Desperate Times call for Biking

"That's the worst part about this," David said. "I don't want to leave you without the car."

"Cause I'd use it if you did," I reply sarcastically.

I don't like to drive. It's not the mechanical act that bugs me, because on an empty highway with the tunes cranked it's pretty good, and I like driving go-carts and things like that. I hate driving around other people, all of us wielding massive metal machines with just our hands, I hate driving around traffic laws, because they seem super easy to break, and I hate using a several ton polluting machine to haul my 135 pound butt a mile to pick up something from the grocery store. Seems overkill to drive in town. I'm not anti-car, they are very useful for when it's very cold, or you need to go a couple hundred miles (preferably not taking all weekend to do so), or for picking up milk, box-wine, and pizza. I just personally don't like driving and it seems the lazy option, the easy way out.

So, David is leaving for the weekend and taking the car, largely because he needs to go a hundred miles or so. Very practical. And I have some stuff I need to do this weekend and some stuff I want to do this weekend, with no car.

Challenge accepted. With my bike.

So tonight, I want to get pizza. I have, actually, gotten pizza on my bike before. So I'll be hunting down a sweatshirt I can use to tie it to my handlebars again.

Tomorrow I need to go take pictures of one of Dad's houses, but that barely counts because I could walk to that house. And then I have a work shift at like 9:30. PM. Maybe I'll stop by Bike World and get my headlamp battery replaced.

Sunday. I might be lazy and listen to the message from the Internet. Shame shame, I know. Then maybe go on a bike ride with Mom because it's actually supposed to be nice that day, and all next week (did I mention it's not going to get above 40 degrees until then?).

Also, I have a coupon for a free movie rental from Family Video, over in West Ames. They're advertising Into the Woods, which I want to see, but I don't think David would appreciate. So maybe I'll do that tomorrow too. We'll see if I get to all/some/any of this stuff. Well, I have to get to the pizza. Already ordered.

I'll be posting this after David gets back. Don't particularly like advertising I'm home alone without a car.

Update 1: I made with the pizza just fine, although some of the people waiting at Pizza Hut were rubbernecking to see what I was doing. Stripping off my sweatshirt and using it to lash my pizza to my bike that I had with me in the lobby. Yum, pizza.

Update 2: Saturday was as-planned. Light obtained. Work... worked. Ride home uneventful.

Update 3: Sunday I was lazy and listened to the sermon on the Internet as soon as they uploaded it. I did not go on a bike ride with Mom because the wind was like 30 miles per hour from the West. We went on a walk and almost became kites. For the same reason, I did not bike to Family Video. It's west.

So did I meet the challenge? Eh. I did everything I needed to do (work and picture taking). I didn't do everything I wanted to do. I guess I'll take it. It's so great to be able to bike again and transport myself again. I love Spring.

I so loved the Internet

The absolute worst part about the whole net neutrality thing is that all the people who fought for it thought they were fighting for freedom.

I seldom see a debate so skewed rhetorically and factually.

I'm a wuss

I'm staying home from work today. Well, more specifically I called in sick to my 10am shift that would have probably lasted three to four hours. And I feel like a wuss.

I remember one class in college. It was one of those dumb required one credit classes that lasted only six weeks, made you fill out a graduation plan, and you couldn't skip a single one for any reason at all. I failed it the first time because I procrastinated making the graduation plan. Which is stupid. So the second time I took it, I resolved to do everything possible and that I wouldn't miss a single class. If I got the flu and was throwing up, I figured I'd take a bucket with me and wait until they threw me out.

I didn't get the flu, or get sick at all. I usually don't, only one cold a year unless David brings back some particularly nasty cocktail of germs from a job site. He did that once and I got my second cold for that year and was sick for like a month.

