A bike ride, and a podcast

Sometime during college I got into biking. It started as a means to end – I could ride my bike to class. I got by for a while with second hand bikes I pulled out of my parents garage. When it came time to purchase my own bike I was somehow convinced by my friend David that the only sensible option was to purchase a fixed gear bike. Such began my true love for biking, the intimate feeling of your tires on the road that only a fixed gear bike can give you. There was also, admittedly, some sense of superiority and coolness that me and my friends rode fixed with cheap beers in our bags, we sprinted past those other lame cyclists with their fancy gears.

Anyway, this morning I had a nice leisurely bike ride along the Mickelson (I did opt for the non-fixed bike for this ride). It’s been a rainy spring/summer here in the hills and I was enjoying the greenery while listening to an episode of This American Life. Specifically Episode 472, an episode remembering TAL contributor David Rakoff. One specific piece of writing from the episode has stuck with me, it’s a poem(?) David wrote while playing the character of Dr. Seuss

I’m astonished at times when I think of the past
of my thousands of rhymes of how life is so vast.
I’m left, then, to wonder how anyone gleans
a purpose or sense of what anything means.
It’s not ours for the knowing, its meaning abstruse.
We’d both best be going. Your loving friend, Seuss.


I just thought it was neat.