Biking.

This ride would have been so much more different just three years ago.

I start off the day late. Trying so desperately to wake up. Even with Me. giving me light kisses and gently waking me, I still pull the blankets over my head. I sigh and move slowly out of bed. Me. is out the door and I sit at the computer to look at the Internet for a bit, but looking at the clock I realize that I'm already running ten minuets late.

I throw on shoes, grab my bag, and keys. Pulling the bike out of the closet and get going. I get down 12th and onto Broadway and as I'm cruising along the street I feel it. This kind of catch in the pedals that signaled the last time my pedal fell off. And I can tell that it is about to happen again. I pump and hope that I will make it all the way to work.

I make it to Iowa, and the death rattle happens. The pedal slips and falls to the ground. I'm 15 blocks from work. I call to tell them that I'm going to be late, and I start to walk.

When I get to work, it is a normal day. Which is to say that it is really frustrating. I send Mi. home early because I'm seriously sick of listening to him talk nonstop shit. I chew out the dishwasher for just being a jerk to everyone. And by the end of the day I'm ready to go.

I talk to Va. and he suggests that I could stop at the scooter store a half a block down to get the tool that I need to fix the bike. I clock out, look out the window, and it is pouring rain.

I walk out the door, unlock my bike, and walk the half block to the scooter place. He has the wrench that I need, and I fix the bike. The rain is coming down even harder. The guy tells me that I can stay until it lets up. I tell him no big deal, and get out the door.

No glasses, no iPod, no worries.

And it makes me think. Two, three years ago, this cold and wet would have made me irritated at best, and probably pretty pissed. I would have gotten home and yelled. At anyone that got in my way. I was not a happy man, and I didn't really know how to enjoy anything. In this moment, all there is is the sensation of the rain, the movement of my legs on the bike, the feel of the road.

It took me getting a little more mature, to revel in the joy of being child like.

A lot has changed.

File under Virtue.