Bicycle Maintenance, Match Point and Junebug

Oh, before my mood went south on Saturday (I like the expression “went south” and I even more like “on the fritz”), I was in quite an energetic frame of mind (I’ve learned to hop out of bed the minute I feel it, because if I miss that moment, it often is followed by 10 hours of sound slumber) and put the Marin’s summer tires on and gave the locking skewer set another try—those things that hold your wheels on that are quick-release but that have a custom key so not just anyone can take them off.

I thought perhaps I hadn’t tried hard enough last time around, but it still seemed to me that the skewer for the back wheel was on by only a thread or two, and I still couldn’t see how I was going to adjust it, as the bolt for my fenders is right in the way.

I took the bike over to Freewheel and Carlos said, “I don’t think those things are going to work for your bike—the bolt for the fenders is right in the way.” He also said that shortly after he started selling these things, he stopped selling them. They installed them in the first place, so I’m a bit dismayed that they let me leave the store with something that was being held on by only two threads.

He said they have now a similar product from another company that should work fine on my bike, and indeed the new things provide the same security but are very easy to tighten and loosen with the custom key, and they didn’t have to be installed in a less-than-orthodox fashion. If these work out, which I imagine they will, coupled with a cable, that should be ample security, so now I don’t have to buy another bike.

I love deciding to buy something and then realizing I don’t need to, after all. Recently I had a very satisfying clothes-buying project, where I made a list of everything I’d like to have, which was pleasurable, and then I decided I didn’t really need any of it, which was even more pleasurable.

The movies I saw this weekend were Match Point and Junebug. I enjoyed Match Point, though I thought the male lead demonstrated poor character in killing his lover instead of killing his wife. Being a liar and making a pass at his best friend’s fiancée were bad enough, but killing in order to retain money and position rather than to retain a passionate love affair was particularly poor form.

As for Junebug, I didn’t think it was very good. I couldn’t figure out whether the moral was to love your family members even though they’re not perfect, or whether the director was saying to leave them behind as soon as possible and create the family of your choosing.

I'm lucky—I have both kinds of families, and if my worst problem is that they aren’t conveniently located in the same place, that’s a pretty luxurious problem. As Thoreau says, "The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him." Also, "I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another."