Life is an Ikea vase of fake flowers.

"I like my bike," I said.
My mother nodded. "I saw you leaving on your bike this morning. It's so smooth the way you ride. It's like an extension of your body."
"Always at least one hand on it, switching from left to right, unconciously. And it's funny, because I was slow learning to ride."
"I think you're like that at skiing too," she said.

I am lucky because I have so many refuges. If I'm angry or depressed, I can go string chords together on the piano. Biking brings me out of my darkest moods, but only when I'm alone, when I ride so fast that all sounds drop away but the tireless hum of wheels on gravel. Skiing and sprinting are like that too, and poor snowboarder though I am, it's easy to feel free on a slope. Rollerblading has definetly not reached that point. If I'm still alive after tomorrow, I'll post a quasi-humourous anecdote.

The Wal-Mart people fixed my pictures! They aren't grey anymore, and all the red splotches/lines have disappeared. The colour is much improved as well. I'm going to have to look for a new album in the basement.

And that, my friends, aside from standing in front of the supermarket eating cheese curds and tuning my guitar down a tone, is what I did today.

I do pay attention, just not to the same things you do.