My unexamined life sounds like the title of that diatribe I will write concerning how I don’t observe the things staring back at me because I am always leaned over, gawking down at a screen and disconnected from what is around me. I am the ape man. 

“I’m an apeman, I’m an ape, apeman, oh I’m an apeman
I’m a King Kong man, I’m a voodoo man, oh I’m an apeman
I don’t feel safe in this world no more
I don’t want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman”

-Ray Davies, The Kinks from song “Apeman”

However, this morning was ripe with examination. Here are five of them.

5. This:

4. I was told that non-impactful exercise is a natural anti-inflammatory. I watch my knee in rotation. It is inflamed. The spd cleats make squeaky sounds locked into my Shimano pedals. It is the sound of wear, of age and of things needing affection. You are the gate on my fence that needs some oil. Yet, I only think about you when I am opening you and closing you. At some point, I make a decision to extend my focus to the beyond time where one must address the non-immediate needs. This is where affection moves to the next step in a relationship. I am sorry pedals. We just aren’t there yet. 

3. Some of roadway in Prospect Park is freshly paved and unlined. It is an enormous blank slate of paved chaos. Do I choose to cycle where the lines were at one time, relegating myself to the previous administration of law and order or do I roam free on this rolling playground of opportunity?  It’s like some behavioral test. And I chose order. How boring.

2. The roving vendors have returned to the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian path. One of them is playing Funky Town on a small boom box. I hear this as I am entering the borough of Manhattan. Did I just cross over into funky town? This island, with so many chain banks and drug stores and so few places to get a knish or a billycock; has its funk departed for more enticing pastures? Or has the island settled for a more modified lugubrious funk? On a side note:  I think it’s time to bring the billycock back. And I am just this guy to do it. 

1. This again: