I promised myself I would post monthly, and I’m happy to report that I will meet that goal when I click publish today. This post will be short (for me) because I’m still on my break from the social, the digital, and all The Things. In other words, I’m on holiday! Like a real vacation, y’all.

I’m taking a break from the digital interwebz and the social because a major part of the cyclocross season is still happening in Europe, and I follow too many cycling things to filter out the news of the races. The Christmas Block, as they call it in cyclocross cycles, has been super fun to watch this year. What an amazing season for women’s field, and for every boring race that the men’s field busts out (one guy predictably crushes everyone), the women duke it out in spectacular fashion that’s been exciting to watch. The Dutch ladies are so inspiring, and we have a few Americans spicing it up too. I love that silly sport so much, and if I can’t be in Belgium this time of year (someday), then I’m going to watch as much of it as I can on the telly. It would be even better if I understood Dutch, but I don’t, so the races with English commentary are a treat.

Speaking of cross, I’ve had my best cyclocross season to date, and I’ve worked my way back to my 2012 era fitness. It feels like a miracle. My current love for stroopwafels notwithstanding; I will race cross-country in four weeks. My last CX race of the season, I did a double-header, meaning I raced twice in one day. I jumped into the single-speed race and got my ass kicked, but it was truly awesome to be on the course with the women’s elite field. The second race of the day was my actual category, and I started off feeling amazing and then suffered to the end. I only got lapped by the top ladies, so that was a major success for me. Like made me giggly-proud of this middle-age beefy bod of mine! Two bikes, two kits, two pre-race meals, two preps for everything–so fancy! Ah, much to report about this season, but I need to get on with the night’s travels to my snowshoe adventures. Or will it be soak-shoe since the rain has not stopped and it’s so warm? Whatevs. I’ll still be in the mountains for two more days.

The holiday season has been swell, thanks for asking. I love this time of year even though it seems like everyone likes to bitch about it. Me and the mister kinda lay low and disappear into this amazing ritual of ours where we turn into complete hermits. We spent some time at a cabin in the mountains and it didn’t snow until the last night so we read by the fire, ate, drank coffee, spent time in the hot tub, talked about our books, took naps, and watched cyclocross. Totally dreamy.

Back in July when I booked this vacay, we were going to dust off the snowboards and rip it up in the snowy trees. And then it started raining. And raining. And raining. And raining. Since it snowed a bit on the last day, winter did stop by, truly. On the way home I hit some black ice that tested my wintery conditions driving skills, so you know, I got some fun in the mountains. My ninja skills behind the wheels kept us safe, mind you. Winter fun? Mission somewhat complete. Dust still collects on my magic Burton board.

Okay, so what to post here? Where is The Thing?

Dunno. I was going to complete one of my many unfinished blog posts and I’m not inspired to do that. I thought about reflecting on my Intentions for 2019 and I don’t really feel like doing that either. I thought about writing about the 32,731 words that I have for the book I’m writing (omfg!), but I’m not ready to talk about that. Yet. Plus, I’m behind on a bunch of personal-volunteer-type-shit that I thought I’d have done by now BUT because of the lazy-by-the-fire-reading-books-hippy-book-nerdfest-scene that I mentioned above, that ain’t happnen’ either. Nope.

I also started to look through my journal for quality quotes that I could write about, and you guessed it, I’m feeling awfully Bartleby here–I’d prefer not to. Ah, 2019, the year I figured out that the one book I’ve been obsessing about is actually three different books. Three. Different. Books. FFS.

More on that in 2020.

I did, however, find one quote that made me laugh hard at myself. And really, this is what my blog and most of what I do on social media is for–to laugh–at myself. I took the time to copy the following quote in my journal at one point this year as I researched creativity. For some reason, this quote from all of the 85 books I read this year is the one I’m going to leave you with. Because I can. Because it makes me laugh. Because it’s so true. This quote from noted philosopher, Mike Tyson.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Au revoir 2019.