After dreaming of strings of Rubik’s cubes shifting and solving and sharing blocks, Ella woke to an uncomfortable prodding sensation in her backside. Both of these were confusing: there was only straw below her when she fell asleep, and—being a chicken—she had no idea what Rubik’s cubes were or what they were doing in her dream. She reached down and tried to move whatever she was sitting on, but it didn’t budge.

She yawned and stretched upward, painfully striking her head against something.  This was also confusing, because there was only air above her when she fell asleep.  She opened her eyes.

Oh!  What a funny joke.  Somebody put her in a really tiny version of the coop while she slept.  They did a really good job too; it must have taken a long time.  Every familiar detail of the the cavernous ceiling was recreated with painstaking accuracy in the one that was now within wing’s reach.  The dusty windows were identical but now only as wide as her shoulders.  She looked down and saw that she was sitting on the remains of a ledge that looked just like her ledge, but far too small and flimsy.  Whoever built this replica didn’t make it very strong.  Maybe it was a prank by the giant lady who took her kids to school.  They’d both been kind of sad since all the other hens moved to the retirement home.  It was nice of her to be so thoughtful.  Ella liked the giant lady, and hoped she wasn’t too lonely.

There seemed to be no point in hanging around in there, and it was really small and sort of uncomfortable.  She looked around.  The hatch where she usually left would be impossible to squeeze through.  The only thing that seemed likely was the giant lady’s door, which was now about the right size.  She felt a flicker of guilt as she looked at the handle.  The giant lady would put her paw on it and turn it, and it would click and then the door would open.  It didn’t feel right to use it, because it wasn’t her door.  Wait!  This wasn’t the same door.  This was a mini prank-door.  She reached out her wing, grasped the handle, turned, pulled, and stepped into the light.

Oh!  The world…

The feeling that she’d been pranked escalated to a paralyzing terror.  The whole world was smaller.  This was impossible.  The indomitable fence around the coop wasn’t even as high as her head.  The area it enclosed was no longer an arena, it was only… an enclosure.  The sturdy crab grass growing around the fence posts looked frail and thin, and in the wind it’s majestic sway was only a stiff wiggle.  Even the trees seemed tiny and rushed compared to the swaying mountainous majesty of the day before.

After about five minutes the shock subsided into a deep unease and Ella decided to go about her day.  For a while she decided to stay in the fenced area, but it was really too small now and she had to move.  She’d normally start the day with a jog, but the shock of this whole thing made her want to just run around like her head was cut off.  She walked around in tight circles faster and faster until she fell over, dizzy.  There was no way around it: she had to cross the fence.  Hopefully the giant lady would understand.  She closed her eyes and jumped over.

The world didn’t explode.  She looked around and decided to start her jog.  She ran across the farm’s yard and hopped over the fence into the field where the cows lived.  She said “Good morning!” to them as she passed, but the cows just stopped, their eyes bulging and grass falling from their mouths.  She ran to the far end of their field and back, her excitement growing as she went: all of this stuff had been way off in the distance her whole life, and now she was seeing it.  It was very exciting.  Maybe if everything stayed smaller, she could help out more, Ella thought.  The tuition for her kids must be pretty expensive.

She went around the south side of the barn where the tractor slept, and turned north to go see the pig pen.  ”Good morning!” she called to the pigs as she approached.

“Is it really?”  one of them replied, calmly, with one raised eyebrow.

“Of course it is,” Ella replied, “The sun is out, everything’s gone tiny and I’m out for a run!”

Another pig looked at her for a moment before saying, “And we’re in a fucking sty, suffering our disenfranchisement under the heel of bipedal despotism.”

“Well, if you don’t clean up after yourselves, that’s your own problem.  And I don’t know what the rest of that means, but it’s probably hooey too,” she said.

“If you can read, take this,” said another pig, who handed her a pamphlet.  ”It’s the latest from Kroporkin.  It explains everything.”

“Oh, these look like those squigglies on the food bags,” Ella said, and then realized that they meant something.  They meant “Hamarchist Morality,” and she almost know what that meant.  ”I always used to think they were for decoration.”

The pigs looked at each other.  One of them said, quietly, “Poor girl, she has no idea.”  They all looked serious and sad.

Well, enough of that, what a downer.  Ella thanked the pigs for the booklet and jogged on.  She rounded their pen and approached the farmhouse.  Through the no-longer-big shiny squares she saw the giant lady, now the same size as her.  She was standing in front of a white box with four black circles on top, and one of the circles had fire coming out and there was a thing on top of it that looked like a round metal feeding trough.  The giant lady was holding something round and white in her hand; why, it was Percival!  Her dear Percival!  She expected he was going to be a doctor, some day.  The giant lady held him in one hand, and then her arm swung down.

