time off shmime offshm

for the past 10 days, i haven’t ridden a bicycle.  even though i’ve never noticed much of a benefit from taking time off between sports seasons (running, soccer), and even though my gut feeling was that time off might hurt more than it could help, i decided i’d give it a shot with this here bike racing thing.  after all, i’d been advised by some pretty knowledgeable people that this was the way to go, and they’ve been racing bikes a lot longer than i have, right?  right!  i decided i was willing to try it as an experiment.

and how did it go?

not good.  in fact, it sucked.  sucked so bad.  so bad.

and i will not do it again.

first off, one of the big reasons i decided to give it a shot was that it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on regular life; do all of the things i hadn’t been doing while i was riding.  i felt like it would be really good for my brain.  it turns out though, that my regular life mostly consists of watching internet tv and spending internet money on bicycle parts and bicycle clothes on the internet.  boring and not in any way constructive.

however, even though i quickly became a broke internet junkie, at least i was giving my legs and back and such a chance to regroup and feel fresh, right?  no!  for the first two or three days i had this aching in my legs from top to bottom, and it continued to build up as the hours passed until i was eating advils as often as i was allowed, and doing jumping jacks in the living room to ease the pain.  once that phase had come and gone, the enemy that is muscle tightness stepped into the ring.  i was stretching twice a day at least, and a little bit at work when i had the time, and i was still losing flexibility.  there were a few nights when i’d wake up multiple times because my lower back was tensing up so bad, and i’d need more stretching and more advils to get back to sleep.  sitting in an office chair throughout the workday became a real test of willpower.

on top of that, not riding did not diminish my appetite.  if anything, it increased it.  gaining weight was not one of the goals i set out to achieve, so i resisted the pangs, but it was neither easy nor pleasant.

and lastly, now that i’m back on my bike, i can’t believe how strange and unnatural it feels.  i can’t find my sweet spot on my saddle, i don’t feel comfortable on my hoods, and i’m tip-toeing around corners.  i think i had taken for granted how instinctive riding a bicycle had come to feel, and now that i’ve lost just a little bit of that edge, i miss it.

so in conclusion, time off is lame.  fuck it.  fuck that shit to hell.  right to hell.  seriously.

i’m sure it’s a grand experience for some people, but it was miserable for me.  and the really lame part is that the muscle pain and the tightness weren’t new things.  in hindsight, i really should have seen them coming, because i always feel like that when i have to be inactive for some reason.

and that’s what i get for ignoring my gut.  my mistake.  i’ve got over 10 years experience training this body, so nobody knows it better than me.  i don’t often forget that, and lapses like this ensure i won’t forget it again for a good long while.

but anyways, now i’m back to riding!  hooray!  i shaved my legs, too.  it’s like i’m a whole person again.

ok, i’m done.  sorry if that was boring.

love,

the tiniest sprinter

an unexpected request

yesterday i had weirdest haircut ever. 

i don’t mean that the cut itself was weird, like a shaved-in bald spot or a mohawk-plus-rattail-plus-mutton-chops-plus-dracula-widow’s-peak-thing.   no, i don’t have the guts to pull off a stunt like that.  i mean the experience was super weird, dig?

want to hear about it?  fuuuuuuuck yes?  ok, here we go!

“fuuuuuuuck yes i do”

so on the rare occasion that i’m willing to shell out some cash to have my stalks mowed back a bit, i usually go to this place near where i used to live in southwest.  it’s pretty big inside, and has lots of those chairs that you sit in to get a haircut, but i’ve yet to see either a customer or more than one employee in the shop.  it’s always empty inside, filled only with harsh, white, natural light and quiet easy-listening music.  for a split second every time i walk in there, i feel really sad and cold.

anyway, the one employee who is there is this really friendly lady who always nails my haircut and then charges me just $16 bucks for it.  that’s $16 for a real scissors-only-forty-five-minute-session-with-a-hair-wash-if-i-want-it kind of haircut.  pretty good deal, i’d say.

