Dead Letter Office

Wow! What a beautiful day. A cold front blew through around noon on Saturday and the weather today is down right pleasant. This is what we call "patio weather", meaning it's not too hot (or too cold) to find a spot on some Mexican food restaurant's patio and sample the margaritas.

I rode Saturday morning and barely managed to squeak in 30 miles before the front hit. Got rained on just as I loaded up the bike and headed home. Sunday was cold & windy and pretty much overcast until late afternoon. I'm glad I broke the long-sleeved jersey out of storage (read that: pile on laundry room floor) because the wind was blowing right through my short one. I was able to crank out 40 miles on Sunday but not without a lot of hacking. It seems my allergies have mutated over the last year(s) and now instead of the sniffly sneezy itchy eyes/nose it just heads straight to my lungs in the form of phlegm.

As I was heading out the door on Sunday I stopped to sift through the CD pile and see what caught my eye. Found a couple of them that deserved to be back in rotation..

Currently in the CD player is: Dead letter office by R.E.M. (haven't heard that one in ages)

Others I brought along are:
The Stone Roses - 2nd coming
Anberlin - New surrender
The Lemonheads - It's a shame about Ray
The Click Five - Greetings from Imrie house

Okay, I'm kind of embarressed to admit I like The Click Five (I know, it's totally gay) but how often do you get to indulge in some good, old-fashioned "power pop"? I found this CD due to an Orlando tourism commercial they used to run on TV a couple of years ago. It was the one with the theme parks and in the back ground was a catchy little ditty about "...something something time machine.." So I googled it and then bought the CD. It really is good once you get over the stigma.

Badge of Courage (or Be it Resolved..)

I've got these brown spots on the back of my hands. They are tan lines from wearing bike gloves. They are usually more noticeable in the spring before other (gloveless) outdoor activities, such as swimming, equalize the suntan on my arms, hands and rest of my body. After 19 year of cycling I've gotten used to it, but some people make comments every now and then. Mostly guys will point out that it looks stupid or goofy, but that's ok because the chicks dig them. I'm amazed at how many complete strangers will come up and ask what kind of sport I'm into. I kinda like them. I consider them to be a brown badge of courage. Ok, maybe not courage, but certainly one of endurance.
It's been summer for about a month now. I noticed it one day when I left the house for work and instead of the usual cool mornings we'd been having the temperature at 8 o'clock was in the 70's. Overnight it became summer. We haven't had any cool mornings or evenings since. Now they daytime highs are consistently hitting the 90's. It's okay with me, though. I consider 70 degrees to be "cold".
I guess the thing about depression is that you don't always recognize it until it's over. I woke up this morning and some how things were "different", things just felt better. For the past couple of nights I've actually started having dreams again. Last night I had this big long convoluted dream about SD cards (seriously!). I'll spare you the details. Anyway... like I said, this morning things just felt different as if coming out of a fog or something. My last couple of rides had just been laborious, tedious, suffer-fests where I've barely been able to turn out 15-20 miles at a time. Today was a great day. I put in 51 miles and just smiled the whole time. I think there had just been so much negativity going on lately that it was really dragging me down. Yesterday I was resolved to not let it bother me anymore, that and the fact I quit taking allergy medicine. The allergy medicine was keeping me sneeze/sniffle/itch free but it was making me so groggy in the mornings and though I was sleeping all night I constantly felt tired and burned out. You dream during R.E.M. sleep and if you are not dreaming then you are not getting the restorative deep sleep that your body needs.