And So It Begins

I started the day late after working on last night’s post about football and bicycling way too long.  I thought it was kinda brilliant, but I still needed to tweak the wording, add a link to an article or two (after reading them), a quote, photos, and the like.  I still question why I am blogging daily, because after a day, a whole five people have viewed that post, and of those, two liked it.  And that’s great, don’t get me wrong.  But I guess the answer is I’m doing this for me first, with hopes that some day a lot more people will find it useful, interesting, humorous, insightful, inspirational or something else good.  This is probably something many new bloggers go through. I never said I was a special — I’m just A Dude.  But hey, I’m out there stinking it up with the rest of the world, and lots of people ain’t.

Finally, after falling back asleep twice, I awoke later than usual.  I guess with my anemia, or eyelash cancer, or existential angst, I needed the z’s.  I finally stayed in a new space my landlord has offered me, a very sweet cabin behind the main house.  Unfortunately, it is rather funky and has some issues, namely too much light, noise and wind comes in.  Also, the internet is slow.  But it has a ton of space for all my stuff that’s in storage and will afford me privacy at little additional cost, so I hope I will adjust.  Considering how my previous place was literally a Harry Potteresque former laundry room under the stairs with no windows, it is downright palatial.

Still, I worry about income, being unemployed and in a city with the highest rental rate in the entire state.  I have to trust things will work out.  But today I got notice a temporary job with the City of Austin went to someone else, despite my 11 years working on a database the position would use, even though I interviewed twice for the permanent job.  I assume there is a bias against age, because I listed every job I ever had since college.  A Dude is not a young millennial whippersnapper (as evident by the use of the word “whippersnapper) anymore.   I don’t actually know why I was passed over, but it brought me down further because getting one’s foot in the door at the City would be money and a good thing.  Sigh.

Then I spoke at length with a lawyer at legal aid about helping me get a will, since I’ve never had one.  As a car-free bike commuter, I’m at daily risk of being murdered by a texting idiot plowing their car or truck over me in the bike lane.  However, even being on the dole (or as I like to call it, the Bob Dole), I did not qualify.  She advised me to make a holographic will, and I thought that would be very cool, like Princess Leia Organa’s 3-D TV message to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars:  A New Hope.  But in this case, holographic just means handwritten, which is not as cool.  Hopefully I’ll continue to not die and not need one.  Another kick in the… fill in your own word.  I could use some of that hope.

And So It Goes

By then the day was dragging on so after a meal of kale, potatoes, refried black beans, onion, Swiss cheese and eggs, I dragged to the bus, caught it to a transfer point, and walked almost two miles to Bicycle Sport Shop.  There I retrieved my raffle-wining Fairdale Weekender Archer (that I previously blogged about last year).  It received its second and last free full-tune up and I also sprang for a good cleaning.  I’m actually considering renting it on Spinlister.  One bit of good news is that BSS featured me on their Facebook page, and mentioned the Austin American-Statesman profile about me from January 15th.  People keep saying I should be on Facebook.  Maybe.  Not today.

But while there I learned that a broken derailleur really wasn’t under warrant so while they offered it for free, I kinda owe them.  Yet another of a number of unlucky news.  Not like having a bomb dropped on you of course.  That’s a real problem.  Mine are small.  But in my weakened state, I’m particularly susceptible to stressful things, cold weather, lung irritants, and of course, Tinyhands Orangehead.  He doesn’t rate his own link.

Biked over to the store for the animal heme version of iron. They didn’t have it but I bought some clams and very dark chocolate – to match my mood.  Someone had suggested I try Beanito chips as a way to have the crunch of chips but still eat whole grains. Once home after struggling to ride even a few miles, I took technically my third nap of the day.  Got up and did my half hour of yoga with one of my Pandora channels playing on the Google Home Mini personal assistant I received as a lovely gift from me mum for the winter holidays.  Google may be trying to my new best friend, except she doesn’t know how to speak Spanish, so we’re not really amigasos just yet.

Then I made a pretty good meal of chicken sausage added to heated up leftovers of butternut squash, brown rice and lentils, broccoli, carrots and onions.  I then demolished the whole bag of bean chips with my own homemade guacamole recipe.  After five weeks of virtually no processed carbs, it was a tasty treat.  Now I’m sitting here typing up this blog. I’ll probably relax with some Marvel’s Agents of Shield and whatever else is in the telly queue.  So while the day is winding down, it’s looking up.  This is a problem for when I need to be up early.  But Tomorrow is a new day.  What will it bring?  No one knows.  Well psychics and oracles do.  If you’re one and work pro bono, please tell me.

And This Story Ends Just So

Well, this post probably isn’t going to win any awards.  But since I’m writing it for me, anything is fodder.  I’m just not going to be educational, inspirational or funny ever single day.  Just because content is king doesn’t mean I have to turn myself inside out being someone I’m not, or making stuff up.  Sure, I know a lot about biking but there are other things to life.  It’s enough to just be me, and remember, like made-up TV character Stuart Smalley said before he became US Senator Alan Stuart Franken and was forced to resign in disgrace for grabbing constituents’ body parts:

“I’m smart enough, I’m good enough, and doggone it, people like me!”

How was your day?  What do you do when life brings you down?  Or your blog is not blowing up like you want?  A Dude wants to know.

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