There are a lot of great blogs out there on the Innertubes that deal with a whole bunch of interesting topics, including quite a few I compulsively read whenever I accidentally open WordPress Reader (during the school year, OMG, do I ever try not to), which always results in a clicking cascade and a four-thousand-tab browser session and huge black rings under my eyes and a huge drop in my GPA and — wait, no, that last one hasn’t actually happened yet.

Since I have essentially nothing of my own to write about this week, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write a little about what other people are writing about*. As such, here’s a very short list of a few of my favorite blogs, in no particular order: not, by any means, all of my favorite blogs. That would take too long. Just a few. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I do, and come to hate loving them because you lose hours and hours of your life reading them, just like me.

• Adult Beginner:
  
  The best little Adult Beginner Ballet Blog right here on WordPress, Adult Beginner tells the tale of a courageous costume designer who made her first foray (or perhaps her first chassé) into the ballet studio as a grown-up. She’s a talented, funny writer and apparently also pretty good with a pen and some Prismacolors, so check her out!
• Cycling in the South Bay:
  
  Wanky is a gem. He rides and writes, as perhaps you might have guessed, primarily in that fabled land known as The South Bag, far away on the Left Coast. The scope of his oeuvre ranges from the sarcastic to the sublime … mostly the sarcastic, but if he’s as good at riding bikes as he is at sarcasm, I hope I never go toe-to-toe with him in a bike race — because, seriously, if there was a Sarcasm wing the the Louvre, I am pretty sure Wanky’s work would be hanging in it.
• Steve and Jon’s Best Things:
  
  Steve and Jon are pretty funny guys and they write a pretty funny blog. Their blog is irreverent and far-ranging and … um, did I mention funny? Oh, and manages to be at once broad and topical … because it’s about, you know, best things. Like it says. And it’s a pretty great blog about best things. Maybe even the best blog about best things, and certainly the best blog about Steve and Jon’s best things.

So that’s it for this episode of My Beautiful Machine: Blog Roundup Edition. Maybe I’ll make this a regular feature, but since when am I that organized?

In the meanwhile, give these folks a shot. They’re pretty great, and much more content-rich than my blog is this week.

Notes
*…HOW FAR DOWN DOES THE RABBIT HOLE GOOOOOOO????

I am absolutely certain that I will have hilarious tales of falling over mid-sous sus useful and enlightening thoughts on technique to recount after class tonight, so for now I am just posting this week’s Monday weigh-in.

After much prevaricating around the shrubberies and adjusting for initial scale-related follies earlier in the year, which at one point led me to think I had lost more weight than I had, it turns out I’ve somehow lost nine pounds this year.

This means I now weigh 165.0 pounds. For those of you playing along in the UK and, you know, the rest of the planet, that’s 11.78 stone or 74 kilograms.

Depending on whether I am 5’8″ or 5’9″ (which never seems to be entirely clear), this means my BMI is either 25.1 or 24.4 (what a difference an inch makes…). Regardless, I suppose this means I am basically done with the “being overweight” phase of my weight-loss journey and on to the “chubby only in the insane worlds of ballet and cycling” phase*.

For what it’s worth, while I am very much a supporter of the “don’t deprive yourself of the foods you love” plan, a week of eating rather better than usual seems to have finally given me the push to get off the 166-lb plateau I’ve occupied for, like, six weeks now (not that I’m complaining). I haven’t been depriving myself, just partaking in smaller and less frequent indulgences. Same number of calories, different outcome. Perhaps I’ve just been burning more than I realize, but the outcome is unexpected.

My dietary shift, in turn, has resulted from plastering my refrigerator door with pictures of David Hallberg and Daniil Simkin like a thirteen-year-old girl plasters her middle-school locker door with pictures of OneDirection or whatever the boy-band-of-the-week is. Or, at any rate, that has been a contributing factor.

The dancing hippos are there to remind us that nobody can tell you what you can or can’t do … and also because they’re cute.

So there you have it. I am not sure I’m going to start posting my weight every week, because I am really far better at maintaining than I actually want to be, and that could make for a really boring series — but we’ll see.

