whisky on a sunday.

tricked ya. nothing to see here.
although. . .
my roommate was asked an interesting question by a kid at work today: "have you ever gotten so soaked that you fell asleep?"
now, i'm assuming that he means soaking wet, as most children ar sorta innocent and as such, don't know too many multiple-meaning phraseologies or terms, but it's possible that the child's parents refer to a state of drunkenness as "soaked". in which case, the child would seem prescient when he asked "Since you have you've been immersed in sleeping?" OR, he could be speaking of fiscal "soaking". i am most definitely guilty of sleeping away my financial woes. most certainly, if that is the case, if this mythical child were to ask me "Because now you have been immersed in the bed?" i'd hafta say "yes".
of course, my roommate reports that the child in question was staring absent-mindedly at the rain, so, most likely anyway, he was speaking very literally. and no, i have not been "so soaked that [i] fell asleep".
i am, however, ready for bed, and will fall in shortly. tired, two beers and some cheesecake my coworker made (while stoned off his gourd at 4 am this morning) for my last weekend in ballard. "Immersed in your bed?" why, yes!!
confidential to "cx weight weenie in gloucester": most cyclocrossers wear their girlfriend's underpants.
or as the popular search engine would have me say, through macedonian and japanese, "cyclocrossers wear most of the girls in their pants."

all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

i've been deleting parts or all of my posts a lot recently. maybe it's the rain "warshing" my bitterness down a little bit. i do have an "outloud bitter" thought: why are gillian welch, buddy miller and chris stapleton all over nashville recordings, but none of their own music, which easily eclipses the bulk of nasheville country, is ever played on nasheville radio?

anyway, my clutch blew out this morning. maybe that's what got my crankypants all atwitter. the best part of this is the timing. i won't miss any work, but i did miss out on getting "freshies" in october. and hadda get all wet and cold in the rain while tryna fix it and failing miserably. (i say miserably cos i was miserable, not cos the failure was any more "epic" than any other i accomplish on a daily basis.) which is why i'm writing this at 2.36 in the afternoon, clad in pajamas and wondering if it's too much effort to put on socks to go into the kitchen to try and find a "snackx".

speaking of "snackx", i'm signed on to provide mechanical support for the WA State Cyclocross Championships in a month. as such, i'm polishing up my pretentiousness, my pretentions and my fake belgiumness. i already genuinely like heady "belgium style" beers, so all i gotta do there is buy a bunch. i like "frites", so maybe i can jack some "potatoe steezx" from my "parentx" and make some aheada time. the problem i'm going to run into with this endeavour is that 'cross folk tend to like things that don't actually work, like tubular tires and cantilever brakes. and riding skinny-tyred road bikes in grass and dirt and--their favourite--mud. and carrying their bikes rather than riding them. they even seek out bikes that are easy to "portage", with top tubes manipulated not to be lighter or faster or stronger or geared (heehee) toward a more comfortable ride, but to not hurt the shoulder that's carrying the bike. to me that's like having a car with wooden wheels, metal straps for tread, a drop chain for a brake, a 2 cylinder "model t" engine but with really big, easily accessible tow brackets. i tend to enjoy riding on nicely made and maintained singletrack trails that feature good drainage--little or no mud--and no grass--ever slipped on wet grass? i do all the time--on bikes equipped with tyres featuring lots of tread--traction--and hydraulic disc brakes--stopping power. i tend to ride my road bike off road only while drunk, something i've been skipping for the last four years. too much damage possible. the other way i differ from "'crossers" is in our idea of what's fun and what's stupid. riding an ill-equipped bike in mud and racing only in fall and winter when the weather sucks and the trails should be left to slowly fix themselves is stupid. riding up to and over your pain threshold is stupid. riding yourself into oxygen debt is stupid. riding a bike that's specifically designed not for ride quality or traction but for "portageability" is stupid. cyclocross is based in all of those things and its disciples rave about how awesome, and indeed fun, every part of it is. they talk about "pure sweet hell" (and make pretentious "films" in black and white and washed out, 70s-quality "colour" called "pure sweet hell") and how all that suffering is "glorious" and how "the muddier, the better". i'm also imagining how a "convo" with a distressed (like the jeans!) 'crossdresser would go:
(them in quotes and me not so much)
"can you help me?"
[me shrugging non-commitally]
"my damn tire fell off!"
maybe you shouldn't rely on your own crappy glue job, or for that matter, glue. i don't glue wheels together when i build them.
"um, okay. but can you put my tire back on?"
nope. not worth my time to learn. people who actually ride bikes don't use tubulars, ergo, i've no experience with them.
"um, okay. what do i do?"
go cry inn your beer?
or
whatzup?
"my brakes don't work."
is it muddy?
"yes."
do you have shitty cantilevers cos you decided a discipline whose arbitrarily arcane and difficult rules useta mandate an archaic brake design was awesome?
"yes."
wait. why do you expect your brakes to work in the first place?
or
"can you make my shifters work?"
are the cables covered completely in mud?
"of course! IT'S 'CROSS SEASON BITCHEZ!!!"
(much like the brake argument.) why do you think your bike will shift?
or
[walking around the pit before the race]
why ain't y'all runnin cascadia fenders? it'd keep you and your bike way cleaner in all this mud and grass. plus they got nice beaver tails to keep the spray down so you don't get anyone behind you all dirty. all them roadies that do the chilly hilly have em. or at least imaginatively beaver-flapped full coverage fenders of some kind. i mean, have you seen what all this shit will do to your drivetrain?
at least i'll have an excuse to get all shitty at 9 in the morning.

