Dating, Bison, Muskrats and Top Secrets

Dear Blog,

Dating is kind of awful. The field is clogged with uneducated, incurious flotsam, interesting people who are unfortunately ugly as sin, educated, interesting and attractive people who somehow end up being Trump supporters, women who like football and fishing, candidates of mind numbing perfection in Detroit or Nashville, one on the far side of Columbus. My super ego is rejecting all the pretty young things my id wants to message, and my id is rejecting all the mature, interesting people I should be talking to. Pretty young things are demonstrating interest in no strings attached sex, and sitting alone in my new house, alone, empty, self destructive, free agent, do what I want, what do I want? To be happy. That isn't happiness. She's really cute (I mean psyche rockingly cute). Just imagine how many quality offspring she could bear, go to bed, get out of bed, go to bed, read Neil Gaiman because 3/4 matching women list him - hey this is really good...

And rejecting people, my god. It's so much worse than flunking people. I mean, when the students kinda did half try and were so blindsided because society and K-12 failed them so hard, it was really tough to have to do. But it wasn't their capacity as romantic partner that I was flunking. Just the math ability, and that can be improved. Just yesterday, a sparky, interesting, many hobbied woman messaged me - said I'm neat and what am I doing tonight? Looking up how to craft a rejection message that hurts as little as possible, that's what. The rejectors in the cartoon diagrams are always women. Sexist pieces of shit. 

I added the following to the end of my self-description on Plenty of Fish: 

1) For the love of Pete don't post pictures of your kids! Predators exist, they're on this site, they can filter for single moms. 
2) Snapchat filters on main pic, or all pics? Do you have teddy bear ears and a cat nose in real life? Are you really trying to sell an algorithmically modified version of yourself? 
3) I'm pretty sure asshats don't read the 'first off, no asshats' part of your profile or otherwise don't believe themselves to be asshats. Second off, if 90% of your profile is dedicated to warding off asshats, maybe you aren't offering non-asshats enough substance to consider pursuing you? Just a thought. 
4) Down to earth has officially lost all meaning for me. As have fun loving and laid back. Check this out: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/down-to-earth. Plainspoken. Fo' shizzle. I haven't seen that modifier on a single profile within 250 clicks of here. Stand out from the crowd! Otherwise, you're only going to get attention from asshats (note 3 supra). 

I am chatting with a viable candidate. There is hope. 

(Seh-goo)

I've been biking a lot. I biked around New Burlington yesterday. It was unreal how amazing it was. I stopped for pictures of river branches over cobbled stones between leaning oaks and grazing pastures for bison (did not know I lived anywhere near a bison farm). An hour ago I saw a muskrat clambour out of a drain and up along a soy field while I sat writing in my journal. It was one of the most beautiful spots. I did my best to draw the scene, clouds, far off highway, beans and corn, gravel and grass. I wrote a full page on the warm wind, the rattle of the corn stalks, the chirp of birds and insects on a patch of road I'd never conceived of, despite having passed within 200 meters at least a hundred times before, to and from Central State campus. I don't believe I've ever seen a muskrat before. 

My body is capable of simply drifting at paces I once found challenging, and many casual riders still do. It makes me happy to experience this drift between green walls of corn. I'm officially a serious cyclist, riding with a group of triathletes who compete in regional and national races. That came of a sub-plot to a ride I mentioned a while back, a ride to Urbana and back. It was a day so good that even as it was happening I knew I might be peaking for 2019 - and that that was ok. I've had years with lower high points. 

The Urbana ride, the weather was warm, breeze enough to keep you dry if you stopped, but not enough to really hinder you as long as you were generally pointed north or south (which I was). I left around 9 in the morning, after my ex went somewhere or other with our daughter. On the way up to Yellow Springs I caught a draft on an older fellow cruising at a pretty tough pace on the worst of the uphill in that direction. He told me his name, I think it was Dave, wished me well at a point where he turned around or left or something. Then I was alone again, heading north to Springfield. I had then just recently gone up to Springfield, so it was not so much familiar as not unfamiliar. I was solidly warmed up by this time, prepared to put in serious speed if that was needed, but planning a gentler pace for an all day ride. 

