“The chain that fell off my bike last night

Is now wrapped round my heart

Sometimes I think that

Fate has been against us from the start”

— Billy Bragg, “The Only One”

I hear ya, Billy. Testify.

A haiku:

I walk down King St

See all the bikes with their chains

And then I am sad

np – Teenage Fanclub / Thirteen

The apartment I was going to see tomorrow – I decide that since it sounds promising and there’s an open house sort of showing tonight, that I should go and take a look in case someone snatches it up between today and tomorrow. The neighbourhood itself is quite nice – quiet, kids playing on the street, great big trees providing shade and aesthetics. Nice. Never mind that it’s much closer to Dundas than to College, that’s hardly a deal-killer. However, when the property manager arrives and lets me in, well… the ad said “high ceilings” – high if you’re lying down, maybe. I’m not even 6′ and I had to duck to get through doorways. Give me a break. “Lots of light” – certainly not natural light. The windows were almost non-existant. To be fair, the place was in remarkably good shape and a good size (if not vertically). But definitely not something I was sorry about crossing off my list. The hunt continues.

Rehearsal was alright, mostly trying to get Kate and her cello integrated into things. Being heard was a bit of an issue since we couldn’t mic her up (feedback issues), but I think things sounded alright despite none of us really having any idea how to arrange strings. And now we have a week off while Brad returns to Chicago to visit the folks.

Someone really doesn’t want me to ride my bike. After yesterday’s excursions, I wanted to keep the cycling at a minimum so as not to utterly destroy my leg muscles. So what do I do? Cycle to work. Cycle home from work. Cycle over to Dundas and Beatrice to look at the apartment. Cycle to Front and Sherbourne for rehearsal. Cycle to Yonge and College (for non-Torontonians, this is a fair bit of distance to be covering in a short amount of time). Why did I stop at Yonge and College? BECAUSE MY GODDAMN BIKE CHAIN BROKE. Snapped right off. Not even a month old. I am fucking annoyed. Thankfully this didn’t happen yesterday, and I was only two blocks from home so walking it back wasn’t a big deal, but still. And to make things even better, when I got down to see if I could get it back together myself, I find that some of the outer teeth on the sprocket are either worn down or broken off completely. What the hell? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a bike that’s not even a month old to NOT fall apart like this. I mean, this isn’t a cheap-ass K-Mart bicycle. Anyway, I will not be cycling to work for a few days till I get the shop to repair this, and you are damn skippy that it will be covered under warranty.

I am in a foul mood. Now is not the time to piss me off.

np – Velvet Crush / A Single Odessey

You ever get the stupid idea in your head that you’ve left a stove element on, and even though you KNOW that you turned it off before you left the house, that nagging little voice in the back of your head insists you go back and make sure that you did, and when you visually confirm that you did, you feel like a paranoid chump? Yeah.

Okay, net long-term damage from yesterday? Doesn’t seem to be too bad. My left knee is feeling a little wonky but we’ll see if that goes away in a little time. But stairs should be avoided for the next little while, I think. I barely made it up the three flights to work this morning.

I aniticipate today’s net output at work will be pretty much zero. A sensible person would have gone home after the ride yesterday and slept. Recuperated. Recovered. Etc. Instead, I was back out barely an hour after getting home, catching Brendan Benson’s very brief but impressive in-store at Soundscapes. I enjoyed it enough to decide I would go to the show at the ‘Shoe that night. We will call that a gross overestimation of my energy levels, but anyway.

There was some time to kill, so Kyle and I met up with Sarah and went to see The Italian Job. I was concerned going in that after seeing the trailer, I’d already seen the whole film but thankfully, that’s not the case. There’s no shocking twists, but it’s just a good, fun summer film. I realize I love a good caper film. It didn’t aspire to too much, but delivered on every note it intended. It’s like a roller-coaster – you know where you’re going to end up as soon as you get on, but it’s fun anyway. And Charlize Theron. Um, yes. Ahem.

The gravy was for one reel, the projecter went out of sync so the top and bottom of the film was cut off for about four minutes. It wasn’t a crucial scene or anything, just a little annoying, but once the problem was corrected, you forgot all about it. However, at the end of the film, a couple of Paramount droogs were at the exit handing out free passes and apologizing profusely. Good stuff – free movie and I didn’t even feel I should have been entitled to one because of the technical SNAFU. I will instead pretend that this pass comes from them apologizing for The Matrix sucking so hard.

Brendan Benson’s show at the ‘Shoe was quite good, a much stronger turnout than I’d expected for a Sunday night. He and his outfit, the Wellfed Boys, put on a very tight and entertaining set, even if by their own admission they were a little sloppy. I’d only heard Lapalco once previously, so I was basing my judgement of them almost entirely on the performance, and I was impressed. There was definitely some Robyn Hitchcock influence going on, confirmed when they covered “Listening to the Higson’s” in the encore. At first I thought it was Elf Power, but I realized after a bit that EP had covered the same song on Nothing’s Going To Happen. Anyway, it was a relatively short set – maybe 1h10m including encore, but that suited me fine since I had been dead on my feet since around 9pm anyway.

np – Steve Earle / I Feel Alright

There are not the words to accurately describe how my legs feel right now. I have just ridden approximately 60 km along the freeways on the south and east side of Toronto for the Becel Ride For Heart. That’s almost 40 miles for our American readers. And I should qualify this by mentioning that I AM NOT IN SHAPE. Exercise for me is something that happens incidentally, not intentionally.

But, I did manage to not only complete the entire 50 km course, but cycle from home down to the Exhibition grounds (the starting point) and back. My thighs are just killing me, and my ass feels like I just finished a five-year sentence at Oz. Note to self – investigate new bike saddles. But I did get the best workout I’ve probably ever had, and honestly, my cardio held up a lot better than I expected. The killer was the steep hills up the DVP and the intense headwind taking away any momentum I gained on the downhill portions. There was some serious agony in first gear trying to get up those hills, but I am proud of the fact that not once did I get off my bike and walk any of it. There were some breaks at the rest areas, but those are acceptable. In total, my time was 3:10, including around half an hour of the rest areas waiting for people to catch up.

So now I am bushed, but at least showered and cleaned up. And I am waiting for Kyle to show up so we can go to the Brendan Benson instore at Soundscapes. Probably see a movie to kill time between that and the show at the Horseshoe. I am going to be so dead tomorrow… I don’t know if I even want to ride my bike to work. I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

I love Get Fuzzy – today’s strip is hysterical. There is an interview with creator Darby Conley here.

np – Low / Trust