Sinus of the Times

As winter drags interminably on ("Gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the groundhogs I see ..."), I've had far too many opportunities to dwell on the finer points of phlegm. I've spoken previously of Snot Rockets, including such variants as the "Aborted Takeoff" and the "Crash Landing," but here are a few new forms of the product that my proboscis doth oft project in these chilling times:

The Steve Austin: As in the "Six-Million-Dollar Man," and not the pro wrestler. This is a Crash Landing of such epic proportions that you manage to sever at least three limbs with it ... or at least ruin your favorite pair of tights. We can rebuild him ... make him stronger, faster, and warmer. Assos has tights that go for about six million bucks, too.

The Jason Voorhees: This isn't really a Snot Rocket, since you don't fire it off. Instead, this is when you ride in extreme cold wearing a balaclava or triple tube or whatever else over your nose and mouth, and phlegm and exhalation soak the front and then freeze, and then white frost forms on the outside. Eventually, you are wearing a hockey mask made of ice, which begins to scratch at your face and freeze to the torn flesh and irritate you to the point that you go off to Crystal Camp Lake and begin killing promiscuous teenagers.

The Freddie Krueger: (A warning to tender readers: This is nasty.) Eventually, after repeatedly riding in temperatures that are really too cold for humans to survive, your sinuses may become irritated to the point that they bleed. When you fire off a snot rocket from bleeding sinuses, you will convert that bright yellow jacket into a good likeness of LeRoy Neiman's painting of "Pikachu vs. Godzilla."

As with most movie monsters, you may not realize that the Freddie Krueger or Jason Voohees is there until it is too late. For example, I was biking in to work one cold morning last year and experienced voluminous sinus output early in my ride. I didn't know it, but one of the shots I fired as the sun began to rise was apparently a Freddie Krueger. Later, I stopped at Panera to top off my coffee, and I noticed people looking at me strangely ... well, even more strangely than they usually do. It was not until I got to the office and went into the bathroom to change into work clothes that I discovered that the right side of my chest was covered with blood. It was then that the looks that people had given me at Panera as they shied away made perfect sense.

The Rainblow: RandoGirl saw me create one of these just yesterday. It occurs when you clear your sinuses, but all that comes out is a fine mist. On a cold morning, if the light hits this just right, refraction will create a beautiful -- albeit short-lived -- rainbow.

If you manage to launch something green at the start, that ain't no leprechaun.

Finding the Silver Lining in Grey Snow

A lot of stuff goes through your head when you fly back from warm, sunny Florida to Nashville, only to find that the ground is covered with snow:

• "Gee ... I'm glad I wasn't here for this. I'll bet nobody rode this weekend."
• "Hmmm ... it doesn't look like it's gonna melt any time soon. I'll bet nobody is gonna ride this week."
• "Grrrr ... that probably means a few hours on the rollers."
• "Yikes! That's ice on the edge of the runway!"

It was slushy Sunday evening, and then froze that night. Since then, the snow has repeatedly thawed a bit, and then refroze, so that it looks like ice cream that your teenage daughter took up to the living room and ate some of while she watched TV for an hour, and then put back in the freezer. Not so much ice cream as hard frozen pudding, with the chocolate chips melted in with the green mint to become a murky grey.

Tasty!

Finally, this morning I threw caution to the wind (it was a headwind, of course, so caution came right back and smacked me in the face) and rode my bike in to work. Leaving the house in the cold pre-dawn, I could not help but reflect ... but then, I was wearing stuff made of illumiNITE, and I have all of these yellow plastic patches on the bike. I also could not help but reflect -- mentally -- that it was only one week ago that I had ridden in Florida wearing bibs and a short-sleeve jersey.

This is a bad way to start a ride. You get gloomy and wish for things that you cannot have. Like warmth.

Fortunately, I then started up one of the short steep hills on my commuting route, and I remembered that I was on a bicycle, working hard to get up a short steep hill. I was riding outside, and I was alive.

The rest of the trip in went great. Yeah, it was cold, but not nearly as cold as some days that I had biked in last month. There wasn't really any ice to worry about ... just a few banks of grey snow on some road shoulders. A couple of places that I normally get up on the sidewalks were problematic, since big lumps of grey snow were piled up on the ramps and curb cuts there. But these were just opportunities to work on my bunny-hopping skills (always fun on a single-speed loaded down with a 15-pound pannier).

When people ask me why I commute by bike, I give them all kinds of reasons: Carbon footprint, exercise, yadda-yadda. But the main reason is really just that a day that begins with a bike ride has absolutely got to be a good day.