‘Til later, keep the leather side down.

Notes
*I am a chunkier dancer than I am a cyclist, possibly because ballet is even more insular, alien, and intimidating-to-the-average-Joe than cycling is.

I must make a confession, so here goes:

I am a horrible runner.

This isn’t to say I have a terrible, flailing, inefficient stride or anything. I mean, I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but my basic run mechanics are okay.

It’s just that, well .. I’m slow and I’m somewhat out of shape (amazing how one can routinely ride pretty serious distances and still be unable to put in a decent time on a 5k!).

As a kid I was a good runner (though patently awful at pacing myself) until about fifth grade, when my asthma suddenly decided that my running days were pretty much over. Before I could get it under control and get back into running, I got into bikes, then walking, then bikes again — and then, for a while, into running again, when I had a big dog and lived near a reservoir with a nice trail around it.

Then I moved back to the city, and my big doggie stayed in the country, and I had no doggie to run with me, and I didn’t have any nice trails nearby, and kvetch, moan, whine. You know the drill. And then I got back into bikes again and running, well, just kind of slipped off the radar. In 2013, I went on a grand total of one — yes, one — run. One. Oh, wait, maybe two. I think Michelle and I went running once, but that might actually have been in 2012.

It wasn’t that I didn’t intend to take it up again. Just that … you know. I’m, like, a cyclist. And running is dangerous if you’re a cyclist. It’s, like, a gateway sport that can lead to, you know … swimming. And Triathlons. But most importantly, running can mean carving time out of your cycling schedule, and that’s just … you know. Wrong.

I’m joking, of course.

Mostly.

The past couple of years, I’ve felt the running bug acting up again. Thing is (and I realize that admitting this might lead to the loss of my Cyclist Card or whatever) I actually like running. I joke that I could never be a triathlete because I like running, riding bikes, and swimming, and most triathletes seem to passionately hate at least one of the three. I have always found running a very satisfying activity: meditative in its own right, and well worth doing. I just haven’t done a very good job making it happen.

This year, I decided to think about why, and I realized that part of the problem is simple: I stink at running. I stink at running even more than I stink at racing bikes.

Then something changed. Some little part of my attitude, somewhere, decided that it’s okay if I stink at running. I mean, it’s not like I have anything to prove, right? And running is one of those sports where everyone is ecstatic for everyone who finishes a race, which I think is awesome (there is less of that in bike racing). And also the only way to get better at it is to, you know, go out and do it.

Moreover, at least a few of us refer to running as “the sport of truth.” There’s no coasting downhill; there’s no picking an easier gear. There’s just you and your legs and feet and whatever’s under and in front of them. So, basically, running gives you a really keen sense of where you are fitness-wise. If you’re struggling on a climb, you can neither spin the granny gear nor mash the big gears ’til your eyes bleed in hope of making it to the top faster. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, so to speak.

So I have decided to go ahead and stink at running. My schedule this semester allows me some non-commuting days (two per schoolweek for the first six weeks, then three thereafter), and I think that rather than riding on all of those days, I’m going to start out by running on two of them. The goal will be to build up to running three days per week; maybe more if the bike schedule and my overall health will allow it.

I don’t mind being a horrible runner. It’s funny how that works. I know I’ll get better at it, but if I’m never awesome at running, that’s fine. I can go on being a terrible runner, maybe even get myself a t-shirt printed up with some dinosaur-esque Linnean sounding name that means “Terrible Runner” on it.

Today is a run day. Wish me luck.

The Karakoram made its appearance last Thursday. We had a snow day on Friday, so I set it up and brought it outside, but I hadn’t yet inflated the tires properly.

Today I gave it some air and took it for a quick little test spin down the driveway, around the cul-de-sac, and back. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll take it to school; perhaps not.

It’s a nice bike: mannerly enough for my off-road trepidation, but also sporty enough, I suspect, to romp a bit once I build more confidence. The fit is quite nice. At first I thought I might want a more upright stem due to my pathetic little T-rex arms and short upper body, but now I think I’m going to keep the set up as it is. It is decidedly more upright than the Tenacious Tricross (and of course far more so than the Fearsome Fuji) without being a mamachari. Not that I’d mind something mamachari-like (but with gears, because my neighborhood is what it is) in the stable.

