I can not sleep. Maybe its cause I am drunk, but how can I be drunk and not sleep? Are we in Wonderland? 
no, I think I can not sleep. Becticia2 is due very soon. The stress over having picked out a name is done, but you won’t hear it until all is clear. I don’t set myself up for the godsmack like that. At the final saddle on Windgate at the last Quad, one guy blah blah blahed about our good luck and no mechs and almost as one Bob, Doug and I bitch-slapped him. 
So much stress remains, I can not sleep, I am busy at work and must come up big because they need it now and now is a bad time to not come up big, G is entering a phase we will tentatively call “Shouting Her Opinions, and Whatever Else Enters Her Head,” and Beckie has entered her Quiet Place.
I can not sleep.
I asked Beckie if she was worried about the delivery. Its no small thing. Let’s assume all goes well, its still like, say, a 6 hour ride of effort and pain. Labor. That is no bullshit. Beckie was very blunt – she wants to hit this and get her body back. She has always been very business-like about the efforts of long runs and rides, requiring about an hour to stop being motivated and start enjoying the ride, much less mystical than me. This time she is so ready to drop a load, she might not even cry. I on the other hand was very worried over the 2.5 hrs of spinning still needed before the Super Bowl, and it seemed very daunting knowing I’d be exhausted in the morning.
After a big ride like the Quad, i often need an ebb to my flow, easy mileage that does not involve much engagement, or wrenching, or travel. I had already hit the trainer for 3 hrs of doldrums this week, and could not stand it any more. and I could not sleep.
It was about 12:30 when I bundled up onto the Unholy Abomination for a late-night cross ride. I didn’t really have a plan, but needed 2.5 more hrs. Up through Las Sendas, out past Usery Park to loop down Brown and then up to the main Park entrance and the Wind Cave trailhead put me at just about 1:30. I had a beer, and a party hat, and watched the road for Security. When I entered the park I shut all my lights, which made it really important I keep an eye out for cars, which seemed a lot of pressure at 2:30 in the morning. The rush of doing something ridiculous and novel, along with the moon off the stripe on Wind Cave made it worthwhile.
I thought the wind would make me cold when i got rolling again, but it disappeared compared to the flatness of my quads. The whole route had been up and down, and despite having ridden the Superlight about 1,000 miles in the past year, the most climbing I do is coming out of the underpass by the Boeing plant, where I pass by all the smokers forced to trek to the far edge of the grounds and then huddle like winos aganist a wall so they can get their smoke a safe distance from the building, and instead pollute my air. As a nonsmoker, a workplace free of cigarette butts and cigarette stink is beautiful. As a coworker who knows how valuable certain coworker’s time really is, and how marginalized acting like a street bum makes them feel, when i see it costing a 10 minute round trip before you even factor in your cigarette…I say good for you getting exercise to complement your bad habit, have you had a chance to reply to my email yet? Needless to say, my mind was wandering as I spun on alone in the dead of night.
A pack of coyotes crossed Ellsworth Road right in front of me. I saw a cloud of blue-green eyes in the desert on the west side of the road, one darted across, then 2 more ran out and thinking probably I was a car made their way back to the near side. Well trained they were. Foolish they must have felt as I slowly made my way by their position with enough time for the one alone on the east side to start yipping and howling to his pack.
Up Hawes road to Range Rider, a side street that climbs around the south side of Las Sendas mountain, then ends in a dirt road. So I followed the dirt road up to the foot of the mountain, where I turned off everything and listened to more coyotes and the whooting of an owl and looked down into the south east valley. If I’d had more than one more beer, I’d of stayed longer, but by 3:30 I was ready for the hot tub. I still could not sleep.