My Neurosis...

The world and Holland Glen are melting!

...comes in increments of eleven seconds. Decades ago, I started entering ninety seconds on a microwave keypad with the logic that two pad strikes were more efficient than the three for 1:30. Makes sense, right? This morphed into entering ninety-nine seconds as the longest possible time with only two digits, and I noticed how much more quickly I could depress the same key twice without having to move my finger. For the last couple years, I've been using a microwave for 11, 22, 33,...88, or 99 seconds.

I like noticing, and thinking about what I notice. The possible downside to that, in addition to others using phrases like "think too much", is that I notice correlations, and that can make me a bit superstitious. "I did this thing, and it caused this unrelated thing," as thinking is a cardinal sin for an atheist, and yes, I'm bad at adhering to the tenets of that religion(1). For example, in 2022, I started the year with the goal of fully submerging in the brook behind my house at least once every month. I achieved the goal, except for the warmest month of July, as I was in a neck brace for six weeks after my neck was broken by a car. I haven't tried for that goal again, missing at least one month the last four years. Why tempt fate?

This year, I didn't dunk in either January or February. There were a few warm-ish days last month when I considered it, but nope. Then yesterday happened, and sixty degrees felt really, really warm. I submerged in the brook after my ride, which finished with the long descent of Harris Street, for far less banking of body heat than preceded the dips of my goal year. Waiting for March made for an actually pleasant experience. In fact, the one negative aspect was walking the snow covered path to the brook in Crocs. I might need to shovel another path.

Prelude to a swim

At the end of my ride, 

I took the path that cuts across to Harris Street.

It was also my first day riding in sneakers,

 but it still wasn't training, 

despite what they're called in the U.K.

As for swimming surrounded by snow, that's nothing new. There are pictures of my sister and me shivering on a raft in the pond behind the house where we were raised, with snow covering the slope behind us. At sixty degrees air temperature, I guess yesterday counted as an adult swim, as my parents wouldn't allow our spring plunge until the air reached eighty degrees. And yes, I was often afflicted by sudden spring clumsiness and would accidentally fall in the pond on days in the seventies.

Endnote

1. Margaret Atwood, in an interview, claimed that atheism is a religion because it claims to know the unknowable. I could counter that much of science and technology is based on well supported theory, not proven, or "known", facts. Regardless, I still appreciate her thinking. I also like Larry Flint's comment that nobody is advocating faith-based air traffic control.