I will try to take pictures of it soon. Today the light is perfect but I am missing my mojo, evidently.

Tomorrow is my final final. After that I just have to submit a bunch of stuff for my Research Methods and Statistics class — sort of a final project thing — by Friday evening. Then I can get back to being a homemaker, spoiling the cat, and perhaps doing some riding just for fun on the Marvelous Mountainbike … errr … Crankin’ Karakoram? Big Bertha?

Who knows. I’ll come up with something to call it.

Timothy is captaining a gravel ride out in Commiskey on Saturday. I’m planning to hitch a ride out with him and to take the Karakoram. It will be fun to see how the new bike handles on the rough stuff, not to mention discovering whether or not I’m capable of making it go respectably fast. Given the fact that it has a saucer-in-front/dinnerplate-in-back gear combo and 100mm of travel up front (should I need it), I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to ride it up walls and over all kinds of stuff.

This depression is still doing a number on me, but I am doing what I can to mitigate its effects. Denis helps immensely, though he constantly feel as if he isn’t doing enough. The difficult thing about this particular depression is simply that I feel dead inside. I just feel sapped. I have not lost the knowledge that there are good things in my life and things in my future I should be excited about; I am just not capable of being excited.

Still, I am glad that I have bicycles, because riding helps keep the worst of it under control.

Now I need to go clean my kitchen and figure out what to feed my husband.

Stay warm (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and/or cool (if you’re in the southern hemisphere) and keep the rubber side down.

because I live in the grip
of the longest and fiercest depression I’ve suffered in years

because I’ve tried most of the drugs
and every last one of them failed

because I keep hoping
that this will get better

because I am losing my grip

because I lie awake nights
tormented by memory and music

because I am ready to let it all go
and each little failure feels like the end of the world

because I have never been late
and now I am late all the time

because I am starting to lose all I was, am, and will be
because all that remains is a falsehood
because the thoughts have returned
because I keep putting a brave face on it
muddling through

because I am certain
that nobody knows how I feel
not anyone
nobody

because I have made my own bed
and now I must lie in it

I am writing this

one last pronouncement
one last provocation
one last desperate lurch
one last plea for pardon
for a commuted,
a transmuted sentence

now

before the teeth of the winter close in
before nightfall
before the end of all things
and in the face of the Ruiner that reigns
in the face
of the wild joy—
almost forgotten—
of being

next week
next week
please, dear G-d,
let next week be better.

(Sorry about wonky formatting.  I don’t have it in me to futz around with the CSS that drives layout on this thing right now.)

Yesterday I went to the grocery store. While I was busy doing so, Denis took a side trip to K-Mart.

When we regrouped, he discovered that I had purchased a bag of frozen scrambled egg patties and looked at me as if I’d grown another head.

What surprised Denis was learning that I didn’t realize that I could very easily make eggs ahead and freeze them myself. Huh. Go figure. You just put a bunch of eggs in a muffin-top pan and bake them. The nice part is that you can use local eggs and you get to control what goes into the patties (which, in my case, will be eggs and … well, eggs).

Anyway, I’m now in the midst of researching the best ways to create make-and-freeze breakfast sandwiches, since I am evidently summarily incapable of getting my act any more together than it already is in the mornings (briefly summarized: I like to get up and head out the door in 30 minutes or less; if I take longer, I dawdle, get disorganized, and make myself late). This means that I frequently run into breakfast-related logistical issues (which, admittedly, are sometimes solved by Carnation Breakfast Essentials, but I’m trying to eat real food in the mornings now).

For a while, I compensated by buying our extremely-cheap breakfast stuff at school, but apparently other people have discovered breakfast, so now it takes too long. The frozen patties mean I can nuke a couple of eggs and whip up a sandwich in about a minute and a half, which is great, but apparently it’s really easy to make entire English muffin sandwiches and freeze them, and then you just nuke the whole thing. Sounds like a good deal.

