Sock Him Baz

Watching the Swans at Manuka oval, after which we went and had the world’s greatest Kebabs and pints of Little Creatures. I ran home around the lake and across the water all the government buildings were lit up blue, like concrete ghosts reaching for the stars.

Later, when we talked, it was about Mongols, their horses, and how mice look on the inside. I’ll gladly confess I got a little lost at this stage, and that the feeling was a good one. I don’t think thin-slicing should have anything to do with what sweatshirt you’re wearing, or whether you have a moustache, but it’s been a while since I read Blink, and I think I’ll be arguing around corners. This has never stopped me in the past, and it certainly won’t stop me now.

Today, I woke feeling invincible. Like I could punch holes through walls and scream mastery to the hills. Run so fast my feet kick up great clouds of dust, as I hammer through the young trees that snap backward at my approach. It appears I’ve dodged the epidemic that’s ravaging the office and though the vitamins I’ve been stuffing down my throat like candy are unlikely to have helped, a placebo is a powerful thing.

I slip off my front wheel and push a plastic lever into the gap between the rim and tyre. I always forget how to do this, and relearn it every time I change the tube. It doesn’t help that my hands are shaking in the cold, and I stop every few minutes to stick them in my pockets and hop in a circle. Even with cold hands, the metal back of the iPod is colder, and the Notwist inform me that “we’ll remember good lies / when we carry them home with us to our bedside table / and our coffee sets.”

I learnt a new word this week, Proprioception. It relates to the body’s unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation. It can be learned, or lost, and I’m grateful for it as I lean into the corner and set into an easy rhythm, legs pumping as I head up the hill.

Posted in Locomotion on Saturday June 28, 2008.