what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

time flies

Put this sign in the driveway with an ad on craigslist at 8am. Got two responses within 15 minutes and a few more later in the day.

The West Seattle Bowl lane #29 sign has a new home

66” x 44” x 18”

free is free

King Candy 

candle holders

retrospects

taken out of context

put back in situ

resource utilizations

freewheeling freewheel

gear inch calculations

off the chart

run the numbers

connect the dots

JB Weld gray

skies are gonna 

clear up

put on a

happy face

photo lifted from the Radavist readers' rides division, which is my favorite part of that site. I could care less about all the latest gravel bike shit. 

But I'm into bikes like this, bikes that get ridden. Bikes that "look shit enough to be worthless to the untrained eye" 

I dig the photos and the owner's descriptions too

this 1988 Raleigh is spot on

bow down to Washington 

bow down to Washington

mighty are the ones 

who wear the purple and the gold

The lyrics tweaked only slightly over the 110 years since it became the official You-Dub fight song

Ye olde school 

UW goes back to 1861 

“Bow Down” came along in 1915

I’m not a real dawg, I just roll around on a purple & gold bathtub on Jerramy Stevens Way and Okanogan Lane the wrong way all day

You must have me confused with one of the four other 55-year-old bald neurodivergent electric ass Mr. McFeelys rolling around on purple & gold bathtubs…

You must have me confused with someone who gives a shit

You must have me confused with someone who went to work today

Waking up

on time 

normal time

hardwired

look at the clock 

the clock’s not there

flip on the lights 

lights aren’t there

eek out email

trees down all around

Sound Transit

shit show

trains are fucked 

two hours late

hurry up & wait

in the dark

can’t quite kickstart

circadian rhythms 

wielding weakass flashlight

but no coffee

don’t even 

think about it

say no go 

phone it in

call it off

call it

feel like shit

the morning after

Bomb Cyclone Day

The Escape to Everywhere by Paul Hederman

found this book in the free library. it found me actually

The gist of if it is:  be here now. 

We’re all rewinding, replaying, regretting the past, the shoulda-coulda-wouldas and or fretting the future, the what could be, the what might be, the maybe.  We’re focusing on what isn’t, missing out on what is. The ISness.  The here. The now. 

Same old shit, easier said than done. But Hederman simplifies it and describes the same things in a few different ways:

When there’s an entertaining, “I’m not that,” you can experience a pause, a timeless moment in a linear time frame. That’s a pause you can live in. Live AS. It’s not something you can attain. It’s always available.  

That pause. That gap. That’s the ticket. 

And it’s not about taking another yoga class or following another guru. It’s in you, or it’s all around you. and try not to take yourself too seriously

 zenbitchslap  

here and now boys

here and now

repeated repeatedly by the birds in Huxley’s Island

'Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

Charging rechargeable lights again and again and again. I’ve been there, done that. Living at this latitude for 33 winters. But this one feels darker for some reasons that we don’t need to talk about. Sprinkle in lyrics to taste. 

You call it.

A  postcard.

that which we call a postcard

by any other name

would smell as sweet

127% post-consumer

upcycled scraps

the Cat in the Hat dictionary

keeps coming up Milhouse

tragedy or comedy

purple or gold

heads or tails

heres or theres

flip a coin

call it

pick one

or the other

or    both

two sides

of the same coin

as if          it’s 

if and only if

mutually exclusive?

maybe

maybe not

sleepover

leftover

overstock

s u r p l u s

50 cents each

I’d buy that

for a dollar

plus tax

bow down

to Washington

state sales tax

as I did

done that

happy

go lucky

tragedy

comedy

bifurcated

point of view

coo coo ca-choo

Counting in alphabetical order

Eight

Eleven

Five 

Four

Nine

One 

Seven

Six

Ten 

Three

Two

translated from the

Tilsa Otta original 

Contar en orden alfabético

Cinco

Cuatro

Diez

Dos

Nueve

Ocho

Once

Seis

Siete

Tres

Uno

This is not AI generated

it actually exists in real time and space

1 Dollar Store skull

2 Archie McPhee finger hands

Position just so on a scrap wood shelf painted red.

