hillary dixon rust

Well, well, well. Another day another blog. I rarely come to these things thinking that I will have anything to say and yet, like in most situations, after I get started I seem to find myself doing "just fine". At least by my standards. 


I went to work at 2:45 pm on Wednesday which, for those of you who don't know, means I got off at about 3:15am. Truth be told I'm not convinced they needed me for a full 12 hours (plus the 1/2 hour for lunch) but I got to read my bicycle magazine and eat until my heart was content and my belly was splitting at the seams so I won't complain too much. 


It gets tricky because on Tuesday I went to work at 9am, which combined with the 2:45pm call for the following day had me nice and sleepy by about midnight Wednesday. It was pretty cold, I'm guessing low low 40's and my wonderful and concerned wife Sara told me in no uncertain terms that she would be more than happy to come pick me up so I wouldn't have to ride sleepy. I began to doubt myself. I started to wonder if it was worth it. I mean, aside from trying to "get ready" for riding to Austin, there is no real reason for me to feel any pressure to continuously ride 65-75 miles everyday to make a Reality TV Show (is that really a "proper" noun?) that I've never even seen.


The entire day I kept feeling worse and worse and wondering if maybe Sara was right. Maybe it was better to have her come get me and spend the 2 gallons of gas ($7.00) and pollution and her sleep so that I wouldn't have to endure the 34 mile journey through the cold-ish early morning So-Cal darkness.


I got the nod from the powers that be that I was officially finished for the day and by this point I was convinced I would call. What I did instead was put on my long sleeve Old Navy shirt that I got from Sara's mother for Xmas a year or so ago, a weird Nike exercise hoody thing I found in the lost and found at work while I was in the closet looking for tape, and my trusty old hoody that I got from I don't know where about 6 years ago. I changed into my riding shorts (some Walmart khakis pants I got in South Dakota and cut off into shorts) and took off. I figured worst case scenario I'd have to call Sara from somewhere closer to home.


One of the strangest/best things about being on the coast of California is the constant wind blowing in from the ocean. It's not always noticeable (I hate spelling that word. It just never looks right) on the beach but when it gets channeled into the canyons it is a force to be reckoned with. Heading down it ruins your day. You think that you're going to bomb through the steep turns and get a chance to go fast while relaxing but what ends up happening is that the wind forces you to stay ducked down and pedaling much more than you would want or expect. The good news is that the same wind that makes you hate the fact that you rode all the way to the canyon when going downhill will make you feel like a climbing giant when you're going the other way! I average faster speeds going uphill on the way home than I do coming down on the way to work. 


Once I got past the initial uphill experience I decided that I was completely and totally fine and forgot entirely about calling for a rescue car. My head was free and clear to think about all sorts of other things. Like the fact that it is technically a shorter distance (by about 4 miles) to take the Pacific Coast Highway to get out to work. The only issue is that Malibu Canyon gets narrow and windy (not windy, curvy) and in the day time there is a ton of traffic from Pepperdine University and surfer types cruising the beach for waves and babes and dudes. Besides the traffic, from my house to the beach and then down the PCH to Malibu is essentially flat. Which means on the way to work the entire ascent that is normally spread over 30 miles or so would be crammed into the last 8-10 miles. Leaving would be fine (minus the afore mentioned wind) but at night there is little to no light for most of the way and...I make a lot of excuses and I promise that I will find a way to tackle Malibu Canyon in both directions before the end of my work in the area. 


Another thing I had time to think about was the fact that for the documentary I want to meet people that are living as close to "outside" of the "system" as possible. Not renegades or revolutionaries, but people that simply aren't sitting around waiting for Obama or the government to give them permission or help to form the world they want to live in. Not that I think "the system" is a complete and total failure...I guess I just think people in general know what we need to do to survive and some people are already making the changes voluntarily by making rooftop gardens and community spaces that support more than just themselves and they do it all in their "free" time which is much more valuable than any of us like to admit because mostly we do nothing with that time instead of working towards creating the things we want and need. I don't think we should all quit our jobs and build greenhouses in our living rooms but I do think there are millions of interesting things we can explore and enjoy and "work" on that may not make us money but could make us much happier and more interesting.


I hear a dinner bell.


Chirp,
hillary