LESS INTROSPECTION! MORE INTENSITY!

As I check BBC for news from Bolivia, I dream of high mountain passes and morning soggy oatmeal euphoria. Today I biked 16 miles to work. Next Monday I will bike across countries, and I'm convincing myself that my absolute lack of training/biking/doing anything other than enviously gazing at Andy Schleck's calves is absolutely irrelevant. Andy Schleck has absolutely nothing on my borrowed maillot jaune and our slackline.

This will be me:

This may also be me:

Which is cooler?

Today on the metro

I saw a man wearing rubber toe sock shoes with a three piece suit.
It was beautiful.

In other news

My spam is trying to sell me "tablets of hot sex online".

A well-respected man about town

Armed with a cardigan, a lanyard ID, sensible shoes, and a perfunctory knowledge of the DC metro, I have entered the (unpaid) workforce! I have a job that doesn't involve drinking terrible beer, spandex or chasing bears! Currently my job description is broadly to save the world but essentially to poke a model of Andean hydrology and watch it refuse to do as I say and read articles about other models that may cooperate more. My new favourite socioculturally appropriate acronym is FIESTA: Fog Interception for the Elevation of Streamflow in Tropical Areas. Meanwhile Gary and I bike the many socially responsible bike paths and marvel at the ingenuity of suburban planning. In a little over a week I will be in Prague and setting off on another epic failure/adventure (cross out which doesn't belong).


The Rio Magdalena has a beguiling watershed.

Napoleon in rags

The second to last day of treeplanting in a region called Temagami, desperation was starting to show. Bad money, no sleep, no booze, weird headspaces, drizzling rain. Bodies starting to wear after what would be a seven day shift. Days spent tapping rock, exhaustion, anger, and in everyone's eyes a burning desire to just go home. I was closing mental doors and steeling my head towards new circumstances, so for me it was a case of balls, meet wall. We slouched off the bus at the end of the day and threw our gear out of the way of the pickup trucks. No one cared enough to put it where it belonged. Trudged into the mess tent, ladled soup, drank our last few beers, sat around and stared, cracked a few cynical jokes. Half the camp was still planting and wouldn't be back till midnight. Someone put on Like a Rolling Stone. The harmonica wailed and suddenly everyone, with dirt on their faces and blood on their knuckles, ragged and haggard, really just Napoleons in rags, sang along to it. It was heartfelt and defiant, and it would have been clichéd anywhere but the Ontario wilderness.

Photos of misery:

Intensity!

I was unable to walk for a whole week after that, so much did the race take out of me. But it was the most pleasant exhaustion I have ever known.
-Emil Zátopek, after winning the 1952 Olympic marathon in Helsinki
Fun Fact! Did you know? This guy won the 5k, 10k, and marathon at the same Olympics, the only person ever to do so.
Look at him go. Those ears. That struggle. I needed a reminder of what intensity looks like, as my only intensity has been in destroying the relics of my childhood as I clean out my room, and even that has been perfunctory at best. I should be thankful that my family has moved nine times in my life, as the clutter would otherwise be far worse.

Fire no guns, shed no tears.

Weeks of wilderness give a unique perspective on things like the importance of PhDs, the Internet, and showering. Back in the real world I'm a bit at a loss - no bears? no Alberta Premium? My problems can't all be solved by screaming "ON YA BIKE!" and planting harder? Oh.
The end of treeplanting involved hitchhiking to Montréal, cooking a large amount of bargain seamonsters, biking while singing sea shanties, tea, guitars, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Dollar Cinema and in general one of the happiest weeks of my life. I'm currently in Philadephia tying up loose ends and my life is relatively calm, which allows for the blag.

Sometimes treeplanting isn't very fun. Luckily, my crew and planting partners were pretty cool, and when things got annoying, we sang songs. Favourites were I've Just Seen a Face by the Beatles and various old Maritime songs, so I learned more sea shanties in the landlocked province of Ontario than ever on the coast. Barrett's privateers was a perennial, if only because it has eight verses and features cannons.