The difference between bears and humans

 First off, there isn't just one difference between bears and humans. But as I begin to emerge from my own hibernation, I'm forced to contemplate a particular difference: Bears fatten up in the fall and emerge in spring having burned off their reserves during their winter inactivity. Humans who hole up in the burrow for the winter fatten up on all of the tasty comfort foods one can make or buy while huddling close to the fire.

My winter routine used to involve a lot more playing outside. Now, most of my exercise comes from splitting firewood. My house also has a lot of stairs to climb. This is probably all that interrupts a continuous conveyor belt of baked goods from the oven to my plate. It's even worse at work. Unless I have to deal with a busy ski rental day, I have plenty of opportunities to nibble. I even wrote a song called "Snacking out of boredom and depression," about the tedious days when work hours just feel like incarceration.

People are exhausting. What makes a busy rental day interesting is the process of feeding them through the system smoothly and quickly. When the shop is going really nuts, I'll have three or four things going at once, between rentals, calls for reservations, ski service check-ins, and sales questions. When it's kind of a party atmosphere, the time passes lightly. 

A massive workload in the repair shop in bike season does not alleviate the urge to snack. However, thirty miles of bike commuting a day does a lot to melt away the excess calories. Hey, if I'm burning them, they aren't excess.

Daylight Relocating Time began last Sunday. It has the weird effect of making the month of March disappear, as the morning moves back to January and the afternoon leaps forward to April. It's a beacon on the voyage to riding season. A brief spell of warm weather adds to the illusion, but the longer range forecast shows a reversion to more wintry temperatures. New England teaches you to leap at opportunities but not lean too heavily into what look like trends. What season is it today?

While I have switched the clocks and adapted my schedule, I still react to the light more than the official time. It's just as hard to wake up in the dark in March as it was in January. It's not full-on jet lag, just odd moments of time displacement that follow for the rest of the day.

Lacking base miles, and facing weather that might not support outdoor riding, I haven't bothered to get on a bike seat yet, but I have to do it soon.