returning to nature

 

Land was donated, near the D&R Canal towpath below Jacques Lane, by Beverly & Abraham Sommer in 1995. I've passed this stone on the bike over and over... but I just recently noticed the mold and lichen on the unpolished, carved panel. In less than 27 years, the process of the stone being reduced to rubble has already begun.

memento mori. ego eris, tu fui.

(I'm a snob, but I'm not heartless. Translations are linked.)

Now, at Thanksgiving, after a number of family plans fell through*, we were invited to a friend's (they felt sorry that we might be alone and neglected), and as we were packing up, the host said he had a hobby of photography, and edited his images in some online product. He spends happy hours doing it, and the cost was a little over a sawbuck a month. 

*(Thank the gods!)

I've resolved to ask about his process the next time I see him (I have visions of the two of us side-by-side on a couch, he with his laptop on his lap, I asking endless and inane questions, while Regina and his wife roll their eyes about "boys and their toys"), but in the meantime, I decided to roll out my GIMP program (a free image-manipulation program similar to Photoshop, but without many of the wizards and controls that make Photoshop easier to use), and play with this image.

The first thing I did was change to black-and-white:

Then I changed the contrast a bit:

I may do some more. Or I may go back to the color version and play with that. Ancora imparo, as apparently nobody important ever said.

 

postless post for this ride.

 

Tom H invited a number of us on a pickup ride today, and I'm just not coming up with a blog post about it. The route was fine (it included a piece of the Trenton Trolley Trail, and I may steal a piece of it for a basic-level ride. Friend Laura OLPH said something about liking it better than my rides, I think because she didn't feel like she was dragging the group back (she worries about that on my rides, despite my trying to offer reassurance) (and I may have completely taken the wrong end of the stick on this; she'll let me know if I have). I hit a pothole hard on the Griggstown Causeway, and lost I light (that I was able to go back and recover) and had back pain from it for MILES.

We stopped at Thomas Sweet, about 3/4 the way through the ride (the late stop is a common practice on my rides, so I'm glad I'm not alone).

I got nothin'. Ride Page.

two in one

 This ride was a little weird.

In China Miéville's The City and The City, there are two cities that occupy the same space (sort of; they are at least deeply intertwined with each other), but the citizens of one have nothing to do with the citizens of the other - it's a criminal offense to have dealings with the other city, and each group of citizens have developed ways of not seeing the other. (Go check out the Wikipedia article.)

(I've not read widely of the work of Mr Miéville, and all of the works I've read have problems, but no matter - go read Miéville; even with the flaws, the stuff is terrific.)

This ride was kind of like the cities in that novel. Twelve came out: seven were among Tom's Insane Bike Posse regulars, and five were faster folks who decided this was the best club ride on offer today. And the five faster folks went off the front (waiting at most of the turns for the rest of us), while the Insane Bike Posse regulars rode at our own pace, chatting, complaining, and cracking wise as we usually do. 

Tom's 40-ish mile route (see the ride page) took us from Allentown down towards Fort Dix, and then to New Egypt where we stopped at the Charleston Coffee (forgive the lack of pics; it was cold, and I forgot). As with most of the rest of the ride, the faster folks had gotten there first and were getting coffee or whatever by the time we arrived. 

(At one point, it was pointed out to me that I was ahead of the faster folks, which I was, but on the way back we were fighting a headwind, and when the fast riders got tired of the parade pace at which I was riding into the wind, they pulled around and showed me what they could do. Ahem.)

So by the end of the ride, a few of us in the back traded pulls into the headwind and made sure we all got back to the start.

Y'know, if some faster riders wanted to lead rides at their own pace, youse wouldn't have to shiver at those intersections while you're waiting for us to show up. Just sayin'...

coming out as a mental health client

 Trigger warning: discussions of mental health and suicidal thoughts below.

People who know me, know that I’m in substance abuse recovery. I don’t drink or do drugs, and haven’t for over forty years. I don’t keep that a secret.

I also need to “come out” on my mental health problems. I thought of waiting to do a reveal in Mental Health Awareness Month, but that’s not until May.

I’ve also had problems with suicidal thoughts. So I considered Suicide Awareness Month, but that’s September, so I missed it. There are reasons I don’t want to wait (some of those reasons are pure egotism, but there’s also some discomfort with trying to hold this stuff in), so I’m putting it out there now.

