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the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2023.04.17

Today I cycled from Kokubunji to Kichijoji on my way to work. I was doing this fairly regularly in 2021 and 2022, but stopped when my derailleur unexpectedly snapped last year. Having a substantial mechanical failure for what is a 25km round trip will shake your confidence!

But lately, the Central train line I usually take has been so crowded that I've given up on the express train altogether and decided that because I need the exercise anyway, I would get back on my bike. Today's trip went well; I avoided rain, the traffic was good, the weather was all right - and the bike stayed together. I'm certainly well off my former pace, taking forty minutes for my return trip and even longer in the morning. Mind you, I only caught 30 green lights on a route with 43 signals, but the real problem is I have nowhere near the degree of fitness I had when cycling 20km every day for nine or ten months of the year in Toronto.

It was a nice change of pace and I hope this marks the beginning of a return to form (so to speak).

rand()m quote

Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

—T.S. Eliot