Skip to main content

How Losing a Skirt Saved My Mind

Editors Note: Please ignore any hint of sexism here in the following post. The author loves women, women's clothing, and of course being a man. If this note doesn't confuse you, keep reading...

Friday January 7th

I'm going for five (count 'em like your fingers) days in a row on the road bicycle (it's actually a 'cross bike ready for winter riding complete with lights and fenders) - heading out this afternoon to Hamilton and back. I am back in saddle after a miserable 6 weeks off.

Regarding my whining of late - I think I know what happened. Back in early November when the cold weather first appeared in North Conway during the Porky Gulch Race I felt this constriction around my thighs. Weirdest thing, I'll tell ya...like I couldn't really move freely. On top of that I was cranky and moody all December and completely off the bike. No one really wanted to be around me, not my wife, kids, crew, even my dog was done with me.

Well on Monday I decided to have another look at my thighs and by jeezus I was wearing a skirt! Imagine my disbelief!!! A freakin' tight little cocktail number that made me walk like my feet were shackled. No wonder (I thought myself) I've had such a tough month. I've been wearing a gawd damn skirt.

Well lads, the skirt indeed came off (slipped gracefully right down around my ankles as I stepped out of it - easy ladies don't let that visual rile you up) and lo & behold I was manly again.

And ever since I've been riding outdoors like it's mid-July. Oh, and I'm a kind, loving, compassionate, husband, father, and boss again. The dog has welcomed me back too. The world is right again. Hallefuckinluya!

So when you find yourself in a rut. When you wake up grumpy and out of sorts. When nothing in your world seems to click. Throw on some extra layers, toss a leg over a bicycle and go ride. I guarantee you'll feel way better. When you get home have some milk and cookies. Bet you will feel right as rain.

And save that skirt for those hot summer nights...grrrrrrrr.

Comments

Rosemary, said…
Priceless! I am loving this blog. I think I need to forward this one to a few friends I know

Popular posts from this blog

Life: Italian Style

This morning I woke up feeling just like I have the entire past month. Dog tired (even after eight hours sleep) and lacking the morning fire I’m so accustomed to. I could feel my frustration build as I mentally scrolled through all that I have to do today. It got even worse when I visited a couple of projects we have going and saw things either not moving fast enough (according to me) or done the way I wanted (again, according to me). Ahhhh. Yet again another beautiful day off to an ugly start. I mean obviously all the ugliness is inside of me as the rest of the world is clearly oblivious to my inner turmoil. That’s cool. So I stopped by the Atomic CafĂ© for my morning cappuccino (yeah, yeah, I got it rough huh?) which Andrew so generously gave to me no charge. That was the beginning of a subtle shift inside me. Mellissa was bopping around behind the cash register and I could feel the energy just crackling off of her as she greeted customers as if each one was her favorite pers...

Waking Up with the What Ifs

Apparently last night I had been dreaming of a life I left behind 11 years ago.  Snippets of memory like peering through a gauzy veil, and scenes vaguely reminiscent of my life as a builder in a small coastal town north of Boston. I woke up with the What Ifs. You know how dreams are: like your eyes can’t completely focus, situations that are seemingly disconnected but maybe not, faces you know but can’t place, yet the feeling in the dream is quite real. I was back in Old Town and trying to figure out why the house I was in was unfinished. There was a meeting to be had there, but it was just me. I walked down a cobbled street to what I figured to be the office of the architect and it was a room of all glass and about 10 people seated around a glass table. I tried to get the attention of the man who was the architect on this particular job without disrupting the meeting. He looked like a friend who wasn’t an architect but a realtor and a neighbor.  I wondered how he switched care...

Renovation Anyone?

I had an unusual dream the other night. It was about a client who was upset that she had changed the design of her project and felt like she had made a mistake in doing so. Now the project was built, and what was she to do? We were talking over the phone and I could tell she was struggling to get her words out without getting emotional. I thought this a little odd but didn’t have any real judgment about it – I just listened. As she spoke she got more and more upset and she began to cry. Finally I said what to me seemed like the obvious. I said that she really didn’t have to get so distraught, there was nothing a sawzall and a nail gun couldn’t fix. And you know what? In that moment I said that with 100% conviction. Like talking to someone who was sad it was dark in their room and me saying to them then just turn on the light. She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief after that and then the dream ended. I mentioned the dream to Meg the next morning and she laughed. Meg in her l...