I’ve been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder by a psychiatrist who has the credentials to do so, and I’ve been on medications to manage it (the ones I used didn’t reduce the subjective feeling of anxiety much, but I’m still here, so they may have been effective in reducing the suicidal thoughts to a manageable level). Now, I’m fairly sure that some neurobiologist is gonna come along and tell me, “No, it’s impossible for things to work like that; the biology of your brain doesn’t allow that to be true.” But this is the way I think my anxiety disorder works:

To have an anxiety disorder flareup, I think you need two things:

• The event or condition that causes the anxiety, and

• The psychiatric condition that inflates the anxious feelings to an unmanageable level.

I suspect most people get some anxiety sometimes; things occur to cause worry in most lives. I don’t know what the subjective experience is like for others; I only know my own experience. Sometimes, the worry is not so bad for me; I am able to continue with my daily life without much dysfunction. Other times, when the disorder flares up, I have suicidal thoughts, pain in my thighs and the backs of my upper arms, insomnia, either poor appetite or overeating, diarrhea and (rarely) vomiting. I ruminate through the night and can’t sleep. (The worst time is often 2:00 or 3:00am, because I don’t feel like I can call anyone, and there are few things I can do at those times to distract myself or get help.)

But even when I don’t have the triggering event or condition that causes the anxiety, sometimes I think the “disorder” part manifests. I can feel a general sense of unease; I get anhedonia (nothing feels right or tastes right, or “sparks joy”); I have poor concentration; I have a hard time focusing on responsibilities, or even listening to what people I care about have to say.

I’ve been going through a bout of that recently.

Some of it has to do with my suicidal thoughts. Now, except for a short time one night a few months ago, I haven’t had a serious episode of the anxiety problem since I quit working (much of my anxiety problems are tied to either work or relationship issues luckily, the latter appear to be in good standing). Suicide screening is something I know something about (I was a mental health screener for a few years – ironic, right?). And when you’re screening for suicide, one of the things you ask about is whether the person has a plan, how close or easy to achieve that plan is, and whether the plan is likely to be fatal. For example, a person who says he or she wants to suicide by overdose, but doesn’t have the pills, and doesn’t know which pills are likely to actually be fatal, and hasn’t done any research into either question, actually has a comparatively low likelihood of suicide (although that doesn’t mean you don’t take the issue seriously). The person who intends to shoot himself (usually) or herself, and has the gun and ammunition, is a much more worrisome case.

When it was really bad, my plan was to jump off a bridge. The Morris and Donald Goodkind Bridges are the bridges that carry Route 1 over the Raritan River: the northbound bridge is named for Morris and the southbound for his son Donald. Morris has more-or-less convenient parking, and does not appear to have suicide-prevention fencing or other measures in place. That’s the bridge from which I was going to jump when I was in the worst of my anxiety.

I’m not in that anxiety anymore, and have no intention of pursuing suicide. But the plan doesn’t evaporate just because I no longer have the intention. So the answer to the question, “Do you have a plan?” is yes, and the plan is both proximate and likely to be fatal… which will make the inexperienced screener commit me. But the truth is, my life is good now, and I have no intention of suicide, which is why I’m still at large and not on unpleasant medications.

Further, most of the times I cross either Morris or David, I’m reminded that, while things were bad once upon a time, they are not so, now. Every crossing of those bridges is a reminder that I’ve successfully survived this long, even though, at times, it was not clear that I would. Every crossing is a little triumph.

And the reason I didn’t want to wait for months to post this stuff, is that I was fairly sure that writing and posting it would relieve some of the craziness I’ve been feeling – and it has worked; I’m much better for having this out there. I’m lucky in that I’m retired, and my livelihood would not be affected by my honesty about my mental health condition (and, having worked in mental health and substance abuse, I’m sure that even then, I had more flexibility than most in the workaday world, although even among my peers in that field, there is some stigma to having the same problems we treat in our clients). I know that not everybody can be as honest as this about a similar condition.