so yesterday i walked through her door at about 11am, passing through the momentary wave of discomfort, to be greeted warmly by my usual hair cutter.  we exchanged brief and undetailed thoughts about the weather and our christmas plans, and then she started chopping away.  everything was going just as it normally does, until she paused about half-way through.  smiling timidly, she asked if i could help her out.  sure!  relief washed over her face, and then she began describing to me the task that i’d signed up for.  it took a good long while, because she’s from vietnam (i think) and her english isn’t great and her accent is very strong.  i caught just a few bits and pieces as she spoke, but then, as she reworded the request and went over it a second time, i put the whole puzzle together.

by saying i’d help out, i had unknowingly agreed to write out an excuse for her to text to her boss to not go to his sister’s funeral, to which she had been invited.

then she finished cutting my hair. 

i sat and pondered whether i thought this was good, bad, terrifying, or hilarious.

in the end, i figured i had already agreed to it, so i couldn’t back out and still feel ok about myself.  i also figured that the next time i need a really bizarre favor, i can just go straight to her with it.  so when she finished vacuuming my head, i strolled to the front of the store, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and did the hell out of the thing.

then she gave me a tiny tube of candy-scented sparkle lotion for me to keep.

i hope she doesn’t think that means we’re even.

love,

the tiniest sprinter

ps:  another great thing!  when she was done doing the front part of my hair, she asked me (paraphrased, but not much) “do you want me to take care of those eyebrows, or will you do it yourself?”  i guess leaving them alone apparently isn’t an option?  to everybody who’s spent any time with me during the past 25 years, i formerly apologize for my unruly eyebrows…  i had no idea they required maintenance.

pps:  i will have this lady cut my hair for as long as i can still grow it.

bad dreams for the tiniest sprinter

while i did not end up having any nightmares after pinocchio’s revenge, i did have nightmares last night.  all last night.

the one i remember the most vividly went a little something like this:

the dream took place within a massive valley, with beautiful green grass and gently undulating topography.  surrounding the valley were tall, pine-covered mountains.  there was a one lane dirt road that snaked through the grassy terrain, near the edge of the forest, but never crossing into it.  i was a spectator from the trees, watching a caravan of black cars as they drove slowly up the road.  their route became gradually steeper, to the point where the cars were having a difficult time making the climb.  one car began slipping, and turned sideways before creeping back down the road, eventually coming to rest against another, and effectively blocking the path.

right at that point, an ear-piercing screech rose from all around, and as the passengers of the vehicles began turning their heads frantically to locate the source, a wave of explosions from an aerial bombing started working its way up the valley behind them.  the wave traveled quickly, and the people hadn’t even the time to restart their engines before the bombs were on top of them.

two cars were hit directly, and others were tossed out onto the grass, some on their roofs, others on their sides, and many on fire.  the explosions continued up the road a bit further, and then ceased.

as the few uninjured people emerged from their cars, i ran down from the safety of the forest to join them, and we all walked together from wreckage to wreckage, surveying the damage.  nobody, myself included, seemed even remotely interested in finding and helping survivors.  no, we were merely viewing with great interest the pulverized remains of the caravan, like a family at the zoo might do as they stroll from animal cage to animal cage, hoping not for the sight of a zebra napping peacefully in the sun, but instead to see a lion or gorilla finally destroy one of the many little critters that runs about freely, testing their patience.

mostly what we saw were burned bodies; hardly gruesome, just blackened, faceless humans, still belted into their seats.  in other cars – ones unconsumed by fire - we found people, adults and children alike, leaning against cracked windows or laying across one another’s laps, motionless and staring, with glazed eyes and emotionless faces.

however, in the second-to-last car that we observed, despite the vehicle’s lack of visible damage, the people inside were demolished entirely.  the bodily destruction was as thorough as could be, and i remember commenting to one of my companions that it looked as if an entire family had been reduced to nothing but a pile of guts.

curious, almost eager to see if the final car could top the gore we had just witnessed, we approached it slowly.  from a good distance i could see that the people inside were still intact.  they were all sitting bolt upright, and their heads were all cocked back as far as a neck will allow.  as we got closer, i noticed that the passengers consisted of a man, a woman, and two little boys.  there was a complete lack of blood, but their eyes were wide open, unblinking, and their mouths were frozen gaping, leading me to guess they were dead anyway.  then, when our approach brought us as close as we cared to be, i realized with horror that i knew all four people inside.  it was a good friend of mine, his wife, and their two sons.

