Randkluft and soapy sudsy rainwater

I was driving to Honey Dew today to get a delicious black iced coffee, and it started pouring. Absolutely pouring. Buckets. I rolled down my window to pay the woman for my iced coffee and I got my second shower for the day. It sucked. Anyways, I noticed around Franklin today that all the rainwater collecting in the streets in puddles or streams was soapy looking. Like someone put bath bubbles in it. I dunno, maybe I just never noticed it before, or maybe it was because it was raining pretty hard, but I've driven in rain before and I never noticed how soapy, for lack of a better word, the water on the street looked. And it was everywhere from my street all the way to the other side of Franklin.

be prepared

Hi. I'm updating again because my last update was impersonal and boring. I start my job at Papa Gino's tomorrow at 3. They want me for 40 hours a week so I am super, super excited. I have to save all my money for a place to live in the fall, though. I still have a lot of loose ends I need to tie up for next year so I can actually, like, go to school. My loan status is up in the air still, and until that is cleared I can't get a place to live because I am not going to waste money on a security deposit if I can't get loans. Everything will work out, I am sure, but just to be safe I am waiting for these loans to clear.

So to relieve some stress I am going to go for a nice, long ride tomorrow morning on my bicycle for a few hours. I'll probably stop at a stream that I like over in Medway on my way back to relax for a bit and eat a luna bar. Yea sounds exciting. I enjoy it though. I love going for long rides.

I think I am going to start making weekly workout schedules once I start getting weekly schedules from Papa Ginos. I need to be as prepared as possible for the triathlon in July. Eeeek!

It looks like I've lost a good friend. It's a bit sad. I got angry about something he did/said, and I feel I had every right to get upset, and I was frustrated and wanted to talk to him about it. I wasn't going to end the friendship over it, but apparently he thought I was going to, or he wants to end the friendship over my getting angry, so we are no longer speaking. I think it sucks because I hate seeing friends hold grudges and not speak to each other. I thought we just needed to talk because I was understandably upset, but I guess it's all or nothing. If you want to hold a grudge, then hold a grudge. I wasn't going to sacrifice a friendship over something like this. I wasn't jealous of someone else. It wasn't about that. If that were the case the issue would have come up sooner. Instead I felt like the situation was treated poorly and it needed mending. If you want to hold a grudge then go ahead, but it's stupid for friends not to speak to each other.

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So in other news, Dave Zabriskie (http://www.davezabriskie.com) is my new favorite soul crusher. During an interview, Mr. Zabriskie was asked how his Giro d'Italia was going, and he replied, "You know, I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence. I'm just a big hairy American winnin' machine." That is a soul crushing statement indeed.




Mmmm soul crushing in action.

Honesty and Sestriere

When people say "honesty is the best policy," I think that's true. It doesn't hurt to be honest. It hurts not to be honest. This phrase "brutally honest" makes me sort of angry. There is no such thing as being brutally honest. Just be honest. Is it really that difficult? And more importantly, this applies to yourself. Don't lie to yourself.

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In other news, Bjarne Riis, owner and manager of team CSC, admitted that his 1996 Tour de France win was tainted with his use of EPO (blood doping). I was talking to a friend yesterday about this, and he used to be big into cycling. Almost went pro but backed out at the last second, but still follows cycling, etc. So he is qualified to make his opinion. Anyways, this friend of mine doesn't like Riis doped because of the hypocrisy behind it with all of his anti-doping advocacy. He went on to say, furthermore, that he understands why people dope and that he actually feels bad for the dopers and that he repsects their decision to dope because it means sacrificing everything to win a race. Here I am going to have to disagree, and maybe this is what separates me from someone who is a real cyclist, but I don't care. It sounds cheesy, but it's true. Get out and ride for the sake of riding. Is winning really everything? I understand it's your career, and if you're a guy struggling to get onto a team and you need to dope to make the team, then you'll do it because you just want to ride on the team. But you're really willing to lie to yourself and cheat yourself like that to compete amongst a bunch of cheats? A bunch of liars? A bunch of people who lie to themselves and to the whole world? Let's look at Lance Armstrong. If he is really cleam and hasn't doped post-cancer, he is the most amazing man in the world and he is the type of person I want to be. But if he doped because he was that determined to win a race, he suddenly isn't that admirable anymore. The work he put into it isn't as meaningful anymore beacuse EPO pushed him along. That memorable climb up Sestriere in 1999, the first year he won the tour, for example (the climb that you can watch here http://youtube.com/watch?v=oiCIJ2JewPE) If that was pushed along by EPO, I suddenly feel cheated out of my rides when I am out on my bike, pushing and struggling and shredding my lungs apart on long, hard climbs. I am out there riding for the sake of riding, knowing that I won't be on a pro team, but riding because I love the bike. At the end of the day when I am looking the mirror, spent from a long ride, I can look in the mirror and say, look leanne, you built that yourself. You built that only with your own hard work and your own motivation. If at the end of the day I looked in the mirror and knew that I built that with the help of EPO, all meaning would be lost.

