2022-04-02

Commute 5

tags: life

Maybe it's time for a separate shortlog or tinylog? On the other hand, that is not exactly keeping it simple.

2022-03-11

This week I changed vehicles and took the train again --- after a much too long period of trying to evade the plague by car (successfully so). In a nutshell, commuting by train takes quite a bit longer, but I don't need to pay much attention, so it is not as exhausting. At least this is my official excuse.

I take my small notebook with me. I can read some documentation (man pages, anyone?), try a few fancy new things (i3blocks, anyone?), stare out of the window at length, whatever. Upgrading my ticket has been a good decision. I can now take another train, which goes direct --- no need to change trains half way. Allthough I have to leave a bit sooner, it is a little luxury in uncertain times.

The number of bicycles at the train stations has dropped visibly to about a quarter of what it was two years ago. I pass close to the newspaper stand again, which is good, and close to the bakery, which is bad. The weather is a bit too dry for the season, on the other hand I don't mind much staying dry during commute.

2022-03-24

Today I did an experiment. I took the bicycle to the train station. That means, I took a later train as well, and a slow connection with changing trains midway on top, due to a different boarding station. Surprisingly I did make it to the train station in a bit less than 20 minutes, where I would have expected more. However, the hard part will come on the way home, due to an increase in elevation by a bit. I'm sort of excited, and a bit anxious as well, how my muscles will react. Due to my dealing with CFS[a] this is all far from predictable. Maybe I'll do it more often, maybe I'll give it up alltogether. I'm not very optimistic, never have been. Allthough I managed a few tricky feats during my life, optimism is in fairly short supply. Maybe I'll have a stroll via "The Midnight", with a nice stout served by ~bartender. But as of this writing I'm still on the train home. At least everything is reasonably "on time".

However, even in uncertain times the world will not cease to exist, if you choose to ignore it. On the train a young lady was removing her suitcase from an empty space, when I boarded. I told her, that I would leave soon again, so I wouldn't mind. She looked at me and said: nje panimaju. It took a while for my rusty brain to grok her words: "I don't understand". Most probably the lady was travelling from Ukraine to a fairly unknown place in the South of Germany. Oh well. Welcome and good luck, lady!

PostScriptum: The way home felt more like crawling than riding a bicycle. I made it home ok. My muscles did not protest much, which is good. The ride took about as much time as I remembered it from the time before SARS-COV2 became a thing. Which means, I had been crawling home then as well. Apparently it has not become much worse, allthough I sense the symptoms much more clearly now. Sigh.

[a] chronic fatigue syndrome

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