jocks can be totally deep, man

this morning, as the sunlight projected lacy dancing patterns through the blinds, i prevaricated back and forth... should i ride my bike or not ride my bike.

it'd been 5 weeks since i rode, give or take. a sinus cold became a fever became over a month of both kz and me hacking into the night and nearly getting on the watchlist for maxing out the state limit of sudafed purchases per month.

after a breakfast of omelet and blueberry pancakes, i felt compelled to mitigate the damage with a short jaunt, and take advantage of a gorgeous day before fall sweeps in with its drain-clogging leaves, night frosts, and twinges of seasonal affective disorder.

all geared up in my embarrassing seat-crotch bike shorts and musty camelbak, i trotted down to the garage to greet fernando, my cheap and well-used hybrid of a year that i bought before i knew shit about bikes (i still really don't) when i didn't have much money (i still really don't).

i was overcome with guilt when i saw that not one, but two spider families and their gonad-like egg sacs had found comfortable real estate between my pedals and my brake cables. this was truly the hallmark of my decline in fitness over the last month or so. i literally have fucking cobwebs on my bike.

the ride went well; better than i expected for so long out of the saddle, so to speak. i contend that stationary biking and the 30-day shred DVD every other day don't count as offerings at the shrine of the god of exercise.

as i returned from my sunny 14-mile quickie, warmed up and beginning to build the sweaty limb salt crust, i was thinking about a recent discussion i'd had with kz about how exercise makes me feel, and why i find it so addictive. i was thinking about how he finds it so amazing how people do serious woodworking - something so satisfying to be done with your hands, a process so immediate and aesthetic on something natural and malleable but strong. and it made me think that i view myself as a similar kind of artisan, only i am both shaping and being shaped at the same time. and in being both the one who controls the molding and the object which is sculpted, no energy is lost in the transfer; it's my own closed system that i dictate and am dictated by every day.

so yeah, i went for my bike ride.