Ummmm

So it looks like I will be working 40+ hours a week at Papa Ginos this summer. I handed the manager an application and he interviewed me, and asked if I would be willing to work over 40 hours a week, so of course I said yes. I am excited.

Not too much else has been going on. Been making fairly steady progress in my soul crushing. I have been riding lots. I have to ride more, though. Now that I have a good base I can start doing really long rides, and I think by next Saturday I am going to try to do the Cumberland, RI ride I've had planned out. Tomorrow though I am doing a 60 minute rowing machine workout. My upperbody needs some major work and that's the fastest way to get it done, and I get some great cardio done while I am at it. And I will burn like a zillion calories. It will be fan-fucking-tastic training for the triathlon, too.

What I need to do, though, is come up with a good, steady schedule of training that involves running, swimming, cycling and the rowing machine to prepare for these two triathlons I am doing. Maybe I will do that tonight, actually. I don't know if I have mentioned this in here yet, but I am doing a triathlon in July now too with Mary. Yay!

Sexy men and green tea

I went to Panera yesterday to get lunch all by my lonesome self, and while I was waiting for my food to be prepared there was this gorgeous, gorgeous man standing in front of me. He was the most gorgeous man I have ever seen. He was tall. Proably 6'4", he had short black hair, and he had gorgeous muscles and gorgeous arms and gorgeous shoulders and a really nice butt. And to make it even hotter, he was having a salad and green tea for lunch. Mmm green tea. Seeing a man of his size and build having a small hot green tea with his lunch is amazingly sexy. I wanted to marry him, but I couldn't.

Ivan Basso won't be competing in the Tour de France (or the Giro d'Italia) this year because he signed a confession to his doping. I respect that he signed his confession that the bags of blood found in this doctor's office were in fact his blood, but I don't believe that he only intended to dope and never actually doped like he says. He claims he had the bags of blood for the 2006 Tour de France, but he did not use any for the 2006 Giro d'Italia, which he won (it's Italy's Tour). Because of course, if he had said that he used the blood for that, his first place title would be taken away. You doped, Ivan. And so did Jan, Lance (but he wasnt involved in Operacion Puerto), Valverde, Sevilla, Hamilton, and everyone else involved in Operacion Puerto, and most others in Cycling. I respect that Basso confessed, and more cyclists need to follow and do the same, but don't have ass it, Ivan.

Also, I went into Barnes and Noble today and checked out the new issue of Procycling magazine, and Ivan was on the cover for the upcoming Giro. I guess they are saying a big "oooops!" over at Procycling magazine now haha. Aye aye aye dios mio. Stupid, stupid athletes.

The Leanne thing

Many, many thoughts.

I drove down to the beach last night. I should have been studying for my Latin final. But I didn't want to study, so I didn't. People have told me since I was in the second grade that I don't use my potential with my school work. But is that a problem? Last night to study for my final I went down to the beach and sat at the edge of the water and stared at the Newport and Jamestown Bridges for about an hour, and then I went back to my room and smoked a few joints and watched 3 hours of Roseanne DVDs. I don't smoke often, but last night was just the right time to do it. It was my last night staying at that hell hole room, and the last night of being in school this year and semester. I've always had that sort of attitude, especially towards school, and I don't really know why exactly. Ever since I was in 2nd grade, and I will never forget it, my teachers have always said that I don't use my potential. All my teachers have said that if I just used my potential I would be a straight A student. But I don't. I don't try like I could. When I put all my effort into my English essays, I literally get A+s on all of them. But when I just do the Leanne thing, the going to the beach for an hour just to stare at a bridge, or the smoking a joint while watching 3 hours of Roseanne, or the reading a random novel, or working out instead of studying, or going for a walk in the woods, or making my own homemade iced sassafrass tea that I grow myself, I get the lukewarm Bs. Sometimes even Cs. Then people who are close to me call me unmotivated. I am not unmotivated though. I do things. I go for walks in the woods. I read. I exercise. I ride my bike. Just because I get Bs and Cs in school does not mean I lack motivation or don't try.