Let stand at room temperature for 7 years. 

Add dust to taste.

What are you looking at?

Take a picture.

It lasts longer.

slicker ‘n snot on a glass doorknob

Last rainy Friday afternoon I was standing on a very crowded train watching youtube clips of Vision Quest and texting them to Timmy Jimmy when I leaned back to take a halfass load off on the accordion section of the train car near the bike hooks when the soles of my gold stripe Messi Sambas approached a 0.000 coefficient of friction in the puddles of rain water puddling and suddenly I slipped down into an awkward akimbo and said “shit” and when I stood back up upright the security dudes nearby said “you OK?” and I said “yeah, it’s slippery” and they said “very” 

just add water 

The Tuesday before that I stood on an overly overcrowded train platform watching the sign saying the next southbound train was 25 minutes away. Twenty fucking Five minutes. I thought for a moment or more like stewed in my own anger and then returned to the surface of the earth and started riding my bike home. My 27-pound 43-year-old single speed. Across the U Bridge, then under the freeway to Boylston, past Craig’s old house, Melrose, through Cool Guy, past Six Arms, up to 12th, then all the fucking way up and over and all along Beacon way way down to Othello and Renton Ave South where I rejoined my regular commute route. It seemingly took forever to get home, sweating balls.  I was cooked by Capitol Hill and I didn’t even stop for a beer. It reminded me of how much I’ve become a train rider with a bike and not a bike commuter. A heavy old single speed, giant backpack full of books and magazines and random shit, two hoodies layered upon layers, wearing a winter weight wool Double Darn cap under a bucket helmet. None of it designed for a 15 mile bike ride, all of it set up for a train ride between two little bike rides.  

sometimes you're the dog

sometimes you’re the hydrant

In other news I was staring off into space this afternoon when Robin Williams entered my brain with the recollection of the time I saw him downtown on 2nd Ave, he was alone waiting to cross the street, I was alone, a disgruntled legal messenger on a bike, and we made eye contact. I gave him a subtle messenger chin tilt what’s up, he gave me a smirk, and in that 0.67 seconds it was clear he knew that I knew that he knew what was up with bikes, cycling, cyclists, bike racing, performance enhancing drugs, Lance, messengers, commuters, sweet steel bikes as well as avoiding looking directly at life in general with whatever distraction happens to be handy. 

subtle chin tilt up

those in the know  know

Reinventing the wheel

building a better mousetrap

greater than sliced bread

thinking outside the box

pushing the envelope

into a new normal

Bob is your uncle

like a fish needs a bicycle

the check is in the mail

climb on the bandwagon

drink the gravel kool aid

in a $400 technical flannel 

all sixes and sevens

nineteen to the dozen

dollars to donuts

fuzzy-wuzzy shilly-shally

bringing sand to the beach

one size fits all

Walt Whitman

his bike is large

it contains multitudes 

order of operations

precedence

parentheses-brackets-braces 

chicken lips

radiating from the source

the eye of the beholder

count to seven

en Español

try turning it OFF

then turn it back ON

Joanne brought cupcakes

they’re in the breakroom

correlation is strong

but   no go causation

don’t even think about it 

say “no go”

climbing that hill

just to roll back down

cycling in the

margins of futility

SHAVE  &  A  HAIRCUT

TWO  BITS

that seven note musical

call & response couplet 

blasting from the front rotor

of the electric ass bathtub

left hand feathering 

the caliper just so

more amusing than a

gas powered leaf blower

pedestrians alarmed

agitated and appalled 

it’s not for you

it’s amusing me 

repeating repeatedly

repetitions in the rain

cycling in the 

margins of futility

me: Mr McFeeley

laughing deliriously 

is it raining?

easy, ready, willin’, overtime

where does it stop?

where do you dare me

to draw the line?

Seeing the same thing

Three different ways

Saying the same thing

Three different days

same on the weekends

as the rest of the days

Same postcard

Different filter

Same silkscreen

Different hoodie