Kethcup. Ooh, Kethum, ID. Let's go there with bikes...

Hey! Wanna hear my most favorite poem ever? Well, not ever...but for the love-genre it is, and its the poem that's going to go on the doilie-place-settings at my wedding (not that I plan these things or anything...) Here it is (by e.e. cummings):

yes is a pleasant country:
if's wintry
(my lovely)
let's open the year

both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure
when violet's appear

love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one
(and april's were we're)

e.e. cummings is the jam because, not only does he write awesome poetry (some of its really erotic, but I'm always too embarrassed to read that stuff, so I just skip along to the PG stuff) and uses unconventionality in form that just seems to make so much more sense (kind like in real life), but he also doesn't even bother to capitilize his own name. I went through a phase like that in grade school--i thought it be a cool self-humbling statement if i always wrote my name like kylie krauss. I stopped doing that, though, as soon as I realized feigned self-righteousness and conventiality works for most other people, and they were all getting along much better than I, or i, or whatever. What the hell am I talking about? Oh well, I'm digressing anyway.

Spring, like e.e. cummings, is the bomb-dot-com, as it were. But like co-worker Brandon and I happened to notice today, fall isn't too bad either, assuming you're able to ignore what it's about to lead up to (i.e. winter, which is a terrible idea, seasonally speaking.) But fall, for what it is, is awesome. Especially here, in the Southern Appalachians. Word.

As much as I don't want to identify with the octogenarian motor-tourists that drive 25 mph down the parkway oggling over oranges, reds, and goldens...E.O. Wilson's whole Biophilia hypothesis forces me to excuse them. Everyone loves fall for its aesthetics. And dang! As they ought to.

It does, however, make me rediculously restless. Dwinding daylight and changing seasons coupled with me soon to be jobless, waiting to hear back from team sponsorships, not know what I want to do next year (work? grad-school? bake corn bread and make coffee for my man?), etc. It's been the most wonderful Indian Summer so far, and I'm trying to squeeze in as much riding as possible, knowing this isn't going to last. Soon there'll only be, like, 15 minutes of daylight once you're out of work, and it'll be all cold and wet, and my Campi grouppo will get all salt crusted from the road spray. I didn't just say that.

But yeah, fall riding...sure is swell. I've been feeling awefully strong this week--the Rainbow Ridge-Kitsuma-Rainbow Ridge oreo ride was great, I tried to take it slighty slower and focus on the key technical and power moves, all-official like. Last night I hammered a standard Bent Creek loop. My singlespeed's been sitting at home this week, waiting for me to put in a half-link so I can finally run it as a true 2:1, without a stupid tensioner, so I did Bent Creek on gears, which I hate doing. It makes me disappointed in myself. A couple easy rides the next two days, then I somehow got myself into doing the Double Dare along with Jeremy Hargroves. I think it's going to be a real tough race. I'm excited though--I haven't raced since August, and I've been feeling a little slacky.

In other aspects of my silly little life, my job with the Forest Service is ending soon--seasonal position as a research technician. It's been a good time, goofing off with co-workers under the guise of advancing the science of forestry. Or something like that. And so I've been trying to find another job, which, for those of you in Asheville, know is about as hard as cleaning Farlow your first time--unless your Sam Koerber, or God, then that analogy doesn't make sense. But yeah, trying to find a job. Trying to keep on keeping on.

And the guy I've been climbing to the top of fire escapes with to watch these fall sunsets, and other such acts of rediculous adorableness, is moving to this side of town, which sadly, yet conveniently, means no more evening sprints on the townie across, well, town. We used to use phrases like "smitten" all the time with eachother, now we're solid-like-a-wolf and use phrases like "re-smote" "smodden" and "forever smod."

And if that's not making you feel sick, wait 'til you see this.

I'm excited for this weekend--a good excuse to ride for 12 hours two days in a row, and there's no entry fee, so officially we're not really racing, so no pressure. No pressure at all....Gulp.