High Contrast

Okay, okay, yes. I'm having difficulty posting. I've taken pictures for posting, I've written drafts and then been unaccountably dissatisfied with them. I've tried for holiday spirit, charming curmudgeonry, and several other tones. None of them work. It's all just a big jumble of flat-colored jellybeans here, and I don't know how to make an amusing anecdote out of it for you. A friend asked me today what I've been up to, and I had absolutely nothing to tell him, other than that I've been sick.

Sometimes I just don't feel like talking, or writing, or sometimes my head is just not a place I am able to discuss. And when one has little money one tends not to go out and do fancy things, so there isn't much to describe.

I've watched a bunch of movies on TV, including some enjoyable old ones that I hadn't seen before. I acquired a new crush on a TV actor, one which will make no sense to anyone but me, I expect. Which is fine. That way I can have him (imaginarily) to myself.

I received some cycling gear as gifts, and I'm glad to have it. I knitted some gifts from stash (plus one trip to the LYS because I had a dearth of "manly yarn"). Dad liked his Fair-Isle hat, which was nice, because I wasn't sure he would (not manly enough).

It's getting cold out, serious cold, the cold that separates the men from the boys and all that jazz, except that if last year is anything to go by, a lot of those selfsame men will be riding the subway to work, leaving me the little lone solitary cyclist slugging it out in the wind and snow.

That's fine with me. I like the quiet. I had company for the ride home tonight, and we went slow and easy, my preferred winter speed. I tend to ride at sunset this time of year, so I look west and see a lot of pink striped sky draped around the Statue of Liberty. Then I look east and there's the low sun blazing on the metalclad tops of the famous buildings: Empire, Chrysler.

Things are rough and beautiful these days, which seems fitting for winter.