But I want to be “out” as a person who has suffered from mental health problems. It’s possible that my having been honest about this might be a disincentive for some people to seek help. But if it’s possible that my experience might get another person closer to getting the help they need… then isn’t it pretty much my responsibility to do it? Especially when I now have so little at stake?

playin' hooky

 

I generally lead rides on Sundays, and I'll go out as long as the precipitation holds off, and conditions are such that I won't expect ice on the roads. I like my rides to come in with an average between 14.5-15.5mph (for my club, the Princeton Free Wheelers, that's the high end of the C+ range or the low end of the B range).

Last year, many of my cold-weather rides ran faster than that range, and I've heard that some club members have decided not to come on my rides when they see the faster folks who sign up; these club members are afraid they'll be dropped. After last week's ride (which was fast, but that was, I think, partly due to the inclement weather), I decided to take a while to think about what I wanted to do about the rides I lead. I suspect the faster riders come out on my rides because there aren't a lot of rides at faster paces scheduled for the club at this time of year... but the sensible answer to that is, I think, for some of these faster riders to lead rides at the paces at which they want to ride, not for me to have my ride run away with by faster folks, or to have club members who should be able to come on my rides, intimidated by the others who register.

I haven't got an answer yet, and, while I'm thinking of how to manage this, I decided to take a week off from leading. Laura OLPH, seeing the absence of my listing (and wanting to lead a ride this weekend, which she could not do yesterday), listed a ride for today... and I registered.

Nine of us went out. Laura had picked a route to Sergeantsville on some roads I didn't know (and others that were familiar). The ride was hilly, and with the roads wet to start (there was rain when I left my house, although it had stopped 90 minutes later when the ride started), I was cautious on the downhills (and I'm not a courageous descender at the best of times).

It was good to get out with club members, many of whom I knew, although I wasn't chatty (there may be another blog post about some internal wranglings). Laura had added an unusual warning about ride pace to her usual pre-ride speech; perhaps this was why we mostly rode behind her until the stop (Laura thought it was so that people could draft her in the headwind; perhaps she's right - but the first half of the ride was a mile-per-hour slower than the average at which I finished).

We stopped at the bagel place in Sergenatsville.

I think it's a better stop than the general store, which has just gotten too odd.

We returned through Mount Airy, and stopped to say hello to the cows.

Len said that that cow in the middle of the picture had her eye on me. I said I think I dated her, and Laura asked which one of us broke up first. (Note: In general, except for TEW, it's safe to presume that the girl in question broke up with me. They generally had more sense, and a better idea of what they wanted, than I did.)

So home, and laundry and chores now, and back to the week. I still don't know what I plan to do about listing rides through the colder weather. I'm glad I did this ride today, though.

Ride page.

rain came early

When I set out for the ride this morning, the rain wasn't supposed to start until noon or afterwards. I don't think the rain goddess reset her clock for Eastern Standard Time (there's a South Indian goddess of rain and disease cure named Mariamman; the gentle rain today might be her doing, and missing the re-setting of the clock is just the kind of thing that a goddess, preoccupied with disease cures and the like, might slip up on. Most of the rain gods and goddesses are about storms, and storms were definitely not in evidence today). I had fourteen registered, most of whom appeared at the start; we were to meet two of them along the route.

One of my regulars later told me they weren't sure they were going to come when they saw the people who had registered, because a number of them were fast. This group WAS fast; I "led" mostly from the back, except when they kindly let me catch up and give a direction and a traffic warning. 

We rolled down to Princeton, and then along the dip and climb at Rosedale Road. I was proud of getting up the hill on Rosedale pretty quickly, but any triumph was short lived; as we turned into ETS, the group got ahead of me. One rider,who is always stronger than I, was hanging back; it turned out she'd run twelve miles the day before, and was recuperating.

Sheesh.

(I'm surprised none of these faster members become leaders and start their own rides. I've heard the concern that the riders don't want to have to be responsible for riders who have problems or accidents... but accidents on Princeton Free Wheeler rides are not common, and if the ride is posted at a B+ pace [which many of these riders can easily maintain], there's no expectation to wait for stragglers. Besides, when there IS a problem on a ride, I've never seen our members fail to step up and work out whatever problems arise... it's not like you have to do it all on your own. I've never had to do it all on my own, and I've led a number of rides where there have been dramatic happenstances. You, friend reader, don't get to read about the most dramatic ones... Anyway, go become a ride leader and list faster rides; I can't keep up with youse anymore.)

