June 5, 2008

Dragged my bike out of the garage and had the guy down at the bike store– the guy with the amazing tan ropes of veins–get it in fighting trim, and I rode it for the first time in–what? A year? Two years? I picked the hottest day of the year, so I about had heatstroke, but it got me back in the saddle. It’s going to take some practice. Even a little hill annihilates me.

Went to the studio and painted. It was good. Afterward, when I parked in back I opened the door, and saw a big tick scuttling across the black pavement. It changed course when it sensed my foot and leg, and changed course again every time I moved, bearing toward the heat or the CO2 or whatever it is ticks target. Sometimes it would tumble over a pile of debris and spend sometime flailing its legs in the air, trying to right itself. I thought what labor. What labor it is for the little creature to negotiate the colossal world and get its little drop of blood. What did it do when I walked away? Did it blame some tick God for the sudden removal of what seemed to be a gigantic sack of dinner?