spiders on the way to work

^ short video for you guys. And some pictures. I think these are all wolf spiders--anybody know for sure?

As you may know by now, I work part-time, for minimum wage, at a King Soopers (aka Kroger or City Market) about 2 miles from my house. I typically walk there, and half the walk is thru a greenspace, away from traffic, so that's nice.

I even like the spiders. Black widows and other *poisonous* spiders creep me out to no end, but I don't see why I should be afraid of something like this that can't really hurt me, even if it is pretty darn big. Check out the detail in those smartphone photos, tho', huh? so. boss.

Missed posting last week. When I'm alone I'm fighting a mild but persistent depression since moving back here. I have no motivation to do much of anything. Cue spiral of self-hatred and despair. I'm sure a lot of you guys have been there, too. Not to worry, tho'--there's still hope yet.
pax.

weird things brains do

Do you ever have really strange thought processes that come out of nowhere?

Like, putting on deodorant in the morning. My deodorant is on my dresser, next to a spray can of chain lube for my bicycle.

Hmm, I wonder if I could use that when I ran out of deodorant.

...No, that would be stupid because it would stain my shirts and get them all greasy.

...Also it's not... deodorant. And doesn't have any deodorising properties whatsoever.

...WTF BRAIN

Also, I'll be walking around or whatever and there will just be a thought that pops into my head, like, FRANKLY--DINOSAURS. or THREE THOUSAND MILES GIVE OR TAKE. which come from absolutely nowhere, aren't quotes from anything, don't relate to anything I'm doing or looking at... they just show up briefly as audio-thoughts and fade out after a while.

Or I'll just have snippets of cliche cinematic sentences run around in my head sometimes, like, I know what you really are, or What... What am I doing here? Usually accompanied by SUBTLE YET DRAMATIC FACIAL EXPRESSION TO NO ONE because I guess my face gets bored sometimes. The sentences aren't movie quotes either. They just seem like lines that would sound good in a voiceover or the climax of a scene.

It's mostly my aural thoughts that have these weird hiccups. Words out of nowhere, sentences that aren't related to anything. Internal conversations with a crazy person who sees chain grease and thinks, ARMPITS.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this.

pax.

2nd UK trip, day three

I know I'm not posting these on time, or in order. I wrote the below on, like, the 14th of August. I am a Time Lady. Sorry. (If you have no idea what I meant by that--watch some Dr. Who.)

--

There are no silences here, in this hostel. The windows are open against the heat, and Manchester traffic rumbles constantly by underneath. Wailing sirens, streams of raucous revellers, impatient horns. The door to the room squeaks and clatters open. People come and go, following their own disparate schedules. Sleep is taken only in snatches and fits. The blue silicone in my ears is very imperfect insulation, but I make do with what I've got. Being dry and off the street is all I need.

I allow myself to sleep as long as I want and take a leisurely breakfast out of packets and tins downstairs. With tea of course: the lifeblood of my travelling. Then a train to Huddersfield, a nice conversation with a local lady who has an electric bike; green streaming by the windows, layered over sandblasted stone and aged brick. The hills are formidable and render electrics on a bike a necessity for all but the most hardy cyclists. But I've only five or six miles to Holmfirth from here, so they give me little pause as I set off into them.

The road twists around and among the hills, skirting thru small towns along the way. The smell of old forest permeates the air. Mildewed leaves and dirt and mossy trunks. Much of the way is sheltered under canopies of branches and leaves, natural tunnels with a peaceful darkness to them. The air is moist and sky overcast, but the atmosphere is that of natural, subtle beauty.

Holmfirth is small, set tumbling upon the road into a valley. I'm here because my Grandmamma said that I should come. I'm glad she did. She cannot come herself, so I'm her eyes and ears for now. I don't take as many pictures or video as I should like, but I do my best. Happy birthday, Grandmamma. I'll be seeing you very soon.

The ladies in the tourist office are imminently friendly, and gab and gab with me until we realise that the exhibition will close before I get there if I don't move out. I've already essentially missed the tour bus, so I buy a DVD that will take us on it later, and head down then to Compo's house. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's from a long-lived British show called Last of the Summer Wine, filmed in this little slice of Yorkshire for decades. Grandmamma is a big fan.) After the museum, shop, and tea in the Wrinkled Stocking tea room, it's off to find the series' iconic pub. I would stay for a bit of summer wine (haha) but I'm full and it's been raining off and on for a while, so I head back the way I came, into Huddersfield. The shut-up shops have transformed the town from bustling and busy to dreary and empty in the few hours I've been gone. The roadworks on the ring road don't help either. It smells like dust and wet concrete. The train comes late.

--

Fog blankets everything in whitish grey outside the train back into Manchester, and I am sitting on the floor in a train that had no seats for me to take. BK rests against a pile of cases next to me. I like how bicycles can travel on the trains here, free (as space permits). The entire country opens up to me that way.

