five things, &c.
Aug. 15th, 2012 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sbearbergman 1) I am bicycling. My good zevinboots and my beloved husband ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ishai_wallace conspired to get me a new-old bike, a bike that in Toronto is known as a vintage Gazelle and in Barcelona is still somebody's old bike. It's a classic Dutch cruiser, ridden upright, with a chain cover to keep your suitpants safe from the inner workings and three speeds (flat, very minor incline, and minor incline) that Zev bought in Spain and flew over at the beginning of the summer. His heroics, as I believe he calculated, have prompted me to really give the damn thing a good try (I'm afraid of city cycling and generally disinclined to exert myself anyhow). I sort of like it. Traffic scares the bejeesus out of me, but I am learning to cope and finding it relatively pleasant to be able to have a quick cycle to places that would otherwise be an annoyingly expensive transit trip or a really long walk.
1.5) Central to my growing bicycle pleasure: learning to loosen my grip (on the handlebars; evidently I clutch them like a drowning man and stress out my entire upper body) and riding slow and steady, as the bike was designed to do. It occurs to me that there might be a metaphor at work here. Or a life lesson, or something.
2) I have, as of today, a new intern. She is very smart and I am overjoyed. Things are going to start getting done with a quickness now, oh boy.
3) It's so odd how some parts of my complex and variegated work are so easy for me to do, or fun, and some parts I just cannot seem to bring myself to do - and I have no idea why. I could walk out the door in five minutes and address a crowd of 500 people, no problem, on any topic that I usually speak about. Shirt, shoes, off I go. If I need to print a contract and put it in an envelope and put it in the mail? It can take weeks. Weeks. What's up with that, I ask you?
3.5) Actually, scratch that. No, I don't.
4) It feels very back-to-school-sy around here, since my SALM has started his fancy new job and I have a week-long residency quite early in September. Not entirely, but rather a lot. I feel like I should be sharpening my pencils and writing my name on a new Trapper Keeper.
5) There's a bit in Hanne Blank's little limited edition (75 copy) book, Inappropriate Crush, where the narrator of one story orders a Trapper Keeper off eBay for the express purpose of doodling her crush's name on it. It kind of made my heart go zing!. Romanticism is well-combined with stationery supplies, don't you think?
5.5) That link above might actually be the last unbought copy of Inappropriate Crush which, let me tell you, you'd be wise to snap up. It's such a satisfying little book of good things.
5.6) I have #44.
zevinboots and my beloved husband ishai_wallace conspired to get me a new-old bike, a bike that in Toronto is known as a vintage Gazelle and in Barcelona is still somebody's old bike. It's a classic Dutch cruiser, ridden upright, with a chain cover to keep your suitpants safe from the inner workings and three speeds (flat, very minor incline, and minor incline) that Zev bought in Spain and flew over at the beginning of the summer. His heroics, as I believe he calculated, have prompted me to really give the damn thing a good try (I'm afraid of city cycling and generally disinclined to exert myself anyhow). I sort of like it. Traffic scares the bejeesus out of me, but I am learning to cope and finding it relatively pleasant to be able to have a quick cycle to places that would otherwise be an annoyingly expensive transit trip or a really long walk.1.5) Central to my growing bicycle pleasure: learning to loosen my grip (on the handlebars; evidently I clutch them like a drowning man and stress out my entire upper body) and riding slow and steady, as the bike was designed to do. It occurs to me that there might be a metaphor at work here. Or a life lesson, or something.
2) I have, as of today, a new intern. She is very smart and I am overjoyed. Things are going to start getting done with a quickness now, oh boy.
3) It's so odd how some parts of my complex and variegated work are so easy for me to do, or fun, and some parts I just cannot seem to bring myself to do - and I have no idea why. I could walk out the door in five minutes and address a crowd of 500 people, no problem, on any topic that I usually speak about. Shirt, shoes, off I go. If I need to print a contract and put it in an envelope and put it in the mail? It can take weeks. Weeks. What's up with that, I ask you?
3.5) Actually, scratch that. No, I don't.
4) It feels very back-to-school-sy around here, since my SALM has started his fancy new job and I have a week-long residency quite early in September. Not entirely, but rather a lot. I feel like I should be sharpening my pencils and writing my name on a new Trapper Keeper.
5) There's a bit in Hanne Blank's little limited edition (75 copy) book, Inappropriate Crush, where the narrator of one story orders a Trapper Keeper off eBay for the express purpose of doodling her crush's name on it. It kind of made my heart go zing!. Romanticism is well-combined with stationery supplies, don't you think?
5.5) That link above might actually be the last unbought copy of Inappropriate Crush which, let me tell you, you'd be wise to snap up. It's such a satisfying little book of good things.
5.6) I have #44.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 05:11 pm (UTC)Your bike sounds delightful. As does intern.
I want an intern. Or an au pair. Or both.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-15 06:20 pm (UTC)Oh Ghod, I SO FEEL YOU there. If it is any consolation apparently this is Not Just Us? - I guess a lot of people have trouble doing the very small daily things (one writer called them the "broken shoelaces") but can handle bigger ones no problem. I have no idea why. It's just so frustrating. I wonder what psychologists think about it.