Well THAT was disappointing

Yesterday was supposed to be a two hour bike ride. My back is supposed to be better.

So how can two hours turn into 15 minutes? Fifteen minutes spent wondering "Does it or doesn't it? Is that pain or muscle weakness? Do I really want to screw up a lifetime more of training from this one bike ride?"

Do I feel like a wimp? Yes. Am I second-guessing myself? Yes. Did I sit around for the rest of the day having a Pity Party? You bet.

I managed to pull it together for the editor of Southwest Cycling News (a wonderful, literate cyclist whom I'm looking forward to writing for). But when I went to visit my friend Michael (also the Tattoo King of the World - check out his link listed below), I was busy trying to sound cheerful and like not a thing was wrong.

You know how this usually goes. High pitched voice, nervous laughter obnoxious enough to annoy anyone within 10 feet of you, diarrhea of subject matter coming unedited out of your mouth, blah blah blah.

Oh, well. I'll see him Sunday while I'm under the influence of muscle relaxants for further work on my beautiful dragon on my back. At least my speech will have slowed and I'll probably be in a coma so he can get lots of work done.

One huge point of note and enough to pretty much turn my day around: My new camera is here!! Oh, it's delicious. This is my first foray into professional digital photography. Yes, my faithful fossilized Nikon is being put out to pasture. He and my Dad's wonderful Nikon will live their days out in harmony.

Unless I throw my hands up in frustration with the three 400-page instruction manuals necessary to just set the thing up and revert to my old celluloid ways.

I realize if I am to be marketable, I need to go digital. But if you ask any fossil who, like people who refuse to leave their houses despite the onslaught of a hurricane, are stuck in the days of photo processing and the unadulterated pleasure of losing oneself for hours in a darkroom, we are NERVOUS.

I feel like Mom in front of her computer, slowly picking my way across the keyboard hunting and pecking, reading the entire screen to make a simple decision. It will be a painful (and freakin' expensive) transition but I'm looking forward to the new wrinkles in my brain.