And so, I'm guessing that's what I have today. My cold of the year. Which makes me feel stupid for staying home from work. Oh, I don't feel good. I don't have a fever at this point and my body feels ok overall, but my chest feels heavy, my nose large, and I have fluids sloshing around. By Linsey standards, low sickness. If I couldn't call in sick or had a limited number of sick days, I'd go to work. If I was still at McFarland, I'd go, although that tends to be sitting around behind a desk and not a highly active job like Scheman. Actually, during that month-long cold that David gave me, I wouldn't feel as bad in the mornings, so I'd go work at McFarland, and feel like crap in the evenings. I also disinfected my phone and keyboard for the next person.

But yeah, Scheman is more flexible, I say, "Hey, I don't feel good," and they're like, "Ok." And Scheman is more physical labor and I don't really want to throw around tables and chairs while I'm glued to this tissue box and keep having to tilt my head and swallow to clear my airways. Blah.

Home remedies! David got sick this weekend and his sister offered him Dayquil, Nyquil, ibuprofen, Tylenol, or aspirin. He declined. I tend to have similar propensities. I was raised with no using medicine, unless you were REALLY sick. Otherwise, you'll get over it. Go lie down. Clearly, it worked, as I am not dead.

But I do like finding things that will make you better, ease symptoms, and not have any adverse effects. For colds, I started with orange juice. Feel a cold coming on? Go buy some orange juice, drink until better. But orange juice has a lot of sugar in it, so I canned that eventually and switched to vitamin C drops, which are dangerously close to not being a home remedy, although it still isn't medicine. To be honest, if I get a cough, I get cough drops. I hate going to bed and coughing out a lung every two minutes.

In other things, which are quite possibly just placebo effects, I like Traditional Medicinals' Echinacea Plus Elderberry tea that supposedly supports the immune system. If it does, it helps, if it doesn't, it doesn't hurt.

My mom swears by Scope with hydrogen peroxide. Gargle for sore throats. I haven't tried that, partially because my throat isn't really bothering me that much and partially because I'm pretty sure my hydrogen peroxide is now largely water.

And then the other cure I've heard about on Facebook. Really, the idea of getting a cure on Facebook is disconcerting. I also got a recipe for protein balls on Facebook. But anyway, someone said raw honey and cinnamon would knock a cold right out. So that's what I'm trying right now. I Googled that looking for the graphic I saw on Facebook that claimed that and discovered that some people think raw honey and cinnamon is like a magic thing for weight loss and like 17 other things, including cancer.

Wow. Downright magic.

New Years Resolutions

I, like most Americans, I believe, made some New Years Resolutions. Mine don't tend to be anything earth-shattering and are usually a cross between goals and a to-do list.

Also, I don't usually have them figured out by New Years. I keep adding as I wish. So, my list to date:

-Floss
-Beef up
-Find my fulfillment in God
-Become a stagehand
-Get curtains for my bedroom
-Learn Krav Maga
-Read 100 books

Now that I type them out, they look weird. I put down floss because my dentist (I just started going back last year, after eight years of not) keeps making my gums bleed and says flossing would make them better. I hate flossing. It makes my gums bleed. And swell a little bit. And I have a fixed retainer, which is basically a metal wire glued to the back of my front bottom teeth. To floss behind that, I have to loop the floss around a tooth and then pull it through until it comes out of one side of the tooth, leaving it sticking out in the back, somehow grab that tiny bit of floss and pull it back until I can thread it behind the retainer. Way more work that I usually want to commit, and it takes me several tries. My compromise tends to be doing it while watching something.

Beef up is my summary of my fitness goals for this year: not gain weight (except muscle weight, as applicable) and gain muscle and toning.

Find my fulfillment in God. Uh, this isn't something I generally want to discuss on a blog. Suffice to say that in considering my plans for the future, I realize I am still not placing desire for fulfillment on the proper source, and recognize that all other efforts toward fulfillment will come to disappointment. Also recognizing that my disappointment can range from mild to explosive.