tidying the basement with the VELVET COWBOY

A terrified high pitched whinny rends the air, as the dusky stallion named "sooty pants" discovers something Horrible WHOOOAAAAAA there ssssooooty britches. Whoa gal. Whats making your single working eye roll up in yur head all terrible and yeller that way? ..... it was the Scrabble box, covered in MOLD.

i've been called bitter before.

i had this long rant set up, but then i decided it was too long and ranty. i'll paraphrase it: "mayor" mike "mike bikes" mcguinn can suck my b*^^s. i then hit the "next blog" button a couple times and there was "princess amy's hideout". lots of shit about the "new moon saga" and eminem's "best new song ever made". hm. i tried to listen to it, but apparently these things magically disappear. something about a faery sprite named "viacom". or something. there's even "twilight cupcakes". weird.
i then kept hitting the button like a rat hooked up to pleasure electrodes. all i found were "family" blogs. scary amounts of baby pictures and oversharing. i'll paraphrase: "i have pop-pop in the attic!" i don't get it. why would you want to expose your kids to the world at large? it's scary enough in our little enclaves.
it's now 12.12 in the am. ima keep being up cos i ain't been up this late in a long time. one blog had the headline "we finally made it!!!!!" with lots of pictures of the arkansas state line sign. "the natural state". scary. i think our blog somehow got collected in the wrong "blogosphere". one blog is talking about her ivf and bfp. i don't even know what those are. i have a bike. "i have a belly button." i wonder what justin townes earle is up to?
oh yeah: i voted last week. i probly didn't sign my name right again. i got a letter from king county after the primary saying i'd given them an "incomplete signature". who do they think they are? i can change my signature any damn time i please. incomplete? how do they know? do they have cameras in my room? bugs in the attic? the best thing about the letter from the king county voting whatever was that it showed up the day they wanted to hear back from me in letter form. efficiency!!!
i think it's time to go sleep in my empty bed. the woman next to me is in portland for a few days. it's kinda lonely, but nowhere near as much as when i couldn't say anything about the woman next to me.

silence is puce

I rescued SheWhoMustBeTexted's cat from up the apple tree in the back yard last night, about 9:30PM, by the method of climbing the tree in the dark and (sort of) throwing him down.  I would like to point out that I am 52 years old.  Miffed-ness gave me supermoeman strength.  After that he was extremely grateful for 15 seconds (shown in kitten-almost-cat language by winding around and around my feet causing me to trip and curse 5 times).  I wasn't miffed at him, but at SWMBT, who had refused to be guilt tripped into coming home and climbing the tree herself, even when I texted her the Pathetic details.  In fact, she texted back "it sucks to be him".  So I figure he is MY cat now, and I have renamed him to  5-spot.  "Oreo" is a stupid name.  When I am feeling affectionate, I call him 10-spot.  If you count every spot on him, he actually has 9 spots, but if you count his butt (ahem) it could be 10.

