All you need is love

First of all, I have finally succumbed and decided as an upbeat expression of my romantic futility to share the love in the only way appropriate for this day and age, furthermore as winter sets in and my nipples stand permanantly at attention, I have had a wonderfully productive day, and that is a lot to be happy about.
It started by my getting up at 7.30 believe it or not, whilst this would have been a disastrously long sleep in giving me 10 minutes to shower, shave, clothe, pack my backpack and jump on a bike, to shimmy off to a job where nobody really minded if I was late understanding the time could easily be made up.
7.30 has become increadibly early for me, and aside from that going to bed before 1am is what I would call an early turn in. Fear not, I am not becoming a fullly fledged unemployed bu, this schedule has two advantages. 1) I can actually be awake when my friends have their free time between 10pm and 1am. 2) I can wake up late enough to enjoy some relative independance (foreigners aren't able to manage things like a toaster, chopsticks or hot water urn, no no).
So anyway as the storey goes I got up, and despite the frigid weather changed into a nice warm microfibre running singlet, ankle socks and a pair of running shorts. Then I had a nice filling glass of water (you should have seen how surprised my hosts were when I figured out where water comes from (the tap)) and then singing out 'iterashai' declaring my intention to depart. And then 3 times mofos, I completed my third 20k run in 2 weeks in my playing card soled shoes.
Let me digress into the joys of running and achievement. Running is about the mind, it is all about the mind and making it stronger, but it is attune with the body, it also depends on what your body is capable of and so as your body gets stronger, the greater you have to push yourself to get the same mental achievement. (that is as you become faster and more limbre, your muscles stretchier the less effort your mind has to go through to tell you to press on). This doesn't however mean that you simply just perpetually increase the distance, indeed most runners I know have a very distinctive love affair with their running track.
In ballarat I had the bastion of all balifornian runners, which is lake wendory, it is the veritable yardstick by which all runners are measured. My pb 21 minutes. Furthermore given a perplexity of mathematics 6k, devides miraculously that whatever your time given in minutes works out perfectly to be your time in seconds per 100m.
Then I had my 'school run' I remember this fondly, this was my preparation run for City to Surf 14k from Hyde Park to Bondi, Sydney. The School run involved me passing a number of balifornian high schools. 1) Loretto 2) Ballarat Grammer (via far side of lake) 3) Wendooree Secondary (I think just before the ring road around ballarat) 4) Ballarat High (via the Botanical Gardens/wetlands) 5) Sebastapol Tech. via Victoria Park. 6) Ballarat and Clarendon College (via Bray Raceway) then I hit the lake and headed home. I would estimate it at around 16 to 18 k. I would do this maybe 3 times a year in prep, mixing it up and sometimes taking a shortcut or dropping a school hear and there.
Then there was Victoria Park at 5k, I also did a run round the velendrome and then climbed the Mullock Heap which is murder on the calves, what could I say, I was hardcore.
But in all of these I have to say, a short circuit is much harder than a long epic run. Because of repitition. I would probably grab a starters gun and blow my brains out if I was told to run 6k round an athletic track in a circuit. I would not flinch however at running 18k around a small country town.
Thus you can see, the more often you have run a track the greater the challange increases.
Here's how the relationship occurs:
Love at First Sight - in your wanderings you discover a trail, maybe alongside a canal, maybe a well maintained garden path around a zoo, maybe you live in an apartment directly opposite a nice big green public garden. You decide to run it, you may be able to read the lay of the land pretty good via a civic map, this is the equivalent of having a wing man introduce you. Here it is all about reassurance of your fundamental ability, you decide to run it, just to see if you can.
The Courtship Period - the next phase of achievement is being able to actually do it, to get excited about simply being able to pick the track up. To run it without stopping, this may take a few attempts, dependant on how well defined the track is, you may or may not get lost, your ability to read the signs is paramount, as is recalling the skills you may have let dwindle whilst you've been out of the game. Part of it is letting go of the old track, realising that as in tune with it as you are, its not coming back, you have to make the most of this new beginning. But once you have the track complete, that my friend is when the courtship is over.
The Honeymoon Period - This is where you get familiar with the track, you learn its nuances, you discover the parts that you really enjoy, that you really hit your stride with, this is a brief period, but sweet, it gives you a form of dependability. You begin to imagine a harmonious and fruitful future together.
Reality Bites - This is my third run, which I had today, this is where the mental muscle comes to the fore. This is where you know the terrain, you know the way and subsequently on a 20k run, you know you've only covered 3k in 15 minutes, that's 17k more to go. This is what I'm talking about, you are now more aware of the loooooooong flat grey stretch before you hit the scenic park land, the next 800 metres of hill to climb, the track offers nothing new and exciting, its the same old conversation. You know if you perservere you will enjoy the motions, but that doesn't make you any less aware that your next chance to shit is in an hour and a half. So your mind muscle is telling you things 'come on you pussy' or in my case 'you are a powerful god, your gonna bring all motherfuckers to their knees' this is the level of sheer delusion I need to escalate my mindset to, pure fantasy the likes of which Hendrix captures so well in Voodoo Chile slight return that allow me to push through the pain threshold and run on a plain that I tell you here is supernatural.