It'll be York tomorrow, then. Not much else from this day or the next to communicate. My poetic mood seems to have waned. We'll see what's left of it in the coming days, I suppose.

Pax.

2nd UK trip, day one

With this dawn comes responsibility. Pre-booked tickets and interconnected plans, a fabric of preconceived direction unlike anything my past self has ever really given me before. The morning air is already bright with warmth. I cycle alongside vans and articulated trucks to the Dublin port, entering the industry-heavy realm of twisted coloured metal, stacks of aging shipping crates, petrol fumes. I am boarded onto the lower deck of the ferry with all the HGVs. There is a three-bicycle rack there by the gangway, where BK will wait patiently for me to return to her, bracing herself by one wheel against the rolling of the sea. I say goodbye and make my way upstairs.

The sea is smooth and clean as silver. I stare out over it, this ethereal reflection of the air. Three hours of sleep is hardly enough to keep me going past this point. Food first, then rest, curled up in a booth with my bag between my legs like some kind of canvas egg. I awaken when we approach the other shore. The water glitters violently as we forge ahead to dock, and I disembark after the biggest truck, a guppy swept up in the slipstream of a shark.

Two trains follow close after one another and I hardly register either one. Marshmallows and peanut butter and a ribbon of land unspooling rapidly behind. Ill-behaved children and ill-tempered parents. Fits of sleep stolen before muscles relax into the rattling panes.

--

Every city has its own unique character. It is etched into the street signs, spattered in graffiti, lurking in each grubby corner. To be understood it must be seen, smelled--felt, boiling off the concrete in the sweltering heat of a midsummer's day. Manchester is its own self. A wizened old man, hunching over his meagre river with a shifty smile.

reflections off the road: back into bad habits

Well, here I am back in Dublin, and slipping immediately back into all the bad habits I thought I put behind me when I set off on my grand cycle. Watching youtube videos all day, after being youtube-free for almost 30 days. Sitting around refreshing pages over and over waiting for updates. Getting hardly anything done. I'll run an errand or two, then sit down at the computer for hours. Wash a few dishes, put a few things away, then sit down again.

I really need to start having dedicated Internet-Free Days. I think I will start with one day a week: Friday. Every Friday I will do no internet except email on my phone, and research if necessary. I will try to do more creative things. I will restart my non-cycling workout routine. I will start a new comics project. I will sketch or write in my journals more often. I will make a blog entry twice a week and a youtube video once every other week.

I'm putting these goals in public now so you guys can get on my case if I don't follow thru. If you see me on the internet on Friday, say, GET OFF THE 'NET, WOMAN. If I don't post a blog entry once every three or four days you can email me, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. WRITE STUFF.

--

Tomorrow morning I'm getting up at the crack of dawn to take a ferry, with my bicycle, to the UK. I'll disembark in Wales at Holyhead and then take a series of trains to Manchester. I will kill zombies again at an abandoned manor house out there, go visit Holmfirth and take pictures/video for my grandmamma (it seems to be the #1 place she would visit were she to come to the UK), then take a train to York and cycle up to see an abbey that my mother absolutely adored when she was here. Then I'm going to Cardiff to do the Doctor Who Experience that just opened down there, and will probably return home after that, altho' I haven't bought my return ticket yet just in case I would like to stay a bit longer. The trip will only be 7 or 8 days total, and I'll come back just in time to prepare for my sister to come visit me on the 21st - 29th!!

I will write blog posts from the road possibly, but may not post them until a few days later. I have some "reflections off the road" blog posts that are only half finished right now that I've been procrastinating on... haha, good going, me. I had a wonderful 27-day streak of being more creative and I went and blew it on the internet once I got back to my flat. I was gone so long I forgot that my carpet was red and was literally surprised by it when I returned home. Now it's been days since I've properly left this tiny little room.

My time abroad is rapidly coming to a close. It's up to me to make the most of it from now on.

Pax.

Reflections of the road: bike kisses

Here's a problem all cyclists face that might not be well known. Oil stains on the calves, caused when your bicycle shifts forward when you're straddling it and the front chain rings rest against the leg. (Pictured above.) My right leg--the chain is on the right side of the bike--was usually covered in marks like this by the end of each day on the road, and sometimes my left leg was graced with one as well, if I was leaning against the bike or picking her up or something.

I saw a lot of Ring of Kerry cyclists sporting their own marks like this as well.

They need a lot of soap and vigourous scrubbing to remove, haha. But I see them as a badge of honour. Something unique that brands a cyclist a cyclist...

Random thought for yous to enjoy.

Pax.

Day twenty-seven

Arglshgs. I want to sleep in, but this hostel is all like GET OUT WE CLOSE AT ELEVEN so if I want tea and breakfast I have to get my arse outta bed.

Had a weird dream that we drove my grandmamma to Las Vegas so she could get her gallbladder removed. What is this I don't even.