fin.

ta-daa!  pretty great dream, yes?  no!  holy geeze, that was some upsetting imagery.  i woke up at that point, and it’s safe to say i was bummed out.  i managed to get back to sleep, and in doing so i did the sort of forced-dream-that-isn’t-really-a-dream-it’s-just-creating-fiction-within-the-same-setting-and-scenario-as-the-original-dream-so-that-you-can-control-the-outcome thing you can kind of do, and i imagined that i noticed one of the children breathing, and then one by one the whole family came about and each member was fine, and thanked me for rescuing them.  i know that’s not what happened though.  what happened was that i was too enchanted with seeing what death looks like to bother worrying about the individuals involved.  now that’s what i call a nightmare.

so…

ok, i’ve got to make a list of christmas present to buy!  adios, friends!

love,

the tiniest sprinter

looks like i just signed up for some nightmares

so i have a whole bunch of bike stuff that i really wanted to get taken care of tonight, but i’m having a little problem.  that little problem has a name.  that name is…

man, i tell you what, it’s been a long time since i’ve let a horror movie get under my skin, and i’m kind of  really ashamed to admit it, but this one did the trick.  the ring did it with all the wet hair and the fingernail thing, the grudge did it with the bed scene and that awful noise that the dead girl always made, jaws did it by being so damn good, and the exorcist did it by making me feel like anywhere and at any time i might just see a one frame flash of a demon’s face, and then i’d be possessed and i’d pee and/or masturbate in disturbing ways in front of my mother and her friends…  anyway, i feel like all of those movies above are legit enough for me to admit they bothered my brain on some deeper level without having to feel any shame.  pinocchio’s revenge, though?  nope.  shouldn’t have been scary.  it was just about a doll with a goofy disney voice and a rubber face running around a bit with a knife, pushing people down stairs, and spying on naked women occasionally.  really nothing groundbreaking.  or scary.

and yet…

i absolutely do not see it as a possibility for me to now step out of the back door to go into the basement until tomorrow’s daylight comes.

fuck you, pinocchio.

sigh…

moving on!

so now that it’s fall time, i feel like everyone around me is always either eating soup or talking about eating soup.  soup soup soup, all the time with the soup.

people, soup is not that great.  there is usually not even anything to chew, and chewing is the best part of eating.  everybody knows that.  on the occasion that there is something in the soup that requires chewing, it only barely requires chewing, and someone equipped with nothing more than a set of gums and the motor skills necessary to sort of move their jaw around could handle the challenge.  for those of us capable of real mastication, soup is just plain lazy.  it’s the easy way out.  it’s only one step away from just putting your grub into a blender and having somebody slop it into your throat for you.

wait, do you like soup?  oh!  well…  i was just joking about all that, then.  enjoy your quitter’s beverage meal!

man, pinocchio has apparently not only made me scared, but grumpy as well, huh?  i think we can add “gassy” to that list too.  or maybe it’s just the beans and coffee i had for dinner talking.

ugh, this post…  this post is going everywhere and nowhere, all at once!  in keeping with the established lack of flow that i’ve given you thus far, i’m now going to jump to one last topic before i go cower under a blanket with dr. louis until paige gets home.

i started a flickr thing!  it’s over there on the right.  go click it!  i’m going to try to put new things up there more often than i put new things up here, since it requires almost no thought whatsoever, so keep on checkin’ it, okay?  okay!

alright, that’s enough.

have a good night everybody!

love,

the tiniest sprinter

movie club: re-animator

i suck at internet!  i have failed by two days on my most favorite of internet activities – movie club – and before you get any hopes up, i’ve got to warn you that my late review will also be kind of short and maybe half-assed…  why?

work.  and bikes.  and dogs.  and cars.  and real flesh-and-blood friends. 