Becoming a stagehand is a rather silly goal, as all that supposedly takes is being at CY Stephens for six months and still be taking calls. So if the management actually pays attention, I should be a stagehand around March I think. I might even have another part time job in the works... how do I tell Facebook that my work includes three part time jobs and two volunteer ventures? Facebook likes to guilt me sometimes with stuff like, "Where'd you go to high school? Where's your hometown?" I didn't and I don't know. Lemme alone!

Get curtains for my bedroom. That is obviously to-do list with a loose time component. I usually balk at price tags, though.

Krav Maga is one of the best martial arts for self-defense. It can be fairly well grasped within a fairly short time period. My Marine brother said that the Marines don't use it because they wanted escalation of force, something like a three step process: Threaten, Beat Up, if necessary, Kill. Krav Maga goes straight from Step 1 to Step 3. It was designed by an Israeli boxer for use by the Israeli military. And they teach it in town. I want to know enough self-defense that I can keep myself safe. And, preferably, make the attacker regret it.

Read 100 books... Goodreads has something on their page that lets you enter in a goal number and then adds everything you add with a date finished within the year to that count. Honestly, I'm already regretting this one. Part of my problem tends to be I love rereading books. Books only count once on Goodreads, so I have to read new books. One year my goal was to read 52 books, one a week, and I got that pretty easily. So I'm like, "I can read two books a week!" Today Goodreads told me that at 12/100, I am now one book behind. And when you start looking at books just to get finished, it will push you towards short books that are easy reading, and away from difficult or longer books. I picked up a book on Queen Elizabeth (who was nicknamed the Pirate Queen) because I was interested in her rule of loose capitalism and privateering against Spain. Except I haven't been reading it since it's a long book and if I'm going to read, I've got a deadline to make. I've been judging books by their thickness, Kindle books by how many dots they have, and Audible books by time length. The Snow Queen on Audible is under two hours? Sign me up! My largest motivation for reading "God's Chisel" from the in-laws is that it is slim and with big print. "The Landmark History of the American People" will probably continue to sit on my desk. So I don't like the pressure, albeit subtle and self-applied, to edge away from big books and toward stuff like YA fluff, that I also like, but isn't terribly edifying. I said I wanted to focus on historical books and sci-fi. Which was also poor planning, as those both tend to be heavier genres as well. A better system (or one that would work for me better, anyway) is counting pages instead of books.

Maybe I'll take a quick overview of children's books. Little Golden Books are educational, right?

Prepped for something

I was watching a TV show where the characters woke up one day in their role-playing computer game. They struggled to do things like they were supposed to be done in the game, using the game system to make food, that turned out completely flavorless. The one of them had a discovery: If you use the ingredients (which tasted normal) and cooked them in the same way you would cook in the real world, had a chef subclass, and had a high enough "cooking level," you could make actual food. The people in the game adapted, and then discovered that they could go further than the game systems allowed, and using their knowledge of the outside real life, they could create things like steam engines in game.

Which makes me think to some extent about prepping. If we were stripped of all modern conveniences, like in a apocalypse, or say you were sent back to the past, how would you fair? You'd be explaining electricity and Internet to the Knights of the Round Table and they'd be like, "Sounds interesting. How do you do that?" And I, personally, would have no idea.

I've mentioned before how we're so separated from the heights of our technology and technical knowledge is very specialized.

Completely off track, but I have a quote I wanted to share:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." - Robert Heinlein

Anyway, I was wondering what I would want to bring to the brave new world as far as skills. At one point I was thinking gardening. Or ham radio. I was browsing through the wiki for the TV show I mentioned (Log Horizon - anime) to see what their "subclasses" included, things like Chef, Scribe, Apprentice.

Then I saw the one I would choose and hit on the thing I would want to contribute to my post-apocalyptic zombie fort: Brewer.

So if I want to keep working on my skills, maybe home brewing is next on the list. Although the kits look kind of expensive. I'll have to do some cost-benefit analysis and shop around.

Although I was reading this book on The History of the World in Six Glasses and according to them, people discovered beer by letting their grain gruel ferment in their caves. So I rather doubt I'd have anything to offer King Arthur if I ended up back in time.