Yesterday at work a deputy told us a story that started out "I did not think it was a very good idea for 2 white officers to go to a mostly black part of Portland and take money from an Ethiopian restaurant."  You are probably saying "WHAT???" same as I was.  It was for a civil suit or debt collection or something and involved 2 twin midgets in Rasta hats being very mad, and the deputies only getting $34 because that was all that was in the cash register.  There are a lot of puns that a person can make about this but I feel a little bit cautious and will not.  (or 2 little bits cautious.)

the maples have just turned green. Just turned green maple trees.

for most of the summer the maples outside my window were a kind of purple. when the sun finally came out in late july, they started the slow transition to green. by september, they were fully green. now in mid october, they are wandering to a rust brown colour. where did all this time go?
early this afternoon we took a hike up the hill at crystal to check out a studio apartment in the tony "gold hills" neighbourhood. it was sunny. i liked it. i want to ride my bicycle. i got a new "jersey" (okay, carhartt t-shirt) in "hunter orange" so i can rail through the green line and mima-porter trails at capitol this weekend. looks like rain.
Summer, most maples outside my window was a kind of purple. When the sun finally came out in late July, it began the transition to the green is slow. By September, they were completely green. Now, in mid-October, they lost the brown rust. Where is all this time?
Crystal in the early afternoon on a hike up the hill to take out Tony "golden mountains" in the neighborhood, check out the studio apartment. Baked. I liked it. I want to ride a bike. On the capital this weekend to a new "hunter orange" (the right, Carhartt T-shirt), "Jersey" green line, and Mima Porter tracks, so I can take the train went through. It looks like rain.

i've been checking out the arapahoe and loveland basins websites a bunch recently, in addition to geeking out over the new-to-me "goooooooooogle" translate function. they compete every year for the "honour" of being the first in the country to open. it's kinda funny, cos they're pushing around all kinda fake snows. the woman next to me is taking a nap. i find all this rush to be open on crappy snow somewhat decadent, but i guess that's what you do in CO. i'd be happy to do the same. i'm not above skiing on corn flakes.
I am, "goooooooooogle" geeking for me to translate the new features, as well as a bunch of checking the site recently got a swimming pool Loveland and Arapahoe. They open the first country to "honor" to compete every year. cos somehow managed to fake snow all around, kind of funny. I was cut to a woman. I have a bad day all the snow and a little decadent in a rush to find an open, happy to do the same, but the CO to do, I think. I am skiing corn flakes.

the chickens and rooster and chicks are outside making noises. this is kinda soothing, though it's 5.39 in the evening. i got a new "powder magazine" yesterday, and it is good. there's a picture on the cover of some dude in southern utah gettin sicker in the sunset. i like sunsets. i like snow. i like gettin sicker. i have eight days of ballard work left before the winter, then on to the mountain. i'm afraid of paying rent if we get the place we looked at this afternoon, but i want to live there cos i could ski to work.
the hens and cocks and cock outside noises. It's kind of welcome they have 5.39 in the evening. I have a new "powder yesterday, and it's good. This is a picture on the cover of a dude in southern Utah gettin sicker in the sunset. I like sunsets. I love snow. I like gettin sicker. I work eight days before winter Ballard left, then up the mountain. I'm afraid to pay rent if we live in the place we saw this afternoon, but I like cos i to go skiing was able work.

outside it is getting more sunsetty. the neighbours moved, taking "puke-bark" with them. it was a sad move, cos they tried to sell their way out of foreclosure, but they were unable to. as the sun goes down, the light gets kind of wistful. the new gondola at crystal is kinda comical. it's almost winter and they aren't all that close to being done. there's a celery seed bottle in the window next to the "bag balm" jug. i like jugs of juice. especially orange juice and pomegranate juice. now the sun is set, and it's getting dark. the chickens are running around frantically eating before it gets sleepy time. "nubs" the rooster is flapping his wings.
He gets more sunsetty. With them - were neighbors "to vomit in the shell," it takes. That they had to sell their disposal, was a sad move, but they failed. Even as the sun, the light gets kind of nostalgia. The new gondola is a funny long crystal. Almost winter, so I'm not close to being done. Next to the glass bottle jar celery seeds "bag balm." I like juice jugs. Especially pomegranate juice and orange juice. Now the sun sets, and it's getting dark. It's time to sleep before you run around like crazy chickens to eat. "Nubs" is a chicken wing.

my coworker "steve" got chicken wings the other day. they were pretty tasty. sometimes i hafta poop. ooh! more sun just came through. musta been clouds i couldn't see. i know how to ride a bicycle. bicycles are fun!! i have laundry to do. byebye!!!
My colleague Steve "Chicken wings are the other days. They were very tasty. Moon, and sometimes absorbs. ooh! Only Sun has suffered more. I saw the clouds should be. I know that ride a bicycle. velo is fun! I have a car. Well-goal!

mass quantities of small green apples-- i have climbed up a tree and saved this post stuck there since 7/14/10

A reader writes:

"Knit five purl five, dude.

