the reasons have all run away, but the feeling never did.

MMI (milwaukee messenger invitational) was last weekend and a whole lot of damn fun. the philly kids arrived into chicago on thursday night and we bbq'ed in their-and the 80 degree weather's--honor. friday we left soon after work and arrived at the double door. once proceeding to the uptowner, i feared for a simple repeat of the year before: blatz pitchers, dance parties and too much smoke. yet, we ended up staying at pete's and somehow it turned out all the better. being woken up at 8:30am by a 4 year old dancing around could be an annoyance, but somehow pete's daughter just entertained us all morning, climbing in jeff's lap and telling all sorts of stories. we blew her mind with gender norms after she called nico a girl and tried to tell us what a "boy" was, and what it meant to be a "girl". after pete's wife anna, cooked us all breakfast, we headed to breakaway to register and were some of the first ones there. luckily that meant we had plenty of time to look at the map and plan out our routes. allison and i decided to ride together and once we started the race from the highest point in mke, i realized it was the best decision. we kept having to reference the map, but i think we chose a really good route and kept on the move. first checkpoint: newspaper stacks up and around the hill. 2nd: round trip to the court house to "file". down south to mke bikes over terrible pot holed streets and back up to breakaway to receive four more stops. overall it took us about 2 hours with minimal stops and back tracking. unfortunately our biggest turn around happened right at the end and we were beat by about 5 seconds by a local mke girl. shoot, but 21st and 22nd out of 115 riders isn't bad, neither is 2nd and 3rd girl. after party was at the high hat again and we hung out for "bag beers" until we cleaned them out. back to breakaway, drinking outside, and then headed across the street for coffee. prizes at 10 yielded a wheelset to jake for ultimate DFL--leaving his manifest at base, ha. allison and i won $40 and $50 respectively in addition to some other small prizes. lots of pbr out of hidden bags and convincing others to drink from bendy straws. back at pete's, we made pb and nutella sandwiches and stayed up way too late talking. much mellower than the drunken snow storm of 2009 though! sunday dawned bright and sunny--out to polo, back to a 17 person brunch courtesy of kevin sparrow and back to polo for free pizza and beer. i love that sunday afternoon was drunker than most of saturday night--cream cheese fights and too much yelling. sunday santana killed it. especially on the way home when he held onto my hood after he ordered one of the new KFC monstrosities. oh boy. arrived home to drink more mad dog, eat soy ice cream and watch xfiles to only fall asleep on each other. i love out of town weekends.

i've been real tired lately and spent most of last week trying to catch up on sleep. saw dani scoville while she was in town and took her out to skylark (yay!). girls bonding at ruby's, garden day at thomas street and partying with ira and andrea, baby shower/fundraiser for an awesome new dutch bike. sundays always destroy--biking shape does not equal soccer shape, ow. but, outdoor soccer season started. im playing with magnum again and we won our first game 3-1. the opposition wasn't particularly ept, and i probably need to step up my soccer skills, but it was a lot of fun just to get out in the rain. be active despite the weather. shakespeare night with lots of cookies and onwards to emo night. so much singing and demanding earlier get up kids and kind of like spitting. monday mornings are overrated, but better when monday afternoons are spent in wicker park and wrapped up eating a spagetti dinner with friends. tuesday, i spent with claire watching more xfiles (they're finally on watch it now, what do you want?!) and eating too many girl scout cookies. today, dylan and i cashed in on free food and beer (even free matilda!) at the new blue frog location (apparently dropping adolfo's name gets you places?) after work, so rad.

with the beginning of summer, (but i guess, "summer" it tricks you like that) everything was supposed to become more accessible and attractive. it's always supposed to be easier, right? i realize how often i do this, romanticize things without a clear realistic vision.
but there has been a lot of recognition of my habits lately. my patterns really--how i need to stay busy, because it's really the only way i'll ever maintain the motion to continue. inertia. or seeing that often the things i desires/admire in other people are qualities i have strived to be/assume in the past and not been able to achieve. that for how much whining i've been doing, that it really comes back to being self actualizing. going out and gardening. organizing rides, and inviting other people to come along. brewing, sewing, making mix tapes, and generally being involved in the DIY scene, and generally things that have nothing to do with bikes.

it's funny to how often things my mom told me are suddenly relevant in ways i never realized. like it was great to hear at the time but i never fully realized their import or truthfulness until i've matured enough and now begin to actually understand. she's an amazing fucking lady and i think it's some ways why i never want to be a mom, i don't think i could live up to it. we were talking the other day about the possibility of grad school in my future. suddenly i have been thinking about going back to school, these past two years have given me enough distance that I have come to realize what I would really want to get out of school instead of knowing that I can totally skate by, but getting As and Bs doesn't mean that I'm actually making it worthwhile, or learning skills/information that I will actually continue to maintain outside of a classroom. i voiced a worry that if I didn't return to school until i was 25, and then not out until 27, that i will just feel so old to only finally begin a career then (which i clearly would not be, but planning my life out that far is terrifying. i revel in my youth.) she referenced that in actuality, it might be a better time, since most everyone in our family are late bloomers--that while being together and productive in most manners, we're pretty emotionally immature. only recently have i started to be able to be "adult" and cope with these things on an age appropriate level. it's just puts it in a different perspective for my mom to articulate that, and then realize it in context--that my dad went back to school and then was hired for his "serious" job at 27. my mom went back to school at 35. katie buckled down and went to nursing school. maybe i'm finally at a stage where school and planning for a different lifestyle in the new few years is positive and timely.

i was talking to nico the other day: especially when work becomes super rote, you really have to take a step back and re-evaluate your job and your reactions. in particular, i was referencing how ridiculous it is that i sometimes need to hear jose be a jerk on the radio to truly realize how petty and silly i sound when i brattly object to riding an extra half mile to a pick, taking a route i don't want to with buildings i don't like, or generally being unnecessarily rude. especially when you finally are acting more professionally and reasonable, and your dispatcher hooks it up with totally killer car work that the other bikers have never received. in all, my job is pretty sweet and it's easy to lose sight of that. less so now that the weather is picking up, but its always good to keep it in perspective.

and so on. i've just trying to write more, i think it helps me sort things out in ways i never can otherwise. cathartic or not, i just think providing a semblance of structure to my otherwise larger incoherent thought process is personally productive. maintaining at least a vestige of sanity, ha.