I’ve Been Writing (Riding) a Bit

No, not for the blog. Not as often, anyway. If I am writing something, it's usually the start of a blog that I abandon after a couple hundred words, or something uninspiring for my day job. I’m a little over the ‘life updates’ blogs, but I will continue to provide a paragraph of what has been coming and going. I’d like to do more “organic thoughts” style blogs about things that are a little more intrinsic and prove that I have original thoughts and opinions not curated by meme Instagram pages and subreddits. However, the life updates will gladly continue.

I read a blog post recently from one of my favorite artists, Amigo The Devil. I loved it, much like I love anything from the small handful of my favorite creatives. In the post, he describes his excitement about getting an album done, his desire to write more blog posts, and his disdain for social media. Thankfully for him, I’m pretty sure he shares his account with a social media manager who tends to keep it updated with the latest tour dates and locations. Crystal and I are seeing him in a few weeks down in Seattle, and I am quite excited. Amigo tends to follow the same positive-negative-positive sandwich that most creatives believe keeps people engaged and happy while reading their content. What really connected with me, and why I love Amigo so much, is that he uses this blog to stay connected with people rather than sell show or tour updates. Even though tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people see the email, we still get a little splash of raw Amigo, not just the "murder folk" artist. I see so many artists use the Spotify features to promote their next tour, so the blog refresh is a lovely addition to my inbox.

Enough about my musical man crush.

What’s been on my mind? Sometimes work. Sometimes play. The weather has settled into a deep depression, offering nothing but rain (tears), clouds (excess eyeshadow), and cold (2XL sweaters). What’s really been on my mind is a newly triggered pet peeve. I’m a person who is capable of holding a lot of pet peeves, as many have noted by following me on Instagram, my social media heroin of choice. The newest pet peeve is people getting oddly mad at other cars or traffic. I’m unsure if this is a pet peeve, or just an observation after spending a long weekend sitting in vehicles, getting ferried from family and social obligation to obligation. I have a few theories, and please know this is not a rant about private vehicles. I’m too apathetic for that.

Theory 1; it’s socially acceptable to be pissed at traffic from the comfort of your vehicle.

One of the first things I heard when I started driving was that everyone hates traffic. And in this instance, traffic is just an ominous strawman that takes the brunt of our anger. It’s not traffics fault that it exists, it's all of our fault. We are traffic. You can apply this to parking lots (or the constant "lack of parking").

Theory 2: Everyone else is a bad driver.

Much like an ex-girlfriend whose mind I still cannot read, it’s the other driver's fault for not predicting our actions. Or, more likely, the driver ahead of us is at fault for not predicting the actions of the driver ahead of them! This brings us full circle, as it is now our fault for not predicting the actions of those ahead of us.

Theory 3: Driving is stressful.

Humans were never meant to go this fast. Want my top tip for reducing stress while driving a vehicle? Start riding a motorcycle. Riding motorcycles on county roads and highways is stress-inducing because of the animals that could pop out at any moment. And on interstates is stressful because of the high speeds and immensely high consequences. I do my best to contain the stress of motorcycling to myself, and I still very much enjoy it but recognize that it’s not for everyone. After riding motorcycles for a few years, I find that driving a vehicle anywhere, no matter how much road congestion there is, is much less stressful in certain ways, and I’ve learned to enjoy the relative quiet and low-risk they represent. However, I choose to ride because a motorcycle is faster, more fun, easier to park, and 10x cheaper to own and operate. Want to take it up a notch? Start riding pedal bikes on the road. It’s good for your head.

All that said, here are Casey's quick thoughts for being a more stable individual while behind the wheel; Traffic is your fault. We all suck at driving. Ride more pedal bikes and motorcycles.

As promised, I will round out this very cold blog with a life updates paragraph.

Crystal and I have had some busy weeks! Two weekends ago, we hosted a pumpkin carving night where 17(!!) people came out to carve pumpkins with us! The next day, we both raced our cyclocross bikes at the now-closed BMX track. Crystal won(!) her race, and I came in second after a lap 2 flat. I’ve also decided to race single-speed for the rest of the year, since the open 1/2 field usually only gets 10-15 participants, and the single-speed field can be closer to 50(!). Following the race, we caught the last 45-minutes of a Molly Tuttle concert. I wanted to see the whole thing, but the website I was looking at listed the concert in the wrong time zone. We also spent this past weekend at a wedding, sandwiched between hanging out with Crystal's niece and nephew. Both those kids are insanely cute (pics to come), and as Crystal says, it's harder to leave than visit. I managed to sneak in a ride up Millcreek Canyon (my favorite canyon) with a friend, and my recently healed ankle somehow survived a 45-minute descent on a hardtail. I’ve ridden bikes for just 2hrs in the last 5 days, so it's due time to wrap up my offseason and get back to it.

This coming weekend, Crystal will be hanging in town to partake in the Bellingham-famous Halloween Ride on Galbraith, and I’ll be racing single-speed at Cyclocross state champs! If people could refrain from scheduling every social bike event on October 28 that would be awesome, yet here we are. Til next time, friends.

Books Worth Reading

"Stardust" - Neil Gaiman (An easy read and one I completed while ferried around by plane or vehicle over the weekend.)

"The Night Circus" - Erin Morgenstern (Lovely visuals with an even better "coming of age" story.)

"I am The Messenger" - Markus Zusak (You can't have my copy... It's coffee stained and in tatters.)

Shows Worth Watching

"The Crowded Room" - AppleTV (At least the first three episodes)