Why did most of the apples fall off the tree in my new back yard while they are small and green, making me bien triste ?

And some of them have small horseshoe bite marks??

Which is eerie because chickens don't have teeth and cats don't eat apples.

?

I am from France."




Moe, you are not from France. If you are not biting those apples, then I'm gonna have to say that opossum or your teenager is. Somebody at the library is saying "hi" and waving at her computer screen over and over. She does not smell funny. She looks young and Japanese. Doesn't "hi" mean yes or else no in Japanese?

STOP WHISPERING!!!!!!!

i've been feeling quite a few nostalgic bits of late. last week the amtrak made a booboo and blocked up all BN rail traffic in the sumner/auburn/puyallup/tacoma area and i hadda ride from auburn to puyallup. not a generally dificult task, maybe ten miles or so, but it was at night and the east valley highway is surprisingly terrifying in full dark with no real headlight. the oncoming traffic blinded me and the potholes came quick and deep and playing dirty. anyway, i rode as fast as i could to sumner, where i filled up my water bottle at the main street dairy freeze. worked next door to them three years ago for two months before being "layed of" (fired). on the way into puyallup, i passed our old headquarters, "free latte's" sign replaced by a "free lattes" sign, but otherwise the same. (i keep getting almond butter on my fingers.) though my bike is different, it was nonetheless a bit jarring. living there is one of the few truly comfortable times in my life.
anyway, fall is definitely more easier to crock up all the old stuff. leaves and apples and pumpkin beer and all that.
i had a customer this morning who was tryna be real friendly like. a somewhat paraphrased "convo", her in quotes, me not so much:
"hi!!!!"
whatzup?
"i think i have a flat tire maybe i don't can you look at it how are you doing?!!!"
eh.
"what do you think is my tire flat can you put air in it how are you doing?!!!!"
it looks fine. let me put air some in.
"how are you doing?!!!! IT'S A REEEEEAAAALLLLYYYYY NICE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!"
i shut off after that.
a customer from yesterday, after she fell off her bike in the doorway:
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!!! I GOT OFF TOO QUICKLY!!!!" thankfully, she din't "conque" her head or nuthin.
there's a smashing pumpkins song off of "gish" on the "mix" just now. it's pretty much warm and fuzzy. i need to cut my fingernails. i just hung up three pairs of bike shorts. i'm mad at my coworker "tone-deaf" right now cos he misordered a pair of shorts for me. he thought i was an "XL"!! to quote taylor swift's current "blockbuster", "can you believe it?!!!" speaking of our current pop-country-crossover-annoying-perfect-young-woman phenomenon, i'm tired of having her shit stuck in my head. my roommate from montana just exhorted my roommate from taiwan to "come into my healing ward". i should include that they are playing warcraft. not the one where you make "avatars" to fight other "avatars", but the wizardy one that people useta play in college way back in the day. now i'm listening to rod stewart. "maggie mae". i like "almost famous". kate winslet was good in that one. have you heard of the new movie "red"? seems like "green" would be a better grossing movie. cos of all the "sustainability" bullshit everyone's spewing right now. sustainable like "building a 'green' house in a converted swamp using 'sustainable' lumber from 'replantable' forests". i think if i made a "colour movie" right now, i'd call it "chartreuse peuse". cos that'd be awesome. now ima write a sentence and translate it using the "popular search engine" translation method.

