Saturday, March 30, 2024

rough

Fucking trauma.

Also fucking phone isn't letting me swipe fucking effortlessly lately. What the hell. Maybe there's some morality bullshit coding on the West Coast. It's fucking annoying. And yes. I had to fucking correct all of those.

I should go to sleep. I'm still tired. I leave in 24hrs. Getting on a red eye. And yeah I remember when I swore I'd never take another red eye. I think that was 2013 even I got picked up in Boston by Nick.

So I'm going to get back as tired or more so than when I left. But hopefully a little mentally rejuvenated, and more at peace with the time spent here with my mother.

One of the toughest things was my mother asking if there was anyone I wanted to go see. I've got no one but family nearby.

It got my digging into the past a bit. The whole growing up very much alone. Very very much. I mean I'm ok with alone, but I'm also kind of not. And the kind of not when I was very much, was torturous, esp for me who had/has a hard time making friends, a hard time socializing in novel or normal situations. Even bike races in an awkward fuck. Even with the alcohol. Was easier with it but not really.

My best and really only friend was a dog and he died while I was in high school.

I don't have any contact with anyone from high school. He'll that fucking place is where I went from 2nd to 12th grade. You'd think I might have stayed in touch with them. Nope.

Now we're all old.

And I'm maybe more depressed than when I got here but I've also spent a lot of time outside here, and at the beach. Really just soaking this in. Time with my mother, even if it brings up so much pain and buried memories, it's good for her. And me too. I may not be close difference wise and maybe that's a good thing. For both of us.

Fuck, I really should go to sleep.

At least I'm starting to feel tired. Like I could actually fall asleep.

Gotta check in to the flight first.

Heddwch,
G
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Thursday, March 28, 2024

dreams

A while back, weeks or more, I had this dream where I finished the smackdown or the JP50 ride on the Madone and when I went to leave it was gone. It had the Wahoo on it. I was disturbed enough to wake up. Feel back asleep and rationalized the disappearance as sometime loaded it up accidentally and took it home. I mean how crazy is that. Doesn't happen. Not with the freak of a size bike, but whatever.

It hung with me for a while, the dream that is.

But then never thought about it again until last night's dream. Rushing around to get ready for a ride. Partly big public space and needing to pee. Fucking hell, getting old is just peeing more frequently. No wonder my dad was chronically dehydrated. 

But then it shifted to leaving the house and came out dressed and ready to go but with only 15 min to get to the ride. But out front in the parking space (the one here in olalla) was a big station wagon. Powers was riding shotgun, Al D was driving, I don't know who was on the back seat. They were all heading to the ride. And said hey grab your bike we've got room on the rack.

Went to grab the bike and started taking a thru axle off. But Al or someone asked, are those 2.3 or 2.4... ???  I looked up and I was taking the thru-axle out of the main pivot of a MTB on the work stand. No they didn't have thru axles there. Right need road bike. Went into the bike room and remembered it wasn't there.

Next thing I was driving myself to the start of the ride. At the stop light and it turns green and someone walks in front and says stop. There was a Jeep ran the yellow, slowly and it was towing three really long low trailers. But it cleared and I got to the ride start and saw a bike with before black matte rear carbon dropouts. Hmm. Couldn't be mine, but no I don't have the bike with me. I'm dressed tho. Next my phone says I'm connected to the wahoo that was on the bike, and all the seniors start connecting too.

And there it was. People said, yeah it's been here for a long time, everyone just left it there. Oddly the headunit was powered on for weeks. 

But I got the bike back.

It was strange. 

Def missing the bike. At least my legs and body are. My knees aren't digging all the stairs and beach climbing and walking. Maybe it is the fancy rubber boots. But wow is it nice to not have perpetually wet shoes and socks here.

I best get up and start the day. It's late but delaying the trip up gives my mother more time to rest and she needs every second. Esp today.

It's not easy. And I don't know what to do other than be here. But this is good. And dreams are weird. That and my adductor/abductor are co-cramping. Esp laying down when I'm trying to bend my sore knee.

Only a few more days then I can get back to the crazy and back on the bike.

Heddwch
G
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Monday, March 25, 2024

rolling along

What a fucking crazy couple weeks.

Made it through. Only had few critical things fell through, nothing terrible, it's not great but hey I did what what I could.

Working on trying to adjust to being on the West Coast. It's a challenge, 

It's not easy esp after last week. Why do I wind up always getting here wiped out. It's complicated but here we are. 

Writing might take a bit of a priority this week. We'll see. I have the cameras here but at the moment riding in a car, no cameras going to a concert.

And the sun is out. Oddly enough. When I first looked at the weather for the trip it was showing rain every day. There was a quick shower as we walked down to the beach but it passed and was clear by the time we heard back up.

Bought some super fancy rubber boots. There's basically disposable boots or fancy boots. At least I have room to take them home. Nice not having gross muddy shoes after a walk to the beach. No worries with the clay and the swamp and the water. So much of all that 

It like most of the bulbs I plants have come up. And indeed, I put more snow drops next to snow drops, it looks like a good place to plant them to someone else too.

Tulips are up and the daffodils are doing their thing. No sign of the lily but maybe it's still early for that one. Or maybe it lost the roulette.

Weird writing on the phone, but I deliberately did not bring a laptop with me or a tablet. RIP my battery on the phone.

Not only did I not get everything done before leaving, I forgot a bunch of stuff. Extra battery pack was one of them. Probably should put the phone away, at least before I get queezy riding in the backseat looking at it.

Hopefully time to catch up, even if I have to swipe the whole post.

Heddwch
G





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Thursday, March 07, 2024

Maybe it wasn't mike

 Watched this between everything.

