Everyone know the one dude in college [hopefully only in college] who took pride in being the laziest fucker around. Usually he was perpetually enveloped in a cloud of pot smoke, had some sort of reclining chair in his dorm room, and while he’ll travel any distance to score an 1/8th, he couldn’t be bothered to get up early enough to go to his 1pm class. He considered sleeping and smoking his primary jobs. If he bothered to do anything else, he felt entitled to some sort of extra credit from God.
Those types of dudes always fascinate me. And secretly, sometimes, I wish I could be like that. I wish I could kick back and forget about responsibilities and obligations and everything on the ever-growing “to do” list. I like to tell myself that I could get good at the whole slacking off thing. I could roll out of bed past noon, smoke a joint, and then piss away the rest of the day doing pretty much nothing. And I’d enjoy it.
Unfortunately, I have the unusual ability to place myself in exactly the sort of situations that I’m trying to blow off. Officially on spring break [perhaps my very, very last...of my life...eeppp!], I planned to spend most of the week on a particular couch, in front of a particular TV, forsaking a particular laptop and without a particular bike. I had extensive plans to be completely lazy.
Because while I usually revel in any opportunity to put in quality time on my bike, the past few weeks have delivered enough unnecessary school drama, last-minute meetings, and buttloads of work to transform otherwise relaxing bike time into yet another tedious activity that just had to get done. I managed to avoid the rollers in retaliation, but the guilt of doing so stressed me out even more. It was a vicious cycle [pun intended].
So when spring break rolled around last Friday, I had high hopes to be like That Lazy Dude in College. Those plans - predictably - went the way of Lazy Dude Resolutions To Go To Class. The hope was there, but the execution was slightly totally lacking. My plans essentially died yesterday when I ended up at a small table at The Smile, surrounded by a bunch of bicycle people who were talking, thinking, and writing about bicycles.
Last week, even the idea of sitting around discussing bicycles for about an hour would have had me screaming out of frantic stress and running away while ripping my hair out. Yesterday, though, I avoided the embarrassment and permanent label of “absolutely, completely, without a doubt, batshit crazy” [for the most part] by staying seated and civil. Maybe it was just the incredibly yummy granola with yogurt, or the densely dark Americano, but being enclosed in a small space with bicycle people engaged in bicycle talk wasn’t as terrifyingly stressful as I initially feared. In fact, it was almost kind of normal in a fun kind of way.
I’m far from finding that perfect balance [both literally and figuratively], but I have this hopeful feeling I might not spend the season swinging between two extremes when it comes to bikes. Now I just have to work on pedaling faster than 8mph...