- - - -

+ + + +

i'm not

immortal:

i fully understand

and appreciate that.

. . .

but, just as i no longer have

that weird little hair thing going

[it having been replaced by another

weird little hair thing years ago],

i understand that despite

any and everything that i might or might not do

to prevent or encourage it,

time is passing.

opportunities come, present themselves, and then go.

they do this whether they are acted upon or not.

long ago, i learned that it's much easier not to worry or stress about what i did or didn't, and whether i should or shouldn't have, because the simple fact of the matter is that i either did or didn't, and not having or wanting a karl rove around to edit and spin my history, i was stuck with what i had helped to write. i'm cool with that.

but that doesn't mean that i treat the passage of time with any sort of cavalier flippancy.

oh, no; not me. i treasure and highly value the time i have. it is, without giving it a whole lot of thought, my most cherished possession. i always want to feel good about how i spend it. i never want to regret how i have used this precious and irreplaceable commodity.

so, it was with great pleasure today that when i went to the hospital for my check-up that i learned that it seems that everything i've done lately, both before AND after my crash has been seemingly the correct thing to do. imagine that! despite many of my VERY well-meaning friends who have expressed sadness at my plight, i have felt really, on the whole, quite positive about it. it has been an amazing learning experience: learning about myself, my resilience, the ability of my body to take, absorb, suffer, heal and recover from a rather brutal impact and then remain on course, with just a slight delay. a minor readjustment period. the doc told me that my lung looked excellent, that my collarbone was healing and mending quite nicely, symmetrically, and that i should just keep doing what i was doing before and at the time i crashed--except for crashing, actually--and that that should be all the physical therapy i would need.

i'll be damned.

they said that the only limiting factor would be my pain threshold, coupled with my undoubtedly keen common sense. lift weights, but not too much on the right side, for a while. do all the crunches i want, as long as i can tolerate the inevitable but gradually diminishing pain. lat pull-downs, good; butterfly curls, good; all that stuff, good.

but don't overdo it. ease in to it.

that's cool.

i've learned from the first broken collarbone how to ride, and how to NOT ride while healing. i've learned from my many broken ribs how to breathe, and how to accommodate.

and my general abhorrence of crashing should serve me well to avoid further lung and liver damage.

[so guys, don't take me down. don't fuck with me for a while.]

i won't be riding much gravel for a while,

but i will.

pig, i'll be doing that race in louisiana; you can have arkansas.

we'll match trophies afterwards!

but, man oh man, i am one happy old fart tonight.

i'm NOT a kid again,

but i FEEL like one!