Why do I constantly get Bs and Cs when I definitely definitely have the ability to get As though? More than once I've gotten A+s on English literature essays, and more than once I've been the only person in the class to get an A on the essay. I would rather be doing other things. There are other parts of life that I would like to enjoy.

So last night I drove down to my special area. A small beach where I can see both the Jamestown Bridge and the Newport Bridge, and I just sat at the edge of the water in the darkness for an hour and stared at the bridges. When I was driving down the road to get to this beach area I have to drive up a small hill before descending down a really steep hill to get to the beach. I love the way the sky looks when you're driving towards the ocean and you're going up a hill, and you know the ocean is right there over the other side of the hill, but you can't see it, but you can see the sky, and you know that the blue sky meets the blue ocean and there is nothing else there but blue. Somehow the sky seems lighter. Not color wise, but weight wise. It just seems lighter when it's sitting over the ocean, especially when you're driving up that hill and the ocean is on the other side, but you just can't see it yet.

On the Jamestown Bridge I couldn't see the cars going over because they were too small, but every once and a while I could see a big truck driving over the bridge, and the trucks were probably going about 60 or 65, but they looked like they were crawling over the bridge. Then I saw this random duck just sitting at the edge of the water about 50 feet away from me over by the rocks. It looked like he was sleeping or something, but he was all by himself, just chilling out. I wish I could be like that duck more often, but he probably came there last night because he's worrying about food he has to get, or trash that's collecting over by his home, or the drunken assholes who come down there at night and make bonfires on the weekends and harrass all the animals, then drive back to URI drunk. The same assholes I see in Subway with girls getting subs, with their hair frozen with hair gel and attempting to flirt with girls by telling her she's spicing up her sandwich or turning up the heat by choosing to add Subway's Southwestern Sauce to their anorexic chicken and lettuce wraps, or telling her that she should't get a drink at Subway because he's got bud lite in his car. "Come on just wash it down with a beer." And he says that with his body swaying from side to side because he can't sit still.

These are the same people who seem to stress and sit in the library for hours with coffee and "study," but still manage to get nothing done. Or the same people who party night after night, and who still dp not get anything else done, not just with their school work, but with themselves. What I do seems like it's unmotivated. Yea, getting baked while watching Roseanne for 3 hours the night before a final isn't exactly a "go get 'em" attitude, but you know, I did spend time with myself. I needed to relearn who I am and how I think, and watching Roseanne make jokes but also offer some really interesting social commentary and personal insights was really helpful to me, and doing it while stoned just made it all the more awesome.

Some thoughts

I spent some time with my little cousins Nicholas and Andrew this weekend in Rhode Island, and the time I spent with them has made me refelct on a few things. About life I guess :-P

On Sunday I went to their house after I got off work. They live in a really nice upper class rural development that was built among the trees, rather than being built on a plot of land that was cleared of all trees within a 50 mile radius. The houses are huge, and tucked back behind long driveways. So anyways, I spent some time there, and the two kids wanted me to go for a bike ride with them, so of course I was all for it. So we went down the street and up this tiny little incline. Not even a hill. Just an incline. And they both had to walk their bikes up the hill. Now, I am not trying to be hard on little kids. I'm not. I understand that they're 9 and 12 years old. But when my sister and I were 9 and 12 years old we were riding our bikes for literally miles and miles and miles up and down hills, through the woods in Blue Hills, along railroad tracks in Hyde Park. We never had to get off our bikes and walk up an incline that can hardly be called a hill.

The reason for their inability to make it up the hill? We arrived back at the house just ten minutes after leaving, and they said to me that they wanted to go up to the "sheep hill" to see the sheep and play the car game. So they got their electric scooters. *sigh* Not even 10 years ago my sister and I would have been riding our bikes up the "sheep hill" to see the sheep and play games. Now they have electric scooters so their skinny white little legs don't have to do the work. Their skinny white little legs have no muscles. They play baseball and do karate, but how much does that really count when you're a kid and go to Karate 90 minutes a week and spend the rest of the time in the house on the computer or on your gameboy? I know that what I am saying is nothing new: that kids spend too much time in front of computers instead of playing outside. But now, even when they DO go outside, they have electric scooters to do the work for them. I just don't understand.