Today was the most emotionally draining and confusing so far. The morning was absolutely miserable and pushed me to the limit of my mental endurance. The afternoon was amazingly calm and beautiful. My last proper cycling day had all the ups and downs of a long trip like this mashed together into less than six hours...

Started out by going down to see the rope bridge to Carrickarade island, which was of course chock full of tourists. Originally the thing was a way for fishermen to get across to check their salmon nets but now it's just a thing people do to say they did it. I didn't pay to cross and didn't even go all the way up to it, 'cause I realised I wasn't terribly interested, so I cycled away.

I really wanted to get out of the traffic I started out in on the A2, so I followed the instructions in the book and went off onto a third-class road in Ballyvoy. It seemed to make sense; I followed signs for Cushendun and everything. Passed a lot of sheep that absolutely panicked at the sight of me. Passed some llamas too, of all things. Then the road slowly gave up on the whole *being paved* thing. It began lashing rain and I had to get off the bike and push her up gravelly tractor tracks. At some point, I reached a dead end with three sheep gates on all sides. Rather than turn around and go down the rough slopes I'd just pushed BK up, I opened a gate and kept following the tractor tracks south. Then the wide tracks became a muddy path. Then the path disappeared into grassy muck. And that's how I came to be pushing my bicycle thru a bog, too stubborn to turn around, soaking wet and swearing.

I slogged along that way for what must have been two hours. I would tell myself, just reach the crest of the next hill, and you can decide what to do next. My shoes and socks were soaked all the way thru so I made no pretense anymore about avoiding puddles. Several hills were crested. The bog got boggier. Everything was wet and icy cold. I wanted to cry so bad, but I was like, no. You're stronger than that. Keep walking; as long as you head south you can't go wrong. Eventually, I saw a proper road in the distance, and headed for it, hauling BK thru the reeds and rushes and trying not to break my ankles as I randomly stepped into sinkholes. When I was like five metres from the road, I hated all the cars driving past, callously flashing me with their headlamps, offering no help as I was nearly waist high in grass and ankle deep in rain-drenched moss. Reaching the hard black asphalt was like waking up from a nightmare. I then had to pick all kinds of grass and debris out of my derailleur and chain, covering my hands in oil, before I could set off at a decent pace once again.

The sun emerged from behind a canopy of thick dark clouds before I hit Cushendun and I stopped there to get another sports drink and a snack... but I only had euros in cash, and both their ATM and card readers were broken, so I apologised and left with nothing. I had to pee really bad and I hated everything. When a kind young woman asked me if she could help me somehow, I had to choke back tears. I just wanted to quit today. If there was a train or a bus to Belfast there I would've gotten on it immediately--gotten on it and missed one of the best day's cycles yet. But I didn't know that. I did check the map, but the nearest train station to me was still in Larne, which was where I was headed anyway.

I did cry a little on the road to Cushendall, just to get all the built up stress out. When I reached that town I found a working ATM and bought my drink and snack, then begged to use the toilet in a hotel and kindasorta crashed a wedding reception. Outside the sun was quite warm, so I found a place by a little harbour to sit and breathe for a while. Calm down. Ate peanut butter and marshallow fluff out of their jars till I felt a bit sick. (Had an apple too, Mama.) When I was full and rested, I headed for the coast road I would follow all the way to Larne.

If it weren't for the constant annoyance of traffic, this road would, hands down, be my favourite cycling road so far. It was all flat or slightly downhill, allowing me to keep an easy pace of 20+ kph without stopping very often. The sea was on my left, no more than ten metres away, the water clear as a cut jewel and calmly lapping against the mottled black and white rocks. The sea in the distance was a solid blue line against the softer sky, horizon impenetrable as infinity. Sunlight bathing everything. How can one remain angry at life, bitter from a miserable morning, on a road like this? With the wind gentle, sea quiet, traffic polite...? When all your burps taste like marshmallows?

There were sage coastal cliffs, mystical forests, fields full of sheep, town after cute coastal town. I was going at such an easy pace I hardly stopped and took no pictures, but it was beautiful. When I reached Larne, I boarded the first train for Belfast and was on my way.

Whoa. Lady voice on train is a Northern Irish accent instead of a British one. Cool.

Carmel and Ciara came to pick me up once I reached Belfast central. Ciara and her husband Tim are like my Irish parents; Carmel is my Irish auntie. We fit BK into the boot with a bit of bother and some twine. At her house was a nice hot shower, supper (chicken wrapped in bacon!!), plenty of wine. And such good company. I can't forget my sister Nicoletta as well. The surrorogate family back together again. What a brilliant way to end this epic journey.

Tomorrow, Sunday, is a rest day in Belfast and I'll return to Dublin on the 30th of July. (this may not be posted till after that due to network problems.) I can't believe this is almost over. I won't know what to do with myself after this.

Pax.