And here, here is the mystery that is love, that transforms the same plain jane road into a goddess who's arms reach down and caress me, and who's asphalt lips kiss the souls of my feet as I ascend to a higher plain of being.
Today I was listening to my playlist 'shake your money maker like a rasher of bacon' and did my final 100m dash to the finish line whilst reciting Q-tips introduction in 'we can get down' that is love.

So anyway that covers the first hour and a half of my productive day, this brought me to 10 o'clock which is the usual time in which I awake. I then drafted a few emails, to pose questions on topics that interest me to people who's opinion I value on the topic at hand. Seeking advice and asking help has been a revelation for me, I love constructing complex questions and soliciting opinions on topics that are giving me a chance to strike Handsome Boy Modelling School Pensive poses.
But alas, most people I know in the know on various things don't have the free time to be productive, and resoponses are lower in frequency than my ability to pose conundrums that turn my brain to shit.
So after that I headed to the library, and I read more lincoln, then I read a lot of 1984 which was a downer, but inspiring in the beauty of its construction and made me look on the world not in disdain and hopelessness, but more like Galileo squinting into the sun thinking 'how marvelous'
All this transpired before 7pm, so as you can see having been superbly productive I headed home with time to kill. And so I drudged through Bike snob NYC's blog to go through old posts for entertainment and found a link to this Bike Porn he warned and I warn, that what is in there is not pretty, not pretty at all. It may even initially lul you into a false sense of security that this is some kind of joke or comedy spoof, but it cuts in enough of the rotten stuff to be quite offputting.
Now surely if anything is at the opposite end of love, it is porn. I read recently an opinon that 'the very existence of porn degrades women' I would rather combine that discussion into one dedicated to the greater feminism issue, but also in a men's magazine from Britain read an opinion that 'American porn is off putting, watching two people getting it on that clearly hate eachother...' it couldn't have been worded like that, because I'm pretty sure that captured the entire content of the statement yet I found myself running into a grammatical dead end.
Yet I say this, I love bikes. Specifically I love my bike. It still makes me sad when I think about my silver bike that was stolen, that I never really got to say goodbye, and that I had so been looking forward to riding it on it's new, true rims. I love looking at bikes, I love looking at a bike that is alive, that is being used and giving joy. I love it, I love heading down studly park rode in the middle of the night looking out across the city scape of melbourne as I coast down the hill.
Indeed even in love with you know an actual women, I shared some precious memories in a three way with my bike, coasting down the hockey centre side of the zoo having 'sugoii' remarked involuntarily as she sat on the cross piece, in the middle of the late summer heatwave peddling us back and fourth under the golf courses sprinklers.
A bike can be a stalwart and loving companion, like Groucho Marx's 'your only as old as the woman you feel' so too does a bike have the ability to bequeth its owner with feelings of reenvigorated youth. When it breaks down, my thoughts cannot wander from it, all my energies channell into making it well again, if this is not love what is?
The love between two people, that is man & woman, woman & woman or man & man.
I love women, I find them delightful, entertaining, frustrating and challanging. Each in their own unique way. Back to porn, recently again I read about a 'returnee' that is a Japanese national that has spent a significant time in a foreign country who returned to work as a technical specialist in a government administrative post. He on the annual weekend trip, was confronted with pornography and as part of joining in was also expected to comment, LCD kind of stuff. Instead he went highbrow and merely commentted how the photographers style left the pictures feeling lifeless and void of emotion.
As such leaning on his insight, I finally noticed the difference between porn, and those books in stores that I understood to be porn masquerading as art, also known as 'erotica' which ironically some base porno's also are known as.
But the difference is emotion, and some (some trly are porn masquerading as art) capture emotion so brightly that they remind me what it is to feel in love. The serenity and sanctity it brings in company. That feeling you get, when you are at a party or work function, struggling to make small tlk, being ignored by the host, then someone you love arrives, you share a look and know that the night is a cakewalk from there. They are a rock to which you the seal can return to should danger present itself.
And such a look it turns out can be captured in a camera lens, for me it was a photo display in Okinawa, far from me to be sure, but placed people infront of the powerlines with smiles on their faces.
It captured the children playing around, sticking their hands on the camera, being kids. And I thought to myself, here too is a love of humanity that cannot be surpressed. I love life. Love is all we need, not power or prestige. And if you can't find it, look me up TransformerFan1 on rsvp.com.au