There's a quality of yellow that comes off of weeds on the side of a path when the sun is really high and bright in summer. I don't really understand it, but I love it. I was seeing this, and feeling powerful, and peaceful, as I got to Springfield. There are a few blocks there you have to ride the roads of downtown before the trail picks back up on the north end. I saw a group of young bloods coalescing in the downtown streets towards the trail northward. Carbon fiber, spandex, mid twenties. I figured they looked fast, would be good for a draft. Indeed once they got on the trail they were cruising about 28kph or so. At each stop, I stopped in among them. On the third stop, the leader asked, "are you trying to pass us?" 

My goodness no. I'm drafting. I'm not fast enough to pass you guys. She introduced herself as Lisa, and welcomed me to the clip. I got to chat with two or three of them over the next while. We followed an old man who confidently headed up a road, and ended up turning around when it seemed to become a highway. Lisa has been beating herself up for weeks for leading a stranger onto a highway. Whatever, it was an adventure. They broke the wind for me until about halfway between Springfield and Urbana, at a little jangle in the path where it crosses some railroad tracks. They invited me to join their weekly group ride Wednesday nights out of the Lebanon YMCA. 

On north I went alone, needing water shortly thereafter I saw the kind of roof that looks like it belongs to a public building. Just the kind of weird angle and height that is never on a private residence, you know. It was a bog nature preserve center, and indeed there was a water fountain, and a friendly ranger who doesn't really get enough people to talk to, what with being about equidistant to two fairly small cities. I filled up water and sat behind the building, on benches in the shade overlooking a cedar bog. The wind made the waxy leaves crackle while I ate my peanut butter filled pretzel bites that I've found to be a nearly perfect cycling fuel. A woman walked in from my left on a boardwalk that goes through the bog. She said, 'did you bike here too?' We chatted for a bit about the quality of the day, places we'd ridden. She talked about the GOBA, which sounds a treat. She went on, and I wrapped up my eating, topped off my canteens again and I rode off while she was lacing up her clip-in shoes. 

In Urbana, right away I saw a perfect spot, The Train Station Cafe, a former depot converted over to a coffee shop. I knew if there was any kind of food for lunch, I'd be set. And they have a full food menu of panini style sandwiches. I got a pretty good reuben and a latte, and drank a lot of water and sat still a lot in the cool. There were bikers (motor and leather) and people with amazing tattoos and kids and local art on the walls. I got in around noon, and started riding back home around 1. Landed a little after 4, a day well spent, another county down, a cool shower and my familiar bed to lounge in and watch youtube into the evening, and sing once my ex left (I was still living in the same house at the time). 

I did manage to join one Wednesday, and there were some older riders in the full group, but all of them climbed hills like they had places to be, and I was the last to the top of each big climb. I showed my strength as a distance rider on the flataways and actually pulled for a bit. Chatted with a half dozen cyclists and was welcomed and encouraged all around. I can't make the Wednesday rides, but they organize weekend rides often, and I've gotten in on one of those. Always not being the fastest, but neither the slowest, and certainly on the lowest tech, heaviest gear of all. I suppose they are becoming my friends. 

(Seh-gway)

I got a full time paid internship at a defense contracting company today. If they hire me, which the CEO said was the goal, I'd have to get the third tier government security clearance: top secret. The pay isn't amazing, but it will pay the bills, and I'll get a handful of certifications in industry along the way. Which beats the hell out of paying a couple grand on a bootcamp. At the interview, I was able to give a solution to a white board problem that was novel to them, as it comes from a set theory problem of infinities, but also gave the more typical programming approach. That is, I shined as what I am. 

I'm neither ecstatic, nor disappointed. It's not really the line of work I wanted, precisely. It's the right kind of work, for the wrong kind of customer (defense). It's not a full time job with benefits, but isn't unpaid, and has potential. I guess, just as I once wrote about a restaurant on Google Reviews: it wasn't the best of times, it wasn't the worst of times. 

(Segue)

Two new artists in my sphere of knowing, St. Vincent and Fink. Check them out. They're friggin' epic. Through my headphones Fink is dropping some raw emotion. Through the window nearby the sky dims behinds trees still waving gently in a late July breeze. 

I love summer. It's always been my favorite season. 

Your Obedient,
Ian Hogan, PhD