I sit here with a big black cat on my lap as I type. She had a bit of dust stuck on the end of a whisker that was at least 6″ (150mm) from her face and although you couldn’t see the whisker, the movement of the cat and the bit of flotsam were perfectly in sync.

The place I prefer to buy my milk raised their price $1.00/gallon. Their insurance company increased their premium to cover the “increased risk” of selling unpasteurized milk. People have been drinking milk from healthy cows for 300 years with no problems. The problem is unhealthy cows. They get sick when you mistreat them. Really, who would hurt a cow?

I think the same way about a lot of things. The problem is the math really doesn’t work in the real world of volumetric efficiency.  Much of the beauty of handmade goods is the lack of consistency. It’s why I chew my own food. I am not looking for consistency.

At one point in time the word “consumer” was as bad as any insult you could dole out. There was time in American history when failing to make use of every fiber of a purchased item was a sin but things have changed a great deal since then. We have since all become consumers in the eyes of the market and during my generation (the one right after the great generation) good things came quick and easy and it hasn’t slowed down.

The first telephone I had in my house didn’t take photos or measure gravity but it lasted twenty years and made decent calls. As much as I curse my current cellular phone even I can identify and celebrate the improvement. Same thing with suspension only more convincing.

Suspension can be tuned to suit the rider and situation. A good fork or shock can last a while if you pick the right one and care for it properly and just imagine the vast difference between a modern fork and an old “knee action” fork from the 60’s but what about the down side? What about cars. I like to talk about the time my van caught on fire after rigging a battery cable while laying in 4″ of rain water. Did I forget to tell you that one? Right, you got a 2013 “Rogue” and don’t worry about that shit. Fuck dude, you missed it.

I get a little tired of the panic I feel when I hear my ringtone in a totally inappropriate situation and find it’s not mine. I shouldn’t be moved to any degree but that’s not how it goes. I have the same device. Choices are few to those who don’t buy ringtones. I felt the same stress during that fire I mentioned except I was on fire and speeding to boot.

You don’t really have to worry about showing up in the same outfit as your girlfriend if you make your own clothes, for example.  Robin Williams in a grass skirt isn’t what I am talking about so think more about hand tailored clothing and a hand rolled cigar. Perhaps something from a thrift store, reworked by the fortune teller that lives in the pink house on the corner. It’s not that you couldn’t pull it off. You have the juice.

If you can’t do that, at least ride a bike that you think about. It doesn’t matter what you own these days. We all have one. It matters what you love and what you ride because Love is the thing that we notice in others and admire. Love is peace and content, the type of content you don’t have to go looking for and of course, viewed in the right light is not unlike a certain cat’s whisker, it’s reach far exceeds what can be seen at a glance unless

held in a certain light.