Notes From The Pegboard: I can see the light...

After a few weeks full of unknowns, after being fired from the same company TWICE, after entering into the medical system with a language barrier and a terrifying pain in my...umm... "groin" shall we say, and the crippling depression that occurred as a result of not knowing how to deal with any of it much less all of it at once, I am coming around to feeling myself again.

How did this shift of perspective happen? You ask. Well I have never been one to misdirect my anger or disappointment, and so starting off with a few well placed "fuck you"'s in the direction of what I will hereby refer to as "that bike tour outfit" certainly was appropos and helpful. What happened after is a strange and classically "me" story... enjoy.

Monday the 3rd I stopped by the garage to take a look at my pile of crap trying to make sence of everything going wrong, Dragoni was home for lunch and I had about an hour to make my acupuncture appointment. I was depressed, not knowing what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna do it, or where I will ultimately end up. With a couple good phone interviews for jobs back in the states I was feeling bummed that I might be leaving these kind friends in Italy, and the community I have here. Dragoni was sympathetic and has repeatedly said that in the spring there will be a chance to work with him, to learn some new skills in the carbon manufacturing world, and make enough dough to stick around. Then he offered me food. I was not hungry. Then he offered me a beer or tea. I was not thirsty. The he offered to smoke me out - which I said yes to before he could even finish the offer! I was high as shit and basking in the kindness of my friends when I remembered that the reason I was out was to go to my acupuncture appointment. shit.

Needles in my ass and back and legs, more needles than ever before, but no electricity this time... high as a kite! It was AMAZING! And with every stick I could feel the energy moving from painful areas all the way down to my left foot. No seriously. It was not the weed either, I have felt it a few other times with the needles, but this time it was intense! When I stood up to leave, I felt a rush of energy to my left foot that culminated in a knot just behind my little toe that I could feel all the way through my shoes on the ride home. It felt like frozen peas under the skin. Home for a bath I tried to message it out in the steaming hot water. A little relief but when I got out I felt light headed and dizzy. Sometime after fixing some food I did not eat (or dont remember eating) I fell asleep on the kitchen floor. To bed early feeling feverish I woke in the middle of the night soaked with sweat wrapped in a bath robe on the floor of the bathroom and barely could get my hair up in a rubber band before the watery nausea turned violent in the most explosive and gut emptying barf session I have ever experienced. Two days of complaining like man-flu, weak tea, and water, gut cramps and dead people farts and I was starting to feel like being depressed was not the end of the world,much less the wost I could feel. The physical toll on my body and mind was enough and my body was letting me know that this would be the last three days moaning in bed. A Three-Bond Flu as it was (three James Bond movies and feeling better) and the process of coming back strong began with the kindness of my friends here in Italy.

Dinner with friends the following Thursday, and a dinner date with a former colleague at my favorite pizza place, during which it started to snow outside, resulting in frozen hands and snowballs in the face!! Another symbolic change of the seasons and times ahead. All of that week followed by a RAGING bike party on Saturday that turned into waking up fully clothed Sunday morning with scrapes and scratches and bruises I don't remember getting, wedged between two rows of shelves in the back stockroom of the bike shop that hosted the rager, a Sunday hangover to top all Sunday hangovers and a drive back home full of silence and chugging water bottles. A day of comfort food then Monday a ride with some snow still around, more dinners with more friends, sunny cold days and freezing nights with warm drinks, catching up with homies back in the states via skype, making bread, and the BEST bowl of Pho I have ever had not in a Vietnamese restaurant (the secret is in the bone broth!) Top that with TWO free bikes to collect today courtesy of a mutual friend who does not want to pay to have them fixed, things are starting to look pretty good. I even got invited to help make some Christmas cookies at Nona's house, earning the right to wear an apron in a Romagna Lady's kitchen is no small honour.

There is also the fact of that Big Secret Purchase that I have advertised on FaceBook - for which you wont get any clues here, but needless to say it has had a huge impact on my ability to focus towards the future, and the adventure at hand. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. None of me barfing, although between the bad Chinese food, the flu and over consumption of a liquorice grappa late in the evening, there has been a fair amount of that. Gotta stay slim for my constituents I suppose, and the Christmas cookies have begun to appear, so the downhill slide to my winter weight has officially begun.

See you all at Fat Camp 2013! And Thanks for your support...

pictures in reverse order...

shoe covers and hounds tooth wool...toasty

thin sliced beef to make the pho perfect. made my own broth with a few veggies and some beef bones from the butcher.

greased walnut shells to make the form of a cookie shell to fill later.

before earning the apron...

after...with Nona

after baking, you pull the shell out, and then later fill two halves with creme filling and return together...a new cookie trick from the kitchens of Romagna

oh yeah, and I ate some bunny rabbit...or cat, there was no head to verify, but it was GOOD!

first snowfall of the year...

Dragoni's team is run out of a shop that was destroyed in the April earthquake. This was the grand re-opening party in which we all tried to destroy our livers with endless vino and mountains of food.

customs here include a drunken tandem relay race. Notice that the rear rider is facing backwards, and also pedals backwards in the race, two laps, then switch riders and directions. I dont remember steering but I woke with plenty of bruises and a scab on my nose...

before... the warehouse, and shop dog enjoying the silence

roll in off the bathroom roof...trouble with a capitol T

I think the carpeted landing was responsible for the carpet burn on my arm when I woke in the morning

notice the top of the bathroom, two giant jugs of vino, hooked to a gravity fed system of tubes in which one can serve themselves at the table via spigot...genius and dangerous

that was a pig...and there were two

started to feel like this....

Dragoni vs pig

dinner at the warehouse ramp party, classy view

some grappa and a tandem spells trouble.

I dont remember much after this point. Thats Dragoni riding the tandem down the landing ramp of the jumps, the DJ was pounding at this point, and the booze was at an all time high, there were joints and grappa and I dont remember what happened next. the perfect ending to a few weeks in the dumps. Nothing like falling down to remind you of the real gravity of living.