New Category!!! - Trailing Thoughts

For awhile now I've been going on these bike rides. I developed a route and according to the nearest driving directions I could get on mapquest it's about 8 miles. About half of it is on a bike trail, so the roads don't coincide directly.

I enjoy it.
Thoroughly.
There is the wind and breeze.
There is coasting down a slight hill.
There is fling down a medium hill.
There is that deepest breath that you actually push out the dredges of air you never reach in your lungs.
There is freedom and movement.

There is also a constant source of amusement. The people you pass while riding. Some walking, some riding, some jogging, the occasional rollerblader or family. I have been chuckling to myself every time at the varied reactions I get as I whiz by someone on the trail. Some people smile back. Some say HI. Some try no reaction at all, which is technically a reaction in itself. And some actually scowl at you!

the part that is most amusing to me is trying to figure out who will be what kind of reaction and being proven wrong on a consistent 75-90% basis.

I see a 'grumpy old man' and he looks up and smiles and says "Hello!"

I see a 'young hip jogger' and think she'll smile for sure, and she insistently stares directly ahead as if she has not even noticed nor acknowledged my presence.

I see a middle aged, slightly chunky woman walking and I think "You Go Girl!!"

I see a young guy on a bike and I wonder if I should even smile to begin with because this could land me in an episode of Criminal Minds with a bike trail stalker. But he glances at me, and I smile, and we both continue on our paths.

I wonder what people see when they look at me? When I am on flat, straight surfaces I lift my face to the sun and breeze just to feel it whosh past me. At random intervals, whenever it occurs to me, I take one of those truly deep breaths and cleanse my lungs. I often, and repeatedly, adjust my backside on my seat to try to minimize the discomfort on my 'sit bones.' (technically they are ischial tuberosities, I just looked it up)

Usually my conclusion, even as I adjust and breathe and ponder is that I simply don't honestly care what they think. I am sometimes curious because I think I would be amused by some, but I know myself well enough to know that more than one negative or critical reaction to me would result in another trip round Melancholy Mountain.

For now, I enjoy my rides. I ponder the mysteries of my heart and life. I intercede for the situations I know about. And I dream. I dream wild crazy impossible ridiculous dreams. Things that I am actually certain will NEVER happen, but I obsessively think, so I may as well dream, right? I would rather dream something ridiculous, like buying that 8 unit apartment building, than be so negative that I can't function in my everyday life. Dreaming, no matter how off the wall or ridiculous or enormous, is what keeps me going. Weeks like the one I've just finished, it is the only thing keeping me going. Well, that and the 5 children sleeping in this room who love me so freely and openly and fill a spot in my heart that no one else I know can even begin to touch. (Thanks Littles!!)

The Beloit List - 2011

I love the Beloit List. Love it. It never ceases to amuse and amaze me. So, today, rather than posting various oddity tidbits about my weekend, I'm going to post these. And bold the ones that resonate with me somehow. What do you think?? (Oh, and it's even better to go look at the list for 2009, our current {illustrious} graduates)

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
3. Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
4. They never “rolled down” a car window.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.
11. Rap music has always been mainstream.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
13. “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
14. Music has always been “unplugged.”
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
18. The NBA season has always gone on and on and on and on.
19. Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, and Bart Simpson.
20. Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club.
21. Eastern Airlines has never “earned their wings” in their lifetime.
22. No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
24. Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
25. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN.
26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred.
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.”
29. They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages.
30. When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
31. Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
32. They grew up in Wayne’s World.
33. U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
35. Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
37. Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV.
38. On Parents’ Day on campus, their folks could be mixing it up with Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz with daughter Zöe, or Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford with son Cody.
39. Fox has always been a major network.
40. They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
41. The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere.
42. Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
44. Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
46. Most phone calls have never been private.
47. High definition television has always been available.
48. Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
49. Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
51. China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
52. Time has always worked with Warner.
53. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
54. The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
55. MTV has never featured music videos.
56. The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
57. Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
58. They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
59. They’re always texting 1 n other.
60. They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.”
63. Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
64. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
65. Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial.
68. Burma has always been Myanmar.
69. Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.