This morning I woke up to a 56 degree house. Put on a few layers and trudged out in the snow to check the oil tank. Empty. I guess the oil lasted just long enough to get us through the super-cold snap we had last week. Nice job holding out oil! Actually, the weekend was kind of nice: nice and slow with no real plans. It snowed a ton last week (for the area) and it was nice just staying in, reading, drawing and working on my bike.
- Project – overhaul my bike. I got a new crank (pedals) for my bike and put it on at the end of December. Then decided I might as well replace the entire drive train. I figured this thing is old and it’s time to upgrade. Plus I can’t really ride in the snow so might as well do it all now! Since then I’ve been watching videos, ordering bits, realizing I didn’t order the right thing, reordered, or needed a new tool, or decided my cables were too frayed to reuse etc etc. etc. I made some progress on Sunday but still waiting for one more part before I can wrap it up. random: the guy at the bike store offered me a part time job as a mechanic when I went in to buy a master lock plier for my chain… I was like, “uh…I don’t think you want me”. He told me to call him if ever wanted a job, lol. He must be sick of high school kids or something….Anyway fingers crossed it all comes together and that the clicking in my pedals (that has been there for about 10 years) is finally gone. Also check out my new cassette! It has some much bigger climbing gears for my old legs.
2. Drawing – Made another entry in the sketchbook. It’s another Battle-Royale team from my DnD campaign: “The Duerguard” (Cause they’re all Duergars…really clever, I know)
3. Reading.
- Samantha Irby, Quietly Hostile (2023) – This was actually really funny. She had a whole essay dedicated to taking shits. Good stuff. I’ll probably look up some of her other books later.
- Clint Smith, Above Ground, (2023) Poetry. A lot of riffing on his newborns, which is nice but not where my heart is at the moment. A few really nice ones though (“waiting on a heartbeat”).
