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"ça va sans dire"

 



Watching the Olympic women's bike road race last summer as they tore through metro Paris was absolutely enthralling. It was iconic in so many ways: cyclists and their lean profiles flying in piles of groups through fan lined cosmopolitan urban trappings, peeling past historic sites and locations. Architecture, effort, various cameras flying along like peering birds as everyone flies along. Except over a 170 mile course at 26 mph. 6000 feet of climbing, 4-5 hours of machine forged legs pistoning at an unconscionable pace. Absolutely enthralling and exhausting, I wonder what these athletes do after the race. Eat a giant cheeseburger? Do a blood transfusion? Sleep in an ice bath for an hour? My favorite Olympic sports are swimming and anything with a relay, but these competitions that integrate the host city are really awesome. And an American won out of the blue! Just sucked up to the favorites and fried them like eggs on the last leg to the finish line. The Olympics inspired me to consider swimming as my "take care of myself" sport to engage in, and I just started to this week. Two swims in and I feel good, let's see how I feel after two months. 

But man do I miss Paris. It is a fantastic city, a combination of all your favorite metropolitan urban cities with its own flair. Jody and I loved it so much. I can't wait to go back. She wants to buy a home in France at some time, and I am more and more excited about that idea every month. Get to just be us in a new place, with new experiences. Like Dexter Gordon or Jodie Foster or James Baldwin, go and get reborn into who we've been all along. Ideally before we are too old to really enjoy trying so much in a new way that maybe, Maybe, appeals to us in a greater way. Gotta learn some French soon though, yikes.



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