The Rider and The Wolf (Final Edit) from Grit & Thistle Film Company on Vimeo.


Now I doubt it was Mike. Might have known Mike. Maybe told me a story about Mike and getting murdered and the body missing? Maybe that's where I remember him pointing that out.

But still, was actually kind of tough recognizing all the Saguache footage and the stuff along 285 there running into town. The logic of why he got that spot, fits well with my dad's style of friend.

I guess it is a mystery, unless the person my dad was talking about was Jeff Branham.

I'm sure as hell in one motherfucking melancholic mood right now.


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that feeling when a puzzle piece falls into place

 I think i've mentioned it here before, when discussing wishing I'd gotten back into MTBs before my Dad left Colorado. 

My dad had made friends with a local in the town. Big time mountain biker, promoted a few races, did big rides around Saguache. He suggested I come out for one of them at one point, but I hadn't been on a MTB in a long time, and didn't really see it in the cards or want to go that direction, at the time (2014-2015ish * actually might have been 07-09 because mike was murdered in 09) looking back I was full in on the Road/CX shit. All day rides, Hundos, CX. That was the thing. I had no money for anything really, much less a new MTB at the time. 

And of course I sort of let it slide out of my memory until I started riding bikes, started really understanding what was there, where it had chosen to live. Hadn't fallen back in love with riding fat tires in the woods finally on a wheel size and frame that fit. 

I had asked my brothers if they remember Daddy talking about someone and who their name was. No dice. I had tried searching for promoters and 24hr races in the area. Of course this was 2021-2022, all that shit had shutdown, nothing active, never found anything.

A day or two ago I thought about my cousin in Gunnison. His kid was racing at the HS event we drove past in October, and I know he's into that a bit with his kids. And I finally asked. He gave me two names. 

Two really big names in the MTB world. The first name he prefaces with he hoped wasn't the one. The second is El Jefe in Gunnison. My Dad didn't head over there that often esp later. He stayed on his side of the mountains mostly. 

First name? Mike Rust.

Maybe you know the story already. I didn't till just now. But Mike's house, pretty sure I remember my dad mentioning it, wasn't too far from my Dad's big parcel of land he bought. Reading about Mike, watching the trailer for The Rider and the Wolf (full film link) and I could totally see him and my dad hitting it off. 

And then probably why he never mentioned it when I came back just before he was packed up and moved to Washington because that would have been after Mike's death. I guess I could ask my step mother, but my cousin's guess feels like the right one and it fucking sucks. Brings up a big bunch of grief. 

Not just at the already grieving side of things about my dad, but the tragic death of Mike and the missed opporunities, the lost chance to connect with a legend. Fucking hell.

Guess I've been thinking a little about Colorado since I've been editing photos from there. Now that I feel better about my editing skills. 

It was actually the editing of this photo that got me thinking about him, about there, about my kid taking this photo. About too much. Way off my game right now, but what I recognize is I still need space to grieve. I haven't done it as well as I could have. even now, this far. Add to it all the precarious state of my mother's health, there's a lot weighing on my mind.

Be well, do good.

Amor Fati Motherfuckers

heddwch
G

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Sunday, March 03, 2024

It might have taken 4 years?

Seriously? I'm skating on the thinnest ice possible right now. Testing negative while the other two people in the house are positive. One got the stripe on Tuesday night, and two negatives. Tested last night, I'm still negative but I am not quite 100%, but is that because I rode the singlespeed in the woods for the first time since January? And crashed? Minor crash but still. 

No idea if I should be the one masking or if I test again soon that I'll show that line. Gone are the days of abundant tests. Would be great to keep testing, but $8-10/test right now adds up if we test all three until there are not positive lines.

What to do, Def worried about pushing it to hard, but then if I don't have it am I resting too much? Not possible to be honest. 

I've been going a bit nuts lately, and filling the time with editing photos or posting photos or other stuff other than writing. Haven't had time to do much of that, yet here I am, quiet sunday for the first time in a long time. 

Last week the kid at school came home for the weekend and brought three friends, so, well house madness for a couple weeks before. working on getting everything sorted and organized and cleaned up and that should continue but we all need a little bit of a break. It rained yesterday afternoon and kind of stormed last night, so we moved dirt church to saturday and had a great ride. Other than the crash (i hit a short broken branch under the leaves just ride and it pushed my front wheel into a tombstone like rock and I went down in a heap pretty quickly. Was feeling good, riding good lines and rolling well, the crash kind of tweaked my confidence or boosted the self doubt, took most of the rest of the ride to figure it out and ride better. 

Def full in on bluesky as a social microblogging platform. Mostly because of the film threads, and because there are some good people there, friends or just people who tolerate being connected on the socials.

Trying to work on not being anxious about the potential for being sick with the thing I've managed to successfully avoid for four years. It is what it is and I don't know many people that have also avoided it this long. A few, not many. 

I've got the laptop up here, air filter going medium speed moving and cleaning the air, I've got coffee and well, maybe too much coffee. The laptop is heavy in my lap.

Heading to Seattle at the end of the month, if nothing else there's time to clear it out of my system if I do go down with it. Will be good to see the babies and my mother.

I'd like to be in okay condition for the first smackdown, although the plan is for it to be a group ride, not a conventional smackdown, we'll see how that goes. Will be cool to get out in the spring on the road bike. 

Lots to work on but the quiet house and sick occupants kind of tone it down. I did get the shopping done yesterday, not much else going on. I do need to sit down and do a bunch of grading. There are a few students who did completely miss the mark on the first assignment and the second one is due on Monday. Should really work on that, but that's more of a downstairs at the desk or table, not in bed writing. 

More later perhaps,
I'm still here, need to work on getting back into the writing more, it is helpful for me.

heddwch
G
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