One cable channel I gained at the turn of New Year is called "Eurosport". It seems to be covering almost every major pro cycling event. In all my years of cycling, I've never been able to watch a broadcast of an actual pro cycling event. At most, if lucky I've been able to catch July weekend, half-hour round-ups of the past week of the Tour de France on network TV.

My feelings are divided about this new access to what pro cycling looks like. I've been cycling for about 15 years, and I'm in my twilight. I don't have the drive I had before or any goals that I want to accomplish. I just go on rides and do what I'm able to do. When I was younger, this access to cycling might have been highly inspirational, I shouldn't wonder.

But even now, it's inspirational in its way. I mentioned earlier that I've recently gotten back on my bike and went immediately to 30 mile rides without easing up to that from shorter, easier rides. And I immediately included rudimentary hills, and when you go up, you have to come down.

On the downhills, I noticed an unusual confidence that I usually have to develop into. I attribute all of this to watching these pro cycling events. You watch the pros do it, and then you get on your bike and you go for it to the best of your abilities and limits. You've dealt with fear and doubt vicariously by watching it done on TV.

However, you watch pro cycling and you can be inspired, but you also witness the cost, i.e., crashes. You can never discount hitting the deck, and in fact you should probably expect it to happen at some point. I hit the deck yesterday. Fortunately, it was pretty minor.

It was a low-speed slip of the front tire as I was riding off a bridge onto a ramp to a riverside bikeway, and there was some goo that had been applied at the connecting point for some reason and it was slippery in those conditions and I went over. Not a mistake, not my fault, but one of those unforeseeable factors that, in fact, you should expect to happen at some point.

The immediate noticeable damage was a scraped and bloodied knee. My shoulder also impacted the ground, but there was no breaking of skin. I was already towards the end of the ride, so I decided to abandon and head home, stopping off at a pharmacy to buy necessary first aid I knew I didn't have at home.

My attitude about it was: I've been inspired to ride by watching pro events, I can't be discouraged by downturns that are expected by riding inspired by watching pro events.

However, I didn't look forward to the pain involved with the injury and tending and dressing it. Somewhere along the line, I've become a wimp about pain.

Which is ironic since I used to be a cutter. Pain wasn't an issue when I sliced through my skin, but in the past few years pain has become something to fear and avoid. Suddenly blood arouses fear of infection. Infection?! When the fuck did I start being concerned about infection?!!

But it happened, I hit the deck and had an open wound. I had to deal with it. And actually, my experience as a cutter had to kick in. It's gonna hurt, fucking deal with it. And that's what I did. I got involved in the pain, prepared to embrace the pain. And it's not that bad.

(Ah, it all comes back to me. It was a meditation. Pain, to a certain extent, is just a sensation. It's basically a judgment to dislike it or call it bad or be averse to it. When pain occurs, it's automatic to think "don't want", but it's possible to mentally examine the pain and the negative reaction to it. The pain is a natural consequence of injury, but the reaction can be controlled).

I was exaggerating to myself the extent of the injury, bemoaning the pain of an open wound and the time it would take to heal. I've been babying the wound.

If this happened when I was younger, I would have just ignored it and let it clot over and scrape off the hardened scabs (I used to love to do that) and let it heal by itself. I would have considered this just a scratch.

You wouldn't see me walking down the street with a gleaming white bandage, a dressed wound which makes it look worse than it is. You'd see the raw open wound or the ugly maroon evidence of a recent scrape, and it wouldn't look like anything. What the fuck happened to me?

Turns out I had written a post with almost the exact themes of my previous post way back in late 2013. Well, at least there were similarities, but there were enough differences that alarm bells didn't go off indicating that I was repeating a pattern.

That's one of the stories of my life, repeating patterns; mostly patterns of indecision and not doing anything. If it's a pattern, it's likely something psychological or pathological. Recognizing that, I have to call myself out and state that I'm not immediately dying. I'm not ruining my health. Feeling so bad that I suspect that I'll likely die in the near future is simply alcohol-related hypochondria.

Alcohol is another pattern. I have a theory which prevents me from complaining about any of the things I complain about: Any complaint I have is probably alcohol related. To put an end to whatever it is I'm kvetching about, all I have to do is cut back on drinking. Since I know that, if I don't voluntarily cut back on drinking, then I can't complain. I'm purposely perpetuating a problem.

As I mentioned, I did cut down on drinking. Continuing to keep track, I haven't cut back all that much. I have days where I have 12 drinks. Average, though, is around 10 drinks, which means I've only been cutting back around 3 drinks per day. But apparently it makes a difference.

Important, though, is distribution. A drinking day starts from after morning sitting and is spread out until I wash my shot glass and brush my teeth and lights out. I think something that has made a difference is not drinking too much too early. Resist early drinking and I'm alright. 

And simultaneously with cutting back on drinking, I've pushed to be more active and I've finally been getting to the gym and on my bike, after having believed I was done with both. It doesn't hurt that spring has arrived after a pretty brutal winter. 

It was a mild winter until later in January. It was only a two month period from late January to late March, but I think there was a record number of days that temperatures in Taipei didn't get out of the 50s. Snowflakes even fell in Taipei proper, perhaps for the first time ever. But I saw them. It wasn't a lot, it wasn't a snowfall, just lone snowflakes falling from the sky on one grey Sunday afternoon. 

And around the time I wrote my last post, little niggling things annoyed me to form a cloud of negativity around my head. The remote control for my cable TV box broke. Then my laptop's cooling fan started fritzing out. Things fall apart. By Chinua Achebe. Totally demoralizing winter. I thought I was dying. That was the hope.

The turn-around from just cutting back drinking has been marked. Even my sleeping has been pretty stable. But all of this is a work in progress. I've been getting to the gym, but my endurance and strength are way down. Pathetic even. I've been getting on my bike and immediately went for 30+ mile rides including modest hill training, but I can feel how weak I am. 

I've been turning the broken TV remote into a positive. I had been letting my daily life schedule be ruled by TV. But without the convenience of the remote, my TV habits have been stymied by the limited control buttons on the cable box, I'm using this as an opportunity to break that habit, even dependency, on the TV distraction.

The computer fan problem is ongoing. If my laptop is on long enough, the fan settles and stops making noise. Some days it functions fine from start-up. But even so, it is ailing and needs replacing. Until I figure out how to get that done, it's a practice in patience and not getting annoyed.

So how am I moving forward? I'm not dying. I'm eating. I'm riding and getting to the gym. Positive, it seems. And yet, positive isn't necessarily good or proper for me. Things are still heading into only one direction. These "positive" developments may force me to be more pro-active towards what is proper for me. Take things into my own hands. And when the bank account hits zero, that's it.