Caution - young and impressionable

and stubborn as hell. i think i should come with a disclaimer. today i got talked into doing a BMX race. yes, BMX as in bicycle motocross. well, maybe i shouldn't use the phrase "got talked into" because that would imply some reluctance on my part. there was none. not that i have the remotest idea of what BMX-ing entails...shouldn't be too different from regular biking, should it?
the disclaimer, among other things, would read: "don't mention such activities as sky-diving or going to africa to me because either i'll want to do it; or i will go and do it and get myself into such pickles as cannot be imagined. calamitous pickles. don't torture my poor, under-adventured, under-nourished soul!!!"

alas! i am confined to this state for what feels like forever, like some sort of doomed axis mundi...(eew, that was a terrible simile)...for at least six more months...

also, i've always wanted to say "oh my, i'm in such a pickle!"

I am restless. I am athirst for faraway things. My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance. O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute! I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.

- Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener, 1915