writing

Most of the Movies I’ve Seen in 2021

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

One can easily find lists of movies about bicycles; I don’t have much to add to that. That wacky coronavirus pandemic stage went down to 3 but is really 2, I’ve been vaccinated and wear a mask (except on the occasion I get popcorn), and theaters have large seats spaced far apart, and attendance has been low. So I’ve ventured out to a number of movies that aren’t about bikes. I watch plenty of shows and the occasional movie at home, but there’s nothing like seeing a flick on the big screen, especially with a friend. We’ll be living with this stupid virus for probably a long time (for reasons we all know about), so it becomes endemic. We can cower in fear or live our lives and trust science and take reasonable precautions. Because like the Jeff Garlin (The Goldbergs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Our Man in Chicago) posits in the independent film I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, a life without cheese, or movies, is not worth living. So here are a few thoughts about most of the talkies I’ve seen this year.

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Herculean Habits: Regular Routines or the Struggle of Streaks?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those nights when a sensible blogger who is not feeling well skips writing; instead, she/he/they takes a bath, drinks some sleepy tea and reads, or gets under the covers early. Lucky for you, I never claimed to be sensible. (I also didn’t say whether that is good or bad luck. It’s your call if you’re feeling lucky, punk. Well, are you?) Anyway, I’ve been writing daily since January 1, 2018, either in this blog, a journal, or my memoir. It would be easy, but not at all simple, for me to just skip a night. But so far, no matter how badly I might feel, I write. So, here goes un poquito blogito.

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Writing a Book Is Like, Hard, and Stuff; A Partner Helps

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 6 Comments

My bicycle memoir, a book that’s been in process for several years now, is going like my bike rides — ever so slowly, relatively speaking. I like to blame the Writers League of Texas revision class teacher’s fault for blowing up my structure. It was 24 chapters over two years; she said ditch that for hanging things on half a dozen or so major events. The League director pretty much said the same. So not only did I write it, go back and revise it, then try to have some beta readers look at it, now I have to go back and re-re-re-do it? Apparently, yes. But I may have found a shovel to start digging myself out of this hole. That shovel is actually a person. I’ll explain.

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Q3 2021: Third Quarterly Report of My Bicycling and Other Habits

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 3 Comments

Now that we’re 90 days from the end of 2021, it’s time for my third quarterly report. July, August and September are the hottest months in Texas, and that heat and stupidity tend to slow most dudes and dudettes down. (I meant humidity, which with the heat tends to make one stupid.) But, I never claimed to be smart, so I have gone on a bicycle ride every single day of the pandemic (and for a while before that). Regular readers know I’m like only 50% of that Cake lyric: “He’s going for distance, he’s (not) going for speed.” On top of that, I take a walk, do yoga, and got myself into some other daily activities, practices aka habits. Sure, it was stupid hot (though not as bad as last year), and I do not bike fast. However, although I don’t get a cent from it, you could say I’m in the bicycle riding business. And business is good.

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Thoughts on Reaching 600 Blog Followers and 50,000 Views

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 16 Comments

These two statistics appeared recently in my WordPress statistics page. Thanks to everyone who’s signed up as a follower on WP or by getting emails over the last 2,050 days. It’s not a big number when looking at bigger sites, but I’m no celebrity, so that’s to be expected. Of course the vast majority of followers (90%?) don’t read much or at all. But I am also grateful for all the views. That works out to be 24.4 view per day, which seems like a pretty incredible number given that some days it’s far less than that. Included in that number are probably all the times that I’ve looked at the blog myself. Nonetheless, these are milestones along the road and worth pointing out.

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What I’m Reading in Summer 2021, by A Dude Abooks

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 6 Comments

People ask me what kind of business I’m in, and I say books… and business is good. OK, not really. I’m just an amateur still working on mine. Well, maybe I’m an unreliable narrator because here I am yet again, writing another blog post instead of doing revisions. A new writer friend who’s also working on a memoir whom I met online first at a Writers League of Texas event invited me to a coffee shop. He asked me why not pause the blog to focus on the manuscript? I said that wasn’t a bad idea but that I can’t seem to quit blogging. Maybe he’s right. Or not. Because any guy who suggests meeting in a suburb called Pflugerville (the p is silent), but who doesn’t drink coffee and knows I don’t either, must be a little touched in the head. Just kidding, it was a pferectly pfine pflace to pfontificate about the pfiner pfoints of pfublishing and such.

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Writers’ League of Texas Summer Writing Retreat

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 6 Comments

For those new here, I’ve written a manuscript. It’s about the period covered by the first two years of this blog. It took a year to write the book, alternating days that I write this blog. Another year passed while I edited it. I was sitting in a virtual drawer for a while, then I found a couple of people to do beta reading. While that process continues, this opportunity came along after I recently joined the Writers League of Texas. Membership has its privileges, and one of them is discounts on programs like this class on revision. (Many are free.) Although not cheap, I realized it’s a bargain and that I couldn’t really afford NOT to take the class. Although the goal — to write a book — was accomplished, if I ever want to get this book done and out into the world somehow, it’s going to take a lot more work. After all, as they say, writing IS revising. I’m thinking of it as an investment. Who knows? Maybe it’ll make me some money some day. (Unlikely, but possible).

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A Blog Post About Something, but First…

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… lemme tell you about my day. A Tuesday, it ’twas. And boy, what a doozy! Actually, it really wasn’t that much of a doozy. I just enjoy using the word doozy. Which makes me think about whoopsie daisy. Can you have a doozy of a whoospie daisy? Or a whoopsie daisy doozy? wonder if anyone has ever written those two sentences. Probably, there’s nothing new under the sun. Oh, yeah, you’re right: tell you about my day. Speaking of the sun, it was hot. It only got to 98 degrees, so that wasn’t a doozy, but I did get dizzy on my walk. I went over to the Orifice Despot to make some copies. I was standing at the copy machine, makin copies. And I printed some things, too. Well, the copy machine did. It’s like a transformer, it turned into a printer, though I noticed no changes. And then I walked home. Even hotter. And then…

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What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing Your Blog

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

You know how sometimes actors will look into the camera and talk to the audience? It’s called “breaking the fourth wall.” Well, this post is similar to that. I’m pulling back the curtain to say, sort of like when you’re out on a long bicycle ride and your body just isn’t up to the task and you turn to your fellow riders (or yourself) and say, “I just don’t have it, today, mates.” Everyone has off days; nothing wrong with that. We’re not human bicycling machines. (Yet.) Sure, I could come up with something bike-related, or talk about some picayune detail of cycling, but I’m just going to go wherever this writing about not knowing what to write takes me. I don’t know what you do when you don’t feel like writing your blog — of course, you do you. But I know what I do: I write my damn blog.

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