But I felt the drip-drip along Bayberry, and then it got to be somewhat steady. We made the decision to stop at the Brick Farm Market instead of Boro Bean, because of the larger interior with more seating.

Riders checked their weather radar on their phones, and we made a further decision to continue back along 518 instead of keeping to the planned route, to minimize the chance of riding over now-slippery leaves. They ALL passed me... and then, in Blawenburg, I felt the rear-wheel rough ride and unpredictable handling indicative of a flat tire. I took the tire off, and found a piece of glass inside the shape of Nevada (although somewhat smaller), with the pointy bit at the south sticking upward into the tube as far as Carson City. It was large enough to be easy to find, although dug in enough to be difficult to remove. Remove it I did, though, and once quit of The Silver State, the tire went back on and I got rolling again. I made it back to the start in time to see the last of the riders packing up; evidently, everybody else got back OK.

Ride page.

Here's hoping my next lead is less dramatic... and here's hoping I can keep up with 'em.

tom's flat ride

Tom H wrote to a number of members of his Insane Bike Posse, earlier this week,

This Saturday looks perfect for a long flat ride so I will be posting something, probably from Bordentown. I will send out details once I post it.  

Well, I was up for that. Tom planned for us to meet at the Joseph Lawrence Park in Bordentown, but the lot was packed for girl's softball (and yay! for Title 9!), so we repaired to the lot at the Muschal school next door.

 Mostly we were Tom's regulars, with two new (to us) riders: Len, with whom I've ridden with the during-the-week Team Social Security rides, and Adam, who generally rides with faster folks, but wanted to get some new geography in.

Tom had a 50+ mile route we'd done a couple of years ago, We went down to Cookstown, past the McGuire Air Force Base, and around the lake near Pemberton Township.

Laura OLPH and I stopped to get this picture; that's her left arm getting the shot on the right of the frame.

We passed my favorite intersection, the corner of Four Mile and Mount Misery, and shortly thereafter came upon...

 Len appeared concerned (he'd been recently ticketed for going through a closed road), but it wouldn't be a Tom H ride without one.

After a stop at the Pemberton Wawa, we headed back. The wind was at our back at this point (well planned, Tom!), and we were able to post some nice paces on the way.

I've decided I like some flat rides.

Ride Page.

vexing, but completely unimportant, problem

 I'm doing my best to be welcoming of LGBT&c. folks, transgender folks, nonbinary, and the like. I understand that gender and sex are different. I get that the world is just more complicated than some of us would like to think it is. (I won't say I'm good at, or comfortable with, this acceptance, but I'm doing the best I can.)

But my language hasn't caught up. I generally refer to associates, acquaintances, and friends, with the usage "honorific + last name": Mr White, Ms Black; when possible (and when I'm aware) Dr Blue, Professor Green, sometimes Counselor Brown, and so on.

But I don't know a non-gendered honorific, with widespread acceptance and comprehension, for a person who doesn't have a designation. I can refer to that person by first name (and am usually directed to do so), but first, it's unseemly (to me) to use first names in the occasional address of some people, and second, when I usually use the (to me) more formal "honorific + last name" construction, to call an individual by first name seems to imply a familiarity I do not want to project.

Sometimes I have tried the construction "Friend Grey", which also implies familiarity (I stole that from the Quakers, the Religious Society of Friends; some of their more staid members refer to everyone as "Friend Grey", in the belief that the single designation removes the hierarchy that the more formal titles convey [some Friends are deeply moved to treat all people as equals]). It's not ideal.

I could, of course, revert to calling people by first name. In modern America, it's the default. But I like the little distancing implied by the construction I use. I'm both socially inept, and somewhat snobbish and anachronistic (somewhat??!), so "honorific + last name" suits my desires.

It is, of course, likely of no importance to anyone but me. And I have more important things to which to attend (like actually treating people with acceptance and respect, including myself; I've got a huge portion of pretty privilege to manage, and one of the ways that works out is how my own aging - lines on the face, grey hair, my changing body - makes me uncomfortable allowing myself actions and attitudes that others appear to take for granted).

I need to think about this. (Or maybe, as one of my acquaintances has pointed out on other, similar issues, I'm already overthinking it.)