Fixpert

Alright, let’s make this quick so I can get back to posting regularly. Here’s a quick catch-up list of what I’ve been doing for the last 3 weeks:

• Amazing trip to Maui for friends’ wedding
• Drawing a LOT
• Playing guitar a LOT
• Struggling to adjust to the lack of seasons in SoCal (more about this below)
• Lots of extra hours at work
• Caught a cold or something, better now
• Getting treatment for shoulder injury from my accident a few months back
• …which means, not a lot of exercise
• …which means, me not riding bikes much and feeling a bit sad about it
• Current soundtrack: Bobby Womack

I’ve generally been feeling a bit sentimental lately, and I don’t really like to post when I’m emotional. It’s like drunk-dialing, you just regret it later. Unlike drunk-dialing, I can go back and erase any posts which I regret, but I’d rather just save myself some time and skip it altogether.

SoCal: Where are the Seasons?

As much as I feel like the Princess and the Pea complaining about the perfect SoCal weather, I am finding myself missing the East Coast Autumn. I’ve moved around a lot in my lifetime, but I’m mostly an East Coast soul. I’m a Georgia Peach for cryin’ out loud! My body, mind, soul are all hard-wired to the seasons.

I’m used to adjusting my whole mode based on the time of year. Winter is the time to buckle down and work on some projects inside since the weather is crummy. Spring is rebirth, your soul is thawing out, everything is alive and green again — including you. Summer is the fun, child-like play outside in the sunshine time.

And Fall?

Fall is full of natural beauty, but a bit of sentimental sadness, as you know you’re headed into Winter. The look, sounds, and smells of Fall are so distinct — the color of the leaves, and the crunching of them under your feet. The way your nose tickles with the dry air. Staticky hair after pulling a sweater over your head. Orange. Rust. The weather is starting to get cooler, so you pull out some favorite clothes that you haven’t seen in months. The rain, the cold, the wind. The air is so crisp and clear, the colors of the sky and leaves are brighter and seem to be more saturated and vibrant than any other time of the year. It’s like you just took a windshield washer to your eyeballs.

But…in SoCal? It’s…I don’t know, about five degrees cooler than it was during the Summer. Otherwise, it’s the same. My biological clock is telling me to start switching into Fall mode again, but nothing else around me is triggering that feeling, so I’m feeling a disconnect. It’s terrible to complain about such beautiful weather, I guess I’m just surprised that it’s an issue at all.

Oh, haha, one more thing, I saw some employees stacking pumpkins outside of the local grocery store and I muttered to myself “Posers!” Haha, that is just ridiculous, but I thought I’d share.

Holler if you hear me!

I drew this sometime in 2003. This is a guy Andrew that I took a printmaking class with in college.

Here’s a crappy-quality sketch I put down in my sketchbook a few years ago. I think this is from 2003, I was feeling a bit cynical about Bush, oil wars, SUVs, American urban planning, lack of good mass transit, and the troubles of being a cyclist. At least there’s a happy ending!

I’ve put a transcript down below, since some of the handwriting is hard to read.

OILFIELD’S ABLAZE!

America’s jowels drop as gas prices soar!

(hugest SUV ever)

Family’s gaze in horror at the terrifying images of war.

America’s highway system seizes and becomes a vast network of parking lots.

Suddenly, the absence of a functional public transit system becomes apparent.

The economy buckles as fearful (and sluggish) consumers cling to the safety of their sofas.

Ok, it seems weird, but all of a sudden everything switches up and people start riding bikes all over.