Half the year’s gone, plus five days, so it’s a good time to check in with my various fitness and other habits. I wrote about my June bicycling in my previous post, June 2021 Strava Bicycling Stats. It’s been a challenging time I’m sure for everyone. There was that riot and uncertainty about US democracy itself surviving the long-needed change in presidents and administrations. The pandemic hasn’t just disappeared, thanks largely to the maskholes who think they know more than medical doctors and those unwilling to get vaccinated for usually specious reasons. The economic recovery may be great for Wall Street, but for many on Main Street, low wages that simply doesn’t pay the bills, continued exposure to the risks of COVID, competition for jobs, and problems like high cost of child care and housing, make it a difficult time. For this dude, numerous obstacles have made progress difficult, but I’ve persisted with my various activities as I am able. So here’s my update, for what it’s worth.

News flash: I rode my bicycle in June. Here’s some numbers and words about them. Also I hope you like orange, black and white, because those are Strava’s colors. It’s like Halloween without the candy. Actually, it’s like working off the candy. Great, now I want candy. I’m hungry because I rode my bicycle in June. But you already read that, because I already wrote that. Feel free to report me to the Department of Redundancy Department (thank you, Monty Python for that brilliant idea). I actually once put those magic words on the door of my office (yes, I know they are fighting words in a government bureaucracy). I was not kept around after the six month probation was ended. Just like June 2021 did. It’s over, done with, gone. You’ve heard of circular logic, like beans are a magical fruit so all fruit is beans? Well, that is not true. For me, circular logic means turning the wheels by pedaling my bicycle. Still with me? Let’s go to the numbers.

Recently I passed 600 days in a row of bicycling. I also just reached 600 blog posts. I’m 19 shy of having 600 followers. That and the Writers League of Texas Summer Writing Retreat, which has modules both on memoir (which is what my manuscript is) and revision, which it really needs. It makes me wonder if the universe is sending me a sign that it’s time to take a break and do something different. This concurrence of coincidence, symphony of synchronicity, or dance of happenstance may not mean anything. It’s just numbers, after all. But it reminds me of a poem quoted in the TV show The Mentalist, which I really enjoyed:

For some odd reason, my blog post about sidewalks and bike lanes has been blowing up. I published Austin, Texas Bike Lanes and Sidewalks: A Few Updates on June 12th. As you can see from the following statistics chart, it did respectably well but then the last two days has skyrocketed to 248 posts — and it’s still climbing. I have no idea why, not knowing how to peek behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz that runs the internet. It was an excellent post, like all of mine — literary in scope, evoking raw emotions, the gritty reality of bike life on the mean streets, but at its core a heartwarming tale of humanity.