… just how nice driving an automobile can be. Especially if it’s an automobile with a smooth ride and a great sound system. I had to rent a car this weekend (Jennifer’s wound was not healing properly, and blood was not flowing well on the top side of her foot — she could feel and wiggle all her toes — so she is in the hospital getting anti-biotics and blood thinners and generally being miserable) and it’s not as bad as I recall. Aimee Mann thuds wonderfully on the beltway.
I rather like the elements and nature. I don’t mind terribly riding in the cold and wet. Yes, nature is cruel, but I take comfort in the fact that nature’s cruelties have no moral purpose, are not intentional, and do not mean disfavor. The cruelties Men inflict upon each other, well, they are a different matter entirely.
But there is something to be said for climate-controlled comfort. There is something to be said for wandering around in a very hard, sealed shell of personal noise that can shut the world out. This is a difficult time, what with my wife having been run over by a bus and the wound not healing properly, and it was nice to make the world not exist for a while. As wonderful as cycling is — I love the high I get when I hit what some cyclists call “the zone” — this is all right too. Almost makes me look forward to actually owning an automobile again, sometime in the future.
7:05 pm on February 4, 2006