It was forty minutes after I decided to quit.  I was agitated, twitching.  Three or four times, I reached for it: where I work, it’s always there.  I can’t escape it.  I was irritable.  I didn’t sweat, but I felt uncomfortably warm.  It’s only for a week, I told myself.  Only for a week.

The extent to which it had invaded my habits and my interactions—even my thoughts—was shocking.  Every move without it was different enough to draw conscious awareness of it.  Walking across a large room, sitting in a chair, relaxing at home: all different.

What the fuck was I supposed to do without the internet?

OK, it’s more general than that.  I’m doing this Artist’s Way course, and one of the things that happens in it is a week of reading deprivation: no books, magazines, bus adverts, newspapers, etc.  The obvious modernization was no more internet.  Of course, there are things that don’t involve reading, like youtube, but I decided to follow the spirit of the exercise instead of the letter of it.  The results so far have been kind of shocking.

After half a day, what rose from the pit of time left by dislodging and removing the internet was amazing.  Shoots of ideas: something to write, something to draw, something to organize, something to build out of carefully cut pieces of wood.  And later, what followed?  Action.  I actually went through a huge chunk of laundry, did some preventative maintenance on my room, practised piano, did yoga, meditated, added another 20km or so kilometers to my commute home, pulled out a sketchbook.

It’s now been two solid days where I’m only allowed gmail and its chat thing, as well as blogging and flickr uploading, which are creative outlets.   No wikipedia, no best of craigslist, nothing about software development, security or politics.  No silly animal pictures, no comics, nothing.  I still don’t know what to do with all of the time that’s reappeared without it; the only thing seems to be to act on all of these ideas.  So I’m letting myself blog again, and I suppose uploading to flickr will be ok, and one tweet per blog post until I finish.  Otherwise, I think I’ll make stuff.

Well, I’ve now had half a week with my new bike, Aurore Astrid Macaroni, a beautiful Marinoni Sportivo Express.  After some initial shakiness, related to my toe clip technique and slowing down, I’m used to riding non-fixed again.  Last night, after getting home on Aurore, I switched to Carrera, my beautiful fixed-gear Soma Delancey, and went for a spin to directly compare the riding experience.

And it’s a total toss-up.  They’re both amazing.  They’re completely different.

Aurore is fast.  I’d blow past people on Carrera, but this is something else entirely.  Aurore’s top gear is 53/12, four and a half tire revolutions per pedal revolution, and Carerra’s 46/17 is just over two and a half.  While I would hit the limit of my spinning ability on a straightaway with Carerra, I’m not powerful enough to use Aurore’s top gear at a proper cadence unless I’m going slightly downhill.  Apparently this isn’t at all abnormal.  Additionally, having gears means that the thought of going up a big hill is only mildly disgusting.

Aurore is also smooth.  The carbon fork and stays absorb a lot of the (irritatingly frequent and large) bumps that I encounter on Edmonton’s (shitty) roads.  Sections of road that were bone-rattling on Carrera are only uncomfortable on Aurore, and going over them more quickly feels less stupid.

Aurore is an amazing machine.  But she doesn’t win, because Carerra is so much goddamn fun to ride, for almost completely different reasons.

The fixie versus freewheel thing has probably been done to death, and I don’t think it’s fair to compare them¹.  With a freewheel bike, the core mechanic is “pedal means go, brake means stop.”  When you ride one, you’re driving.  Riding a fixie feels more like skating: every motion of your feet has significance, and it feels more like a different interface to the ground than a vehicle.  It’s really no surprise that people who have been riding other kinds of bikes have trouble with fixies, at least at first.  The idea of brakes being only semi-useful is understandably strange, because vehicles have to stop.  It’s the same with the idea of not being able to coast: what’s the point of driving a vehicle if you can’t just sit and let it carry you a bit?  But once you accept this conceptual shift, the reasons for loving your fixie are just too clear.

For me, the biggest one is probably speed control.  I accelerate as hard as I pedal, I slow down as hard as I resist.  Another one is feedback.  Based on what’s coming to me through the pedals, I can feel the ground I’m going over.  I find that these two things combine to make the ride almost meditative, because any time my mind wanders the pedals bring me right back.  I also find that my cycling style changes, because I never want to touch my brakes.  On one hand, I’m more aggressive in taking safe openings that I see; on the other, I’m way more cautious of everything that can move.  It’s a wonderful experience.

So I guess that puts the whole fixie debate to bed for me.  They’re awesome, but so are other bikes.  I’m now bicyclically polyamorous.

1. In my defence, I’m only going to contrast them.