put those all together and i just haven’t had the time and energy to dive into fresh blog posts.  work has been the really big factor in the anti-bloggin’ equation, since i’m nearing a point in my new project where i’ll have to have the mechanical design pretty buttoned down, and i’m still just throwing concepts at the client to see what sticks to him.  at work i’ve been finding myself actually working for as many as eight hours per day!   then when the day is over, the work laptop has been following me home more frequently…  i’m really not complaining, because this project is challenging and as-fun-as-work-can-be.  i’m just saying that when i get home from a big day of wearing the thinking cap and coming up mostly empty-handed, and then i see that dr. louis has done this:

shit, he has figured out how to open cabinets

you can go right to hell, dr. louis

i just don’t have the energy left to type.  i’m lame.  but don’t worry, i’m done pissin’ and moanin’!  now let’s get to the reviewin’, so i can get back to the workin’!

wait, scratch that.  i’ve got one more topic to belly-ache about.  some nerd(s) took a screwdriver and a hammer to my beloved jeep and smashed the lock in.  they didn’t even take anything (maybe they stopped short when they saw i have bullets in my change compartment), and the really lame thing is that my doors were not even locked.  it’s possible that the front doors might have been, but i know the back doors and the hatch weren’t.

ok, now i’m ready to review!

re-animator

so as i stated long ago, jason and i picked out this movie based on my criteria that it had to show a head getting chopped off.  re-animator did not disappoint me.  i’ve seen plenty of beheadings in movies in the past, and really, few can hold a match to this one.  watching somebody cut somebody else’s head off with a sword seems pretty tame now that i’ve seen dr. re-animator remove dr. sexual-harassment’s head one push at a time with a square tipped shovel..

caption by wikipedia: “workman shoveling (cgi image)”

caption by me: “that is a lot of ass going on there.  also, nice boots, dork”

in fact, i can only remember one beheading i’ve seen that was better.  i don’t remember the movie or the scenario, but i know at one point i saw a dude just straight up pull another dude’s head off.  grabbed the top and just pulled.  old school.

ok, anyway, landscaping themed noodle extraction aside, this movie was still pretty grand.  there were boobs, which i like, and violence, which i like, and flapping re-animated penises, which i also like.  sort of.  no, i like them, i do.  i’m not too proud to admit it.  oh, and the plot, while ridiculous, flowed fairly logically, and i appreciated that too.  the plot that i speak of went a little something like this:

dr. re-animator is banned from austria (i think) for re-animating people.  he is accepted as a medical student here in the you-ess-of-eh, and he picks fights with dr. sexual-harassment over whether 6 to 12 minutes of cardiac inactivity means irreversible brain death.  he then rents a room from another medical student, dr. handsome, who is engaged to dr. isawyourboobs, who is the daughter of dr. dad and the object of dr. sexual-harassment’s not-very-secret and not-very-healthy obsession.  please note that the only people here who i know were actually doctors were the sexual-harasser and the dad, but i don’t care, and i’m calling everybody “doctor”.  it just rolls off the tongue so nicely, you know?  anyway, shortly after renting the room, dr. re-animator gets dr. handsome (by tricking him into fighting his undead cat in the basement) to join in the plot to inject his glowing green reagent into everybody they can.  the cat thing and the reagent thing lead to other things, and pretty soon there’s a morgue full of penis flapping zombies trying to kill dr. re-animator and dr. handsome while dr. sexual-harassment’s body tries to help dr. sexual-harassment’s head sexually harass dr. isawyourboobs while she’s all nude and tied up.  dr. dad (zombie) sort of helps out, somebody explodes and wraps somebody else all up in oversized (diameter, not length) intestines, and everybody gets totally covered in blood and guts.

i did not make this.  it was given to me by google

that’s about all you need to know.  super gory, but the good kind of gore, not the hostile / saw / hills have eyes kind.  blood and guts, not torture porn.  brains on the wall, not people begging for their lives.  that kind of good.  sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  it was.  super wonderful.  i’m going to rate it… 

10 out of 10. 

perfect score.  re-animator could have maybe bumped itself up to an 11 or 12 if it had somehow worked a musical number into the act, but i think that might be asking too much.

anyway, i’m done!  read emma’s!  read jason’s!  hug someone you love!  pleasure yourself in private!  buy an expensive bike part!  whatever it takes to make this wednesday the best wednesday it can be!

love,

the tiniest sprinter