Winter is here.  (I think I’m going to chuck it all and start a weather blog.  Seems like all I post about anymore are the change in seasons.)

Ahem.

Today I went on a mountain bike ride without camera or effort-measuring equipment.  The trails in question were brand-new to me.  Despite the arroyo with its leg-sapping sand and the somewhat extreme up-and-down, 12 and 15% sustained climbs, and a body slightly out of shape, it went better than I expected.  There are some days in which I have no business being on a mountain bike despite falling in love with a fat tire over 15 years ago.  There are some days when a little grace and strength are granted to me and I can float and swoosh and manhandle the trail like some divine right.  Today was not one of those days.

The scenery, however, more than made up for my physical shortcomings.  (Hence the bit about being unhappy being sans-camera earlier.)  After the third lung-imploding climb, the singletrack trail ran flat for a bit and took advantage of a topo line and meandered on mostly level ground.  The sky, to the south, was in tumult.  A sustained wind blew the tops and sides from nimbus clouds trying to drop their moisture.  The clouds eventually let go, and in the intervening soft blue New Mexico sky and the buffeted snow clouds, the bright flat yellow light and the like-colored Galisteo valley rock walls, the shade and the sun, the blue and the backlit cloud-white made for dramatic vistas.

I need to remember, in my reluctance when I’m out of shape, that riding a bike on a mountain trail is not always about winning, about riding well, or even about somewhat arbitrary statistics.  Riding a bike is about being outside and being self-contained, self propelled.  Sure there’s some dirt and coughing involved when it’s cold out.  When it clicks, though – when the perfect moment comes along, when the legs are piston-like, when the wind is at your back, and the clouds and the flurries are whipping around you as you fly past a 45-foot rock wall face – it’s amazing.

And worth all the coughing.

********

I’ve been listening to Grizzly Bear a lot lately.  After an appearance with the public radio show/podcast Sound Opinions from the House of Blues in Chicago, I learned that the band leader’s parents (Parent?  Mother?  Can’t remember) were music teachers.  I found them interesting before, but for some reason that little tidbit about the band leader’s background piqued it up a notch.  I’m not totally sure why.  Maybe I have an undiscovered music geek buried deep within me.  Maybe it takes me back to the days when piano lessons/practice were tortuous and I remember my love/hate relationship with playing instruments.  Maybe the track “I Live Like You” sounds as if it was culled from a long-lost Jeff Buckley demo.  (I am a big Jeff Buckley fan.)

Also, the album, Veckatimest, is an excellent winter album.  A bit of slow dirge, a touch of chorale, and a heaping helping of SADS-induced melancholy all rolled up in a tongue-twister album title… What more could one want?

Winter.  See what I did there?

Fall is here.  Really, fall is only here by looking at a calendar – the sun is out, sixty five to seventy degree temps are the norm, and the leaves are having a tough time deciding to fall or not.  The days are shorter, yes, but only by artificial means (though you won’t hear me complain about the extra hour of sleep).

I’m afraid my long form writing suffers a great deal from Twitter/Facebook status updates.  I try to be witty, try to be informative, but thinking in that tight confine makes it almost daunting to look at a large white expanse of fresh .doc slate and try to fill it after compressing and editing everything else I type/say in a tiny text window.

Again, there are more ideas for long form writing.  Again, the daunting feeling that looms every time I put finger to keyboard.

It will come.  In the meantime, maybe more photos?

hand on the bare box

end of the novel page,

frothy sound of milk heated

moves the soft tack of scatter shot

in our ears -

earphones place calls to the little head-bobber

between the librarian and the small

child in his head,

hand on the cool

window at the start of fall,

evaporation traces dewy fingers

in the clear newly-cold

day.

Does this new Twitter poster work?  It would be kinda cool if it did.  Even though I don’t have much to say tonight.  Forgive me – it’s Monday night.  I’m just glad to get through Mondays at work in one piece.  (It’s the small things.  Really.)

I’m a little miffed right now.  I just created a post in the Quickpress pane on the dashboard and now it’s nowhere to be found.  Lame.  I didn’t even copy it to be on the safe side.

Sufficed to say, it was another tease of a post about posting more.  About setting some new writing goals despite my weird bedtimes these days due to a change in work schedule.  (Still not a morning person despite the early work hours, if anyone’s keeping score at home.)

I should stop saying/typing the word post.  It does grate after a while.

Fall is upon us here in central New Mexico.  And that can mean only one thing – more blog… entries.

(I hope.)

Old August Sunset

Summer comes to a slow, soft landing.  Again.  I will not apologize (in this post) again for not posting.  I think I will post more photos, though.

I am working on a piece to post.  It’s been ruminating for a while now, and it will commit to a blog post.  I promise.  I feel kinda dull, realizing that I haven’t posted in a while.  To be fair, I’ve been caught up in reading David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.  It’s all consuming.  I’m drawn into that world so thouroughly that I can’t really even focus on my prodigious magazine reading.

It’s that bad.

There is also the matter of what I did over the summer.  That’s on the to-do list as well.  Photos even.  Some photos, at least.

I need to stop apologizing.  I need to start writing again.  Maybe after I read a bit more of Infinite Jest…

…is still pending. I have some photos, some interesting observations, and a whole lot of riding. I’ll post something soon-ish.

This was the Sunday before last.  I was in the Euro-trash outfit, which translates to: ‘98 Team Italia jersey and iBanesto.com shorts.  Both items were bright blue.  At least you could see me, even in the sun.  Visibility is important.  Rode the Santa Fe Prison Loop, which was the first time for me.  I was speedometer-less for this ride, and it was oddly liberating.  I had no idea how fast I was going, how long I’d been out mashing the pedals, or exactly what time of day it was at any given moment.  I just counted my pedal strokes and listen to my body.  Might do a little more of that in the near future, seemed to get me focused in a new way on how my body responds to speed.

Maybe another picture later.