want to fuck around with the battery charger in the rain. I also may have to pry off the cover that protects the two bolts that hold the seat on my bike, because the key won't turn it. I gave it a good blast of WD40 before I left but we'll see. It needs to fucking stop raining.
My tall blond gorgeous archaeologist friend is now over in europe digging and having a blast. It makes me feel badly about having dropped the classics career path. I want to see the wonders and enjoy the company of other intellectuals, but the actual work of teachin latin, or the intense grinding study that my blond friend does in her archaeological research is something I regard with absolute utter loathing. The ADD does not make me suited to these sorts of tasks at all. I can design, hypothesize, theorize and analyze up a storm, but I'm not much for the long hard academic slog.
Maybe a month ago I watched Grumpy Old Men, and I remember Burgess Meredith's character, the 94 year old father of jack lemmon's character, was talking about how when you're as old as he is, his view is that what matters in life is the experiences. Another person whose journal I came across here on SG mentioned something about living for moments; the photographs taken by my former latin teacher girlfriend and my blond friend over in europe present an incredible feast of moments. And of friendships. But the actual work they do, the heavy duty academic grind is most antithetical to moments. Going into trucking is a calculated maneuver, to avoid the academic grind that I really don't handle well, and to find the moments that exist out in the open spaces in this world. There will still be deadlines and long hours and drives in the nighttime darkness, but there will still be sunrises and sunsets, vast open spaces, mountains and plains. A few dollars earned. An educated guess, a venture into a lifestyle that may offer some moments, as well as decent money. No guarantee that it will ultimately be entirely satisfactory, but you never find things out unless you try things. I guess that's about where I am right now. As well as being here blogging on SG. Used to hate the word blogging but I'm getting used to it.
Well, that's it for the moment.
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And I would hate to imply that abnormal people are excluded from my thoughts.
As for my day today, I'm not really so upset that I only went 380 miles so much as annoyed to have wasted all that time in traffic. It's just tedious. I probably should have anticipated this and decided ahead of time to work nights perhaps. I just hate throwing off my schedule. I really hope that now since I am south of Washington DC the roads over the next couple days will be wide open.