See-through

Sigh.  I'm facing a weekend with no plans... except sleeping in.  A chance to breathe air and such.   Stay in my home.  Avoid humanity.

This time of year.

I'm exposed to too many people and their agendas.  My life, outside of dealing with increased contact with homo sapiens, stays the same.  The holidays do little to change my day to day on a personal choice level, aside from a few four day weekends that occur at a time of year that I'd rather not have four day weekends.

At work, much silliness.  Stress from the most unimportant things (to me) that are somehow important to others.  And then after work, the people are all about and in the way, mouths slack open.  Driving to and fro, visiting, shopping, celebrating.  Not paying attention to the road, as their minds are elsewhere, forcing me to be even more vigilant than normal as I ride home in the dark.  Just last night, a close call that stupefied me.  As if the driver who wanted to turn left across my path of travel didn't even see the lumens spewing from the light I just bought to increase my visibility to this degree:

Slack-jaw asshole meet curmudgeon.

All I wanna do is ride my bike in the woods at a slower pace than I was riding just a few months ago.  More trailside conversations, more post-ride beers, more of all the good things that aren't just more miles.

Nine more days until the only holiday I most like to celebrate (The Great Turnaround) and then three more days after that before 80% of the nonsense goes away.  Jesus Christ's birthday.   Yeah.  I don't get it.

And with 2015 sweeping in shortly after that, it will be time to refocus... which actually means just dig in for a couple more months of shitty weather and morning layering up and colder/wetter rides home and the only thing really changing is the kitty calendar on the kitchen wall.  So actually, a few more months and then refocus.  Until then, cookies.

At least this is close enough on the horizon that I can see its sails:

The Icycle (bike race and beer drink party).  Sure to be fun and more than likely to be regrettable.  The most I can hope for is that I'm not going into it hacking up lungs like I was two years ago.  That sucked balls.  I anticipate much funs and fewer sads than last time, and I plan on staying sober enough to maybe even make use of my new lights and have a semi-competitive run in the Hard Ass (rigid class) in the night downhill race.

And since I'm talking about racing in 2015, I might as well mention that I signed up for the 2015 King of Pisgah yesterday.

A good idea?  I dunno.  Will I finish like I did last year or bail like I did in 2013?  We'll see.

It would be fair of me to warn THE PEOPLE OF PLANET EARTH that King of Pisgah entries get you into PMBAR guaranteed, so no worries about it selling out from under you (it happens).

So many reasons to keep my head up and look through the forest of humanity to see the trees of happy fun times.