"i spotted a murder of crows eating from a hammock and licking their wounds." becomes "Chova see amok in a food undo cuts kill". no period. that one was like through like 8 languages and back. "to make your shock's pressure higher, simply make pump with hand." becomes "Easily carried by hand pump, so the higher the shock pressure" again without a period, this time simply from english to japanese and back. "please observe the crossing the crosswalk rules before crossing the crosswalk." becomes "Please follow the rules, because it is through the corridor before crossing the aisle." when translated from english to greek to arabic to russian to indonesian to japanese to traditional chinese to icelandic to english. "when the levee breaks just got cut off. poop." becomes "It is simply closed the dam breaks. Yes", again missing at least one period, when translated from english to japanese to basque to greek to german to english. "please do not sample the potatoes in country." becomes "Please do not try to country potatoes." when translated from english to danish to japanese and back to english. this is fun. "ima keep this up till the woman next to me gets home from work in seattle." becomes "Now home to keep until the woman next to me, out of a job in Seattle." from english to japanese to croation to english. "what does 'jesus freaks/ out in the streets' mean?" is "Jesus' Devil / streets "mean?" english, hindi, english. "if you run into the wall, don't blame the wall." is "Do not blame the wall in the wall.". english, latin, galician, thai, english. "go to the store to get beets, mangle-wurzle and catastrophic insurance. i want to go to bed and sleep and listen to august and everything after." is "Go to store beets, the pound Boogbeg - wurzle and disaster insurance. I do not want to go to sleep and sleep and listening to August and everything after." english, finnish, welsh, thai, english. "i'm kind of delirious with tired." is "I'm kind of tired with delirious." english to arabic and back.

suffice it too say that when it comes to playing "telepherique", "gooooooooooooooogle" ain't got shit!

2 months is a long time.

in that time i've accomplished many things, including becoming a french "shef", learning how to "sale" and learning how to "ride" my bike "uphill". right now, "tha" woman beside me is working out. i figured i'd do the same. since i'm the modern equivalent of a cross between hermes and hercules, i figured i'd collect some random thoughts.
firstly, i'm only a few weeks away from being thirty (well, 8 months and change). this is a few things for me. scary, interesting, boring, frightening, relieving and the like. someone once told me that "23 is the last time i felt young." interestingly, she still works at the same albertsons thats she worked at when she was 16. i saw her the other day, and i think she recognised me, but i said what i usually do. ". . ."
secondly, it's snowing in some hills. this is happy-making. granted, i saw snow in the wallowas in late august, but still.
thirdly, i'm listening to a bob marley song. haven't "purposefully" done that since "gradumeticulating" from green river gator college in 1932. it's kinda nice.
fourthly, october is been okay. my seattle roomies kicked me out back in september, and i've been crashing in rural not-tacoma-and-not-puyallup. on a small plot with chickens. that make soufflés for us. and find time to procreate. the chicks are now just small, chirping chickens and maybe a rooster, but they're still way cute.
fifthly, my seattle roommates kicked me out in late september. this is now a good thing, early frustrations aside. i've been riding my bike 30 miles a day, 3 miles of hill at the end of the day inclusive. i look like thor hushovd winning the rainbow jersey (go norge!!!!!!) except for the paunch and "moobs" and "foo mann choo" that he is sorely lacking and the '90 schwinn tempo with "downtoob shifties" where he's on the newest cervèlo sprinting machine.
sixthly, i miss mighty-o doughnuts. and elysian pumpkin beer. and feeling underdressed in every situation. (well, maybe not that last one.) and mighty-o doughnuts.
seventhly, i'm getting a new cousin-in-law. i'm sure i'm sposeta be stoked, but this is getting old. most of my cousins are married. i have fewer and fewer of my 38 cousins to commiserate with over the unfairness of the tax code and the "groutness" of gillian welch. granted, i've never done either of those things with my cousins, but time is running short to do so.
eighthly, i like eggs. eggs are good.
ninthly, last week, i rode a buncha bridges out at black diamond that have previously stymied me. i felt like darren "bearclaw" barrecloth getting sicker thirty feet over some tabletop throwin down a sick superman seat grab. and not crashing like he did so righteously in "seasons".
tenthly, we've been "slaying" some "sick edits" at the shop for a couple months, such as the above-mentioned "seasons" and the other two collective edits, some DH racing flicks from "britton" and some "freeride" edits from "new world disorder". i can now define the "freeride mountain bike seen" thusly: "it's gnarly, bro, gnarly, gnarly, gnarly." totally pro, indeed.
eleventhly, i kinda like lucinda williams. this has been hard, cos i still hate her voice. but she seems honest, whether she is or not.
twelfthly, ich habe viel hunger. ich muss abend essen machen.

cheese, beer and doughnuts!!!!!!!