alarm clock lost half an hour somehow while we were out all weekend watching the pennant playoffs in other people's living rooms, so i got a reasonable amount of sleep by accident. i think it rained a bit this morning; nice actually. just a gentle continuous spitting. i was a few minutes behind my last week's time getting down to the bridge, but still covered the rest of the ride in my usual number of minutes despite what i'm pretty sure would have been a headwind even to everyone else for about half of that part, so i only took a few minutes longer than usual. and coming home i made astonishing speed; only 10 minutes longer than it took me to get there in the morning. mcwow. i keep thinking 'but. . . but that part has the HILLS.' a month ago it sometimes took me that long to do the easy part. i don't understand it either, but i'm happy.

anyway, it was really nice. more than the speed factor, what's really cool is that i'm not getting as tired to make those speeds as i was getting to do it all in a lot more time when i started out, if you get me. it makes the whole thing so much more fun, and it's like a bonus because i was prepared to keep grinding just as it was if necessary. if this keeps up or doesn't regress through the rest of this week, i think i might start letting myself get used to it. so that's what this week is about.

note to self: the recruiter who's handling this contract called me during the day. i'll have to take the kid's phone with me tomorrow and call him back sometime during the day. remember that when he asks how it's going, he means the job and he wants to hear about the project. he's not asking how my commute's coming along, and he doesn't want to hear about my shiny new times. three months left on this thing.

i don't do my little ride through the wild side any more. i'm leaving work late enough, and i'm confident enough now to just use the road all the way, and go over the overpass with the cars to slide round the cloverleaf. that part of today was fun too; something was up with traffic way up the hill on my home-side of the bridge, and i actually passed several cars. a novel sensation for me. i miss the backlotty chunk in a way. i like this speed thing, and it's fun to have a long chunk of road with nowhere to stop now that i don't need to stop.

songs: freedom come a' ye, hamish henderson, while showering.