Prompted by an email from Ceri I've been mentally listing all the things I've bought recently. Even though I'm unemployed and a little embarrassed by the list, I'll share. Of course I'm excluding food, drinks, and general merrymaking; and to think that I might dedicate a year to not buying anything new...
In no particular order:
Bike stuff from online (enormously large).
Bike stuff from the shop.
More bike stuff from the shop (enormously large, including ice-tires).
A cyclo-cross tire from co-worker.
Pants from Goodwill to make cycling caps. A pair of jeans to wear.
Sweater and pants from Salvation army to make cycling caps.
Mom's birthday present.
Mary's birthday present, which has yet to be mailed.
Commuter bike shoes. Shimano SPD pedals.
Auto paint; enough to put my own hole in the atmosphere.
Since it was a gorgeous fall day I headed out for an afternoon walk.* I got to talk with some neighborhood characters, like the one-man band down the street. I've heard him all summer, a languid drum beat accompanied by an unnameable brass instrument. 'Turns out he's an old man with a long white beard and mustache and was playing a nice wooden drum with one hand while holding a bugle in the other. I didn't stop and stare, but it also seemed like he had cowbells hanging off the back of his pants. He said hi and commented on the day. He also mentioned that he was doing a sound check because he had a gig on Saturday. I'm pretty sure this is the guy who sits and plays on the curb at the farmer's market...
Down the block, I got hit on because of the weather. --"It's a good day to be with someone." --"Um... It is a nice day."
Then I was thinking about gardening and the astonishing variety of plants that were just growing wild in the alley I was walking down. Of course I thought about natural selection and how, as a plant picker, I select plants according to my whims of aesthetics. And then I wondered if I had to plant a garden in only one plant, what plant would that be.
I can choose a tree; Maclura pomifera, duh, but anything smaller than that kind of baffles me. A clover, perhaps? Sunflowers? Lilacs? What about a vine? To be practical, should it be edible? Runner beans? Anyway, I also found an apple tree where all the apples were rotting on the ground underneath it.
Yet again I got frustrated with Mark Bittman when I couldn't find any recipes for salmon in his cookbook. And then I remembered I have his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian...
Sunday I went to another 'cross race. I brought my bike and gear, but didn't end up riding because I was cold and, let's be honest, intimidated.* But while I was checking out the course I started talking with another woman racer. Two weekends ago was her first 'cross race too and she proudly confessed that she came in dead last. She raced with one of the Chicago teams and said that before this she had been doing Ironman triathlons. I can't remember now why she switched from Ironmans to cyclocross racing but she said 'cross was kicking her ass and triathlons were way easier. Of course, since I didn't come in last in the last race, this made me feel great; perhaps I too could race in an Ironman.
Anyway, the point is 'cross racing is fun and if you get a chance you should try it.
This morning I woke up early and then went back to sleep and had a horrible dream. I won't go into details but the best part about it was the spider crawling up my arm. It was set mostly in my grandma's bathroom and let's say I was working through some identity issues.
*I also came home sick, but at the time I couldn't tell if my throat was sick-sore or sore from yelling so much while ringing a cowbell.
To battle my melancholia this evening I headed over to the grocery store* to buy some "cheap-ass wine" for dinner tomorrow night. The melancholy was perpetuated by the rain, nothing that needs to get done right away, and general lonesomeness due to spending most of the day reading** with intermittent cleaning jags. Walking to the grocery store was refreshing so I decided to extend my walk. After reading Rebecca Solnit walking makes me think about what I'm trying to accomplish. After a couple of blocks I decided that tonight I was trying to walk away from my current life problems and though about how easy it would be to keep walking and walking and end up like Walt Whitman or John Muir.*** Like a movie unfolding, it's easy to let my imagination get the better of me while walking and listening (thanks Leah!).
Headed home Emmylou Harris started playing and I decided that it would be a good idea to listen to Wrecking Ball from start to finish while drinking the left-over white wine and perhaps crying. That being said, it was a good evening to be out and alive.
*Not the Sunshine. **Perhaps things I shouldn't have been reading. ***Too many PBS documentaries.