In other, more topical, news, today was a better day on the bike. A guy I’ve ridden with a few times here or there caught me on my homebound commute and we spanked along at 20 MPH or so for a few blocks until he had to turn off. He’s one of those super-fast junior racer types, so that was cool.

The momentary effort reminded me that the way to regain speed, when you’re recovering from an illness or whatever, is to go fast. This isn’t rocket science, and yet sometimes I forget anyway.

Anyway, this is the first evening I’ve been home alone in quite a while, so I’m going to go see if I can beat the kitchen into submission before Denis returns from helping his brother get a new business launched.

If I’m not back in three weeks, send a search party … and, of course, keep the rubber side down.

• Finding a working pen.
  Seriously.
  If this is Step One in your plan for the day, and you’re relying on the Plan to get you through, the Plan unravels.

  Fix: Stock working pens ahead of time, somehow.

• The Kitchen.
  The kitchen is pretty much the bane of my existence when I’m depressed. Our kitchen is tiny. We have very little counter space. Dishes piled in the sink drive me crazy. This means it takes approximately two meals (assuming I don’t have the wherewithal to clean as I go, like I do when I’m not depressed) to turn the kitchen into what feels like a hopeless wall of chaos.

  Fix: Suck it up and do one-pot meals out of boxes or microwave meals and so forth for a while. There are enough reasonably healthy options that you can do this for a while. The world won’t end. Better yet, if you can afford it, eat out and let someone else do the work. The goal is to survive. You can get back to home cooking and optimal nutrition once that’s settled.

• The broken pedal on the Road Bike.
  The Road Bike has been a litany of disaster lately. The crankarm continues to behave, but I somehow hosed up a pedal on its most recent ride. The little clippy binding part got flipped somehow. I’m pretty sure it’s repairable, but the idea of messing with it makes my head want to explode.

  Fix: I don’t know. New pedals, keep these as a backup pair? Just put MTB pedals on for now? Pay someone else to fix it? Just ride something else until I’m better? Normally, I’d go out and give it the old college try. Right now … I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Obviously, it could be worse. I am managing to get out of bed in the morning (after reading until my eyes bleed). I am feeling decent enough to understand that there’s humor in the fact that being unable to locate a working pen feels like a huge insurmountable problem. Today I took a bath.

I am finding motivation to do things that require minimal effort and minimal concentration. I did get out on the bike and pick up some groceries, though it was a much more difficult task than it should have been. I got easy food: packages of noodle things to which one needs only add water; steaks that are already thawed; 30-minute marinades; a couple of ham steaks; a thing of “Artisan Lettuce” (a concept that makes me giggle when I’m not depressed; right now, it just makes me angry).

I also got some Kroger brand Instant Breakfast stuff because eating in the morning has become a problem again, but either it tastes weird or my sense of taste is hosed. Or both.

Edit: So the packages of noodly things are quite good, if not 100% optimal nutritionally. They’re the “Bear Creek” brand, on sale this week at Kroger. I made the creamy chicken orecchiette kind last night and added a metric boatload of frozen peas — I love peas in noodly things — and the end product proved pretty tasty and pretty filling. I think I’m going to pick up a bunch more of these on my way to drop off the Tricross for its fall tune-up. Meanwhile, the Instant Breakfast stuff tasted weird because the milk has prematurely gone off, which I noticed this morning (I opted to eat some of the orecchiette for breakfast today instead). prefer almond milk anyway, so I’ll pick up some of that, too.

Today, the Tricross goes to the shop, in theory. Wednesday I plan to take Denis out for a mid-week date night, since he flies out on Thursday for Burning Man. There are people around if things go south for me while he’s away. Also the cat.

We’re doing a populaire this weekend (Sunday, I think?). It’s time to start thinking about fall gravel races and ‘cross (or not). I think I’m going to plan to do the local brevet series next year. The 200k should be no problem; I think the 300k will be acceptably doable; things will start to get harder at the 400k mark. Still, it would be really cool to get a 200, 300, 400, and 600 in in 2014.

The fact that I’m able to think about this stuff is a good sign.

Keep the rubber side down.