Life in Wisconsin, Pt. 4?

I’m not sure how many of these updates I’ve done, but here’s another!

This summer I’ve been spending most of my time reading, thinking, bicycling, and learning how to drive and cook. Weird, all of it, besides the reading & thinking parts.

There are times I find myself on a little path that’s actually called the Apple Creek Trail looking at the huge sky and the tiny finches and think, how the hell did this happen? Not in a bad way. It’s just a surprise, still, on a regular basis, and the more bucolic the scene, the more surprising.

I’ve been biking every day for a month now, & recently I’m up to at least 20 miles a day. I usually do that in two stints – an hour in the early afternoon & another 40 minutes around dusk – but it varies. I don’t really go anywhere in particular, but sometimes I stop at a picnic bench and read and/or write and/or smoke (yes, really!) for a while.

I’ve lost a little over 30 lbs. since I was first here in Winter 2008. Intentionally, and somewhat slowly.

Another day I’ll write more about the experience of teaching, of seeing the first students I knew as sophomores graduate, but for now, birds and clouds and fresh mushrooms from the weekly farmer’s market.