Biking again [Wednesday 16]

Morning schedule was tight. Had the weirdest dream this morning about insects, ants helicopters and being surrounded by giant critters. Got up itching all over to get rid of the bugs. Had an apple before heading for work. Since I hadn't done a cardio in a while, decided to go to work on my bike instead. Instead of doing pushups twice a day, I'm doing 40 in the evening, and doing crunches in the morning instead. The apple and the bike-ride went well.

The ride to work was significantly less stressful that I feared. My bikerides to my previous jobs were extremely hectic since I passed by a fast highway-like street with no bike lanes, and crossed the north-station bridge. The drivers were aggressive and rude. Today's ride was pleasant -- 90% of the way had bikelanes and there were a dozen bikers in front of and behind me. The route was quite simple and I had to look up the map only when I was close to work. Reached work slightly earlier than I would have in the public transport -- it felt really good. Changing the clothes took some time, though such things are insignificant in the big picture.

Morning work was productive and I cleared several large chunks of work. I was hungry at lunch but unsure where I wanted to go. Coworker LC hadn't tried tried the impossible whopper yet (pronounced whupper and not whoooper I learned today) and we took the train to Park St. where we both got the vegan burger. I ended up paying 8.40 for the burger with cheese and extra onions and tomatoes. It was extremely mediocre and the vegan patty was more of a hindrance to the taste of the burger. We ate our lunch by the fountain in Boston Common -- it was cloudy and windy, and still fun with everyone out to eat. LC said he wouldn't go out of his way to order it, and might order the burger again only if he felt like avoiding meat. I thought the burger was compromised by the patty, it would have been a better burger without it. We walked back, a pleasant 15-minute in the park.

Ended up solving a few problems after work and rode back home. Was afraid the ride would be longer than the one in the morning, got lost for a bit on the way because I followed the biker in front of me. As it happened, I got back to my original route because I have gotten around to learning the general geography of greater Boston area, and ended up ahead of folks who were significantly faster than I was. That felt really good.

Back home, I got snack, got caught up on youtube and read a bit. The goat cheese snacks I bought at Aldi yesterday was good. I ate a few pieces of crackers to go with the cheese. The weather outside was not great, it didn't seem like a good idea to bike to the Harvard Square writers meetup. I dressed up and took a bus to Davis, and the train to Harvard Square. I was late by a few minutes. The organizers had moved the start time by fifteen minutes, I was ahead by 20. I tried writing on my own unprovoked, but mostly organized stuff around. The rest of the writing group showed up at 7.25 -- after quick introductions we began writing at 7.30. I got a significant amount of writing done, perhaps the most I've done yet, unless I misunderstand the file that has 5000 words in it. 2200 words of prompted writing is a good achievement in anyone's books, and the quality wasn't bad (not as bad as forced posts I sometimes have to put out to meet my schedule. Again, I'm not complaining about those, I understand bad posts are better than no posts, but still). There were at least four different groups in there playing various board games, and it was hard talking to each other over the commotion. Got back in the train, the bus 96, and walked back the rest of the day. Since getting a good pair of earbuds, I've gone back listening to shows and podcasts on the phone while walking, and it felt like I was meeting old friends after a while.

Back home, I did some reading, writing, procrastinating the fiction piece I should have written but didn't. Still reading up on King's On Writing. Outside, watched some tv with roommates -- roommate Pr's friend I was over, and they watched bits and pieces of Lord of the Rings which I thought was very similar to Game of Thrones. They also watched some videos where roommate Su is featured, and then wrestling. I worked out and did my chores meanwhile. I'm upto 40 pushups at a time (in three different sets), and am not doing those in the mornings anymore. I will probably do 10 in the morning, and eventually move to doing 100 at a time, but once every other day. Finally figured out that I'm not going to get any writing done as long as I wait for the fiction piece to come out so decided to write this journal. Hopefully I can get something out this evening, and then it's sleepy time. It shouldn't have taken too long, but the procrastination was hard to avoid. I did get 500 words written in the afternoon, 2200 words written in Harvard, 500 words in the morning, and perhaps 700 words now, so it's not a big loss, but I should really be writing more fiction.