Roadies

I am fascinated by roadies.

At CY Stephens, often they schedule calls to load in and set up a travelling show before performance. If you are signed up for the whole thing (load in, performance, load out) it can be a very long day. Especially for the big shows. I haven't gotten on a performance call yet. But anyway, a load in call needs things like electricians, lights, and your basic stagehand (me). The stagehands are basically at the beck and call of the roadies.

Most shows run with one or more roadies. These are people in the employ of the show and they know how everything goes together, where everything should go, what they need for power, for lights, for rigging. They tell us what to do and we do it. This sort of thing has a decent amount of specialized language, most of which I don't know. The most basic thing they ask is that you know your stage directions: stage left (left facing audience), stage right (right facing audience), downstage (toward the audience), upstage (away/back from the audience). When you unload stuff, they will tell you where to drop it. Often with stage directions.

Some roadies make the stagehands do all the work, some don't want any help, some are really nice and teach you and learn all your names, some have short tempers and are rude.

Roadies travel with the show. They spend long days setting something only to rip it down that night, load it back up, sleep on the bus on their way to the next show, rinse and repeat. That's crazy, I don't know if I could do that. I have moral issues with both setting and striking. I don't mind one or the other, but if I built it, I don't want to be the one to destroy it. A day off is a day of travelling. And the people that choose that life, that are away for weeks and months at a time, are going to be unique people.

The first one I worked with was a wiry guy with tattoos, glasses, a tam in Jamaican colors (possibly hiding dreads), black tank top, black Dickies shorts, reddish blond sideburns dangerously close to mutton chops. He went by the name Scarecrow.

Unfortunately they aren't all quite that interesting.

I asked and I guess there are sometimes girl roadies, generally lights or electricity.

Maybe I'll get really good at stagehanding and then I can join Jacob's band as show crew when he gets famous and see what it's like.

Small Spaces

I mentioned I have a fear of heights. That's pretty normal. Another thing people are often afraid of is small spaces. And I have the opposite of that. I love small spaces.

Forgive me, I'm writing on my phone and I can't type as fast and I have auto correct. So on one hand my sentence construction is stunted and on the other hand I may have totally weird autocorrect.

But what would the love of small spaces be? Claustrophilia? I suppose that depends on whether claustro actually means small spaces or means being confined. Not really into being confined.

I think it comes from growing up in small spaces. I rode on a lot of airplanes, with their cramped seating and tiny bathrooms. I liked the efficiency of a place for everything in those tiny bathrooms, a nook for the toilet paper, a slot for soap. We lived in small apartments at one point, six of us in a three bedroom. I actually dislike large open rooms to some extent. I'd rather read in our small study than in the open living room.

I went spelunking once. I can bravely charge into all sorts of small holes as long as I know I can get back out again. I do remember once when I was a kid and some friends were digging a tunnel in snow. Not my thing. You go in head first and you are face into a blind tunnel, bundled up in thick clothing, unable to turn around, only hope you can wiggle your way backward without space. I don't like that small space.

Basically, I was just pondering this odd trait recently. At CY Stephens, we were setting for a show and a section of portable stage from the show had been set down, and then the roadie discovered we should have shoved some plugs that were running under the stage through a hole in the stage. The roadie was standing there, stymied, and I volunteer, "I can get it." I'm not good at measurements, I don't know how big the space was, but I can tell you that out of a crew of mostly heavy a lifting men, I was one of the skinniest and smallest, and one of maybe two that could fit. The other being the skinny roadie, but he didn't seem eager. I was.

I don't know why, but that is fun.

I remember setting for a big event at Hilton once and me and another girl spent a full day running cables under a stage. My knees ached, but I loved it. I feel special being able to disappear and appear elsewhere.

So maybe I can't be an uprigger. I just need to find where we keep our crawl spaces and volunteer. As long as they aren't filthy I guess. Don't want that stuff in my hair.