Life, As Done By Jeano

I'm still on a quest to find permanent housing, which is both fun ("Hey, it's kind of like you're my friends and we're hanging out!") and miserable. I have a tendency to get very attached to an idea and go for it without much (or any) thought. Consequently, every time I see a house I tell the people, "That's it, you're my top choice, just say the word and I'll move in." But then, a day later, they're totally not my top choice. At all. Like, I already know I can't live in a gluten-free, wholly local/organic, no hydrogenated-fructose-oil-syrup-whatever household. I KNOW that. And yet I heard myself telling these wonderful-people-but-totally not-my-future-roommates that "I love this place! I'll take it!" And then ashamedly emailing them later to tell them I'm actually not interested. I'm such an asshole.

Another great example of this is my bike. Yeah, I own a bike now - I guess that makes me a biker? Don't expect to see "Tri-ing Jeano" any time soon; biking sucks. If it weren't for the fact that it's faster than walking, I wouldn't have anything to do with it. Anyway, let's take a look at my bike-buying experience.

Scene: Jeano timidly speaks to angry Craigslist man on the phone, drives to his house, unsure if she's meeting an adorable curmudgeon a la Mr. Wilson or the decidedly less adorable BTK killer. Pulls up to his driveway, decides he's not going to murder her (yet), but is confused by the billion different bikes he has for sale.

Jeano: Are you moving? Is this a moving sale?

Old man: No.

Silence.

Well, that sure clarified things. Jeano takes a number of bikes for a spin and narrows her options down to two bikes. One bike is a great bike. Just your run-of-the-mill mountain bike, like every other she's ever ridden. The other bike is a road bike of questionable quality that must be from the early '80s. The gears, strange knobs between the handlebars, don't shift all that well, and the bike frame seems to be way too tall, but damn, it looks cool.

So which one did I buy? Like I even need to answer that.

That's my old, unwieldy, mostly functioning road bike that I'm sort of scared to ride long distances. It doesn't help that the seat has started rocking forward and backward while I ride it, to the point where I spend much of the ride with one hand pushing down on the front of it to keep it semi-level. I'm anxiously awaiting the moment it flips backward off the bike, taking me with it. Or, maybe I'll go get it checked out. Safety first and all that.

So there you have it: life, as done by Jeano.

Oh, and I'm also a chicken farmer now! By which I mean I have access to chickens.

You know, just taking the chickens for their nightly walk.

I can't claim to know what to do with them (Meagan, any pointers?), but they're a riot.

Let's not forget exercise. This was a pretty solid week for running, hiking, and (lolz) biking. My mileage wasn't dazzling, but I made it out for a trail jog the other day, two 3-milers, a 5-miler along the river, and a scorching hike up "Mount" Pisgah this afternoon. Garmin tells me I netted 995 feet elevation gain over the course of 1.4 miles, so I guess that's cool.

This is sort of like when a blogger takes pictures of their plate from six hundred angles; I take pictures of the same scenery from slightly different angles and hope people don't notice. Let's just call this a triptych. 

It's a big river. Taken on Friday.

I might go to a group run tomorrow night. Might. I'm already anxious about it so probably won't go. Running groups are scary. What I need is a personal running companion. Takers?