Oh, I'm stressed

Date: Dec. 18
Mileage: 43
December mileage: 273.8
Temperature upon departure: 39

Today's ride was sponsored in part by my good friend, Jen, who is currently freezing her ski tips off in Alta, Utah. Jen is the bomb. This picture of a "b'eagle" kick'n it atop Salty Dawg also is for her. Go B'Alaska!

I get the sense from some of the e-mails and comments I get that many believe I live a charmed life up here in the not-so-frozen north. And I do, really - the scenery, the strange encounters, the wildlife, the biking. I love it and that's what I write about. But I still have my desk-jockey alter ego to contend with, and she is having a hard time sitting out this Sunday, knowing that when Monday comes there will be so, so much to do.

I don't typically get the Sunday blues, but this week before Christmas is going to be tough. The phrase "I'm going to be so busy this week" is pretty vague, and doesn't really get to the heart of what most of us do in our off (i.e. non-biking) time.

I'm a journalist ... a small-town journalist. I work for a weekly community newspaper. Weeklies are nearly universal in their penchant of hiring ridiculously small staffs to multitask (i.e. stumble) through each issue, and I was hired to multitask that multitasking. I sometimes write in my blog about my work as an arts and entertainment reporter. Despite the fact that I usually write between 3 and 5 articles a week, reporting is only a small part of what I actually do. What makes my job a job is my work as a production editor. I am the person who each week takes a random jumble of ads, photos and haphazardly-written stories, throws them on a computer, shakes them around a bit, and hopes beyond hope that a coherent and even well-designed newspaper comes out. Sometimes, I find a nice flow. But most weeks, I feel like I am staring down a 5,000-piece puzzle with a 2 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

It's especially hard this week because my boss has been laying on a beach in Hawaii for three weeks, and the staff shortage has finally caught up to us. The reporters already don't turn in their stories until the 13th hour, so on Friday afternoon they piled on me a couple of sickly-sweet holiday stories that I need to interview for (and write!) tomorrow. Why can't I start on them until tomorrow? Because the people I need to interview are busy enjoying their holiday, and won't be available until then. So, basically, tomorrow will be like trying to put together a 5,000-piece puzzle while talking on the phone, scribbling madly on a notepad and piecing together a couple of 600-word articles. Then on Tuesday I'm supposed to edit it all. Well, if a four-letter-word is accidentally dropped into the copy somewhere and makes it to press, don't blame me. (I'm just kidding, Carey! I don't think my boss reads my blog ... but you can't be to careful.

OK. I'm done ranting. But everyone needs a chance to vent once in a while. One of the reasons I went on a 43-mile bike ride today was to work out some of that anxiety. I think I'm feeling better now. I usually am able to deal pretty well with stress. In this profession, you really have to be. No matter what size of publication we work at, journalists live and die by deadlines, low salaries and public scrutiny. So most of us become either a.) a person who actually thrives in stress situations and becomes more productive (or crazy) in the process. Or, b.) a person who dies of multiple ulcerations of the stomach at 41. Every once in a while I worry I might become that second person. Then I remember - "oh yeah. I'm signing up to ride 100 miles over ice on my bicycle, by choice." That makes me feel much better.

It's summer out

Date: Dec. 17
Today's mileage: 32.3
December mileage: 230.8
Top speed: 36 mph
Temperature upon departure: 39

Today's ride was sponsored by Kevin in Wisconsin, and by Eric and Jesse. So much love, so much riding.

Geoff and I dropped off the ridge for a 32-mile loop, squinting against the spray of rain water and grit and watching rogue rays shimmer on the sea. The wind was calm, the water as smooth as glass. And as the sun gained more ground through parting clouds, the summer recreationalists began to emerge from their warm cocoons, blinking against the bright reflection and stumbling into surreal summer wonderland filled with Christmas lights and the gray remnants of melting snow.

It wasn't exceptionally warm today, nor was it exceptionally sunny. But the combined efforts of two weeks of unseasonably warm weather, calm air and a thin but clear window after days of drizzling rain coaxed everybody outside.

We rode along the Spit, drafting a flock of sea birds as they rose from the shoreline - now stripped of all its ice - and coasted lazily toward the sky. The summer recreationalists nodded as we drifted by - the old couple and their swerving mountain bikes; the little dogs with their joggers, bundled up and panting; the roller-skier on skates, planting her poles in the pavement and looking none too happy about it. I saw more cyclists out today than I ever did on any Saturday in September - some looking uncomfortably cold; others looking as if they couldn't believe themselves what they were doing. We just smiled and kept moving. We weren't special today - just part of the flock, two more people who saw a sliver of summer emerge from a six-hour-long day less than a week before solstice. And now I feel so torn. Do I want winter to come back? Do I want global warming to just take this thaw and run with it? Or do I want to just continue no matter what the weather does? So much love, so much riding.

Pedaling backward

Date: Dec. 16
Today's mileage: 21
December mileage: 198.5
Temperature upon departure: 45

Today's ride was sponsored by Moe at The Bike Geek. This outpouring of generosity has inspired me to get in the saddle even on days like today - where I had a lot of writing to do, a *required* Christmas work part at 3 p.m., and an entire of day of yucky warmth and constant rain. (For those riders down south who balk at my complaining about 45-degree temperatures, try to visualize that with a stinging drizzle, sea spray and headwinds approaching northern Nebraska-strength) Ok. You caught me. It's not always brutal cold in coastal Alaska. But most of the time - in the winter at least - most of us here wish it was.

I took my new gloves for a test ride today - kind of an interesting day to do it, what with the warmth and soaking weather. Not really conducive to warm winter gloves, but they held up well in the rain and proved their waterproof abilities. Even the zipper, surprisingly, was impenetrable. But I'm feeling some blogger's remorse for yesterday's post. Sometimes I forget that the things I write in here can directly affect people I know and love. I hope they understand that I think the world of them, and that the story was meant to demonstrate the irony of my connection to those gloves - while Eric and I didn't get along in grade school, we seem to have a lot more in common now. And I feel the need to say - on the record - that my memory of events 20 years ago isn't foolproof. I don't want to say without a doubt that one person made fun of me for throwing baseballs dismal distances when, in fact, in may have been another. And, really, they were very dismal distances and probably deserved some ridicule.

That said, and speaking as a person who is not much of a gearhead, I really think winter bikers should give these gloves a shot. The zipper allows for needed ventilation when sweating is a problem (such as steep hills.) The materials are quick-drying synthetics with leather palms that will withstand long periods of gripping handlebars. And freeing the fingers without removing the glove is a handy feature for those who need to make quick use of their hands without risking long exposure. Here is a link to the contact form if you are having any problems reaching the Web site. And I want to say that hopefully tomorrow I'll come up with a more inspired post. Today I did a rainy bike ride, went to two holiday parties and ate a lot of garlicky foods and sugar. I'm about ready to pass out.