Fight and nonsense left in me.

The best thing I can do for myself is to ride a bicycle. Once again, I took several months off. I was on sabbatical. Drinking a lot and waking up past noon. Got a nice new bong, but that's just bragging. 

During the month of August I got freshly excited about bicycles, and fortunately for me this coincided with a lot of money coming in from self-employed pandemic unemployment. Wow, they dumped a lot of money on me. I bought bicycle parts, a bong, and a new laptop that I'm typing on right now. I also paid off my credit card, which shouldn't have had a balance anyway (whoops), AND saved enough money to do another Trans-USA bicycle tour in 2021, variables permitting. ALL GOOD.

I gained 30+ pounds since this time last year by being a loaf and pounding down chips and wine. That'll do for awhile, but now I'm trying to reverse the tide. A bunch of other variables play into what-all I've been up to, but for the sake of simplicity, here's where it stands: I stopped riding my bicycle, now I am riding my bicycle again.

I'm still tired. I rode my regular loop earlier, and I'm starting to feel my body come back online after dormancy. That pandemic money also afforded me a Wahoo Roam GPS bicycle computer, and I can report that it is a device which enhances ride enjoyment. I get to race against my former faster self during sections of the rides which I revisit regularly. It's fun to get my ass kicked by myself while I'm out there by myself.

This bicycle I'm riding... a bicycle I only finished assembling for myself about a week ago... is excellent. I built up this one, and re-worked my Roberts road bicycle as well. I have other bicycles and projects in addition to that, but it's too much for the purview of this update, the purpose of which is to simply demonstrate that I am alive and I still have a little bit of fight and nonsense left in me.

Checking in

Checking in. Doing fine. Hard to know what to report when everything is in flux. Hard to know what variables are important - which changes might be important later in life. I'm seeing a new person, and it's going really well. I'm working on finding the right combination and dosage of medications to do... better. I'm still looking at improving my sewing skills as a bridge toward a different and better future. I'm currently freshly obsessed with bicycles, and trying to get more of my projects into an operational mode.

Living with my mom has been nice and pleasant and easy. We get along well, and we both have plenty of space in this big house. I'm trying something new. I've been transforming the room where I sleep into a place that is mine - making it match my style and what I want. In past times, I have always been too distracted with planning my next escape, leaving no time to arrange my surroundings to fit me, because what is the point if I'm just going to leave again? This time I am here for awhile, and for now this room is mine. 

In the same vein, I've set up another room as a big sewing room for me and mom. I built new tables with insets for our main sewing machines, and I built dedicated tables for cutting and ironing. I've been too distracted with bicycles to use and appreciate the sewing room, but the day is coming soon, and the room is very ready.

I have too much to share about thoughts and the specifics of the projects I've been working on. Maybe I'll get to that soon. At the heart of it all, I know that I am still just a little bit crazy, and I will probably always be searching for a way to fit myself into the framework. 

Sewing a handlebar bag

@pixie_morningdust:

Projects; none in particular.

I have a lot of cold irons that fell out of the fire. I'm going to stick around Pennsylvania for awhile, and see if I can heat up some projects and ideas. Living with my mom has been great. Slowly but surely I am floating to the surface; grasping reality once again. Bullshit! I am, however, having fun.

Some shit I've been up to:

1) I recently started paying attention to my book selling business again. I need money to do cool shit and stop being scared of running out of money. I'm going to sell books online. I'm really good at it. Problem solved.

2) Last night a person who I've been seeing, Laura, stayed over. I drank a bunch of chardonnay out of a box, and then manically proceeded to show her my condiment packet collection as it currently stands. I have disorganized boxes of packets, and unopened correspondence dating back to 2016. We opened the letters, and I semi-organized my inbox. I had about 25 unopened submissions which included some incredible condiment packets from around the world. What a relief it is to take stock and know where I stand with the collection. Now that I am living at the headquarters of The Condiment Packet Gallery for the foreseeable future, I intend to make an update to the website soon - condimentpacket.com

3) Me and mom joined a quilting club called "Quilts for Kids." We went to our first meeting and it was great. I met a person named Marge who is active and interested in every imaginable aspect of textile arts. We talked for more than an hour. I had many questions, and Marge had many stories and ideas. There were maybe a dozen people at the meeting, and I feel comfortable there. I want to make friends who use sewing machines, and everybody in attendance absolutely does.

4) I am designing and building a living space in Kennett. I am attempting to create a small sewing studio where I also sleep. I bought a queen sized mattress that folds up. I make my bed in the morning by folding up the mattress so it doesn't take up over a third of the entire available square footage of floor space. When I get sleepy, I unfold the mattress. The mattress is on the floor, and that is how I like it.

This is a good time in my life. When I arrived back in Pennsylvania, my brain was bashed apart. Sometimes I am worried about the tenuous relationship we have with the universe - feet on the ground; heads in the stars - it can stretch and pull a person impossibly thin. Recently, I have found comfort in the advice of Pema Chodron to embrace impermanence. Right now my thinking is that I would love to live with my mom in Kennett and stop thinking about other geographical locations. If I can walk slowly through the small daily tasks to reach intermediate and long-term goals, I can resume travel in a year. But Chris... if you are reading this a year from now or more... I hope you are calm, and I hope you are excited to be alive, or maybe about a project in particular.