"Sufferfest"

Everyone in the local cycling community knows this man, right? He is as epic as the mountain range they named after him. Cycling is a family affair in his house. And look at that face... he always has that snarl on his face. He has shit-disturber written all over that look.

I happen to be employed at the same institution as him. I have coffee or lunch with him on a semi-regular basis and because our IQ's reach similar heights, the conversations always have staggering twists and turns with sharped-tongued flavour embedded within. It is entirely fate that brought us together as friends, though, because he works down testosterone ally and I work in the tower of power. We have a mutual friend that I knew from the gym who he used to work with directly and now, over 4 years later,  this "dude" in the picture and I are better friends than the original introduction might have predicted.

Yesterday we had coffee together and being he is probably the only person I know, and perhaps the only person in the universe, that I could have a conversation with that involved trying to complete the LA Times crossword (he knew answers like rebs and egocamp [WTF], and I got bologna -- he wins), discussing the magic of prime numbers, and George Orwell's 1984 (which I read in 1984), AND accuse me of being a bullshitter, all in a matter of 5 minutes.

I wish I was a bullshitter. I really wish some of the stories I could tell were actually bullshit. In fact, his favourite story about me is when he and the mutual friend we both know decided to tell me another guy in the office got fired and I believed it. Then the real fun started when I expressed my open opinion on that fact -- until of course I was told it was all BS -- then the joke was on me.

Damn my gullible-ness.

So we all know the pot was calling the kettle black on the account of being a Bullshitter.

Oh and he always manages to find a way to piss off my feminist sensibilities. He does it on purpose though so I still love him and I forgive him.

Anyways, our friend, so pictured above, in his characteristic cantankerous way, happened to comment that if he ever saw the word "sufferfest," again, in any blog it would will him to come out of blog commenting silence. So I informed him that I was happy to rise to that challenge. So he knows I'm going to write this. I doubt however that he realized HOW I was going to write it.

You see, his argument is that it isn't suffering if you are doing it by choice. 

Oh, and he also wants me to tell you he stole that from someone who knows true suffering and it isn't his own independent thought.

Did I paraphrase you right, sir?

Anyways, I adore this man, even if his son claims to have been "raised by savages" (it makes me belly laugh to think of that) and I thought I would grant him his 15 seconds of fame amongst the 5 people that actually look at my blog.

And if he invites you to his house this summer for a "hammerfest" -- it isn't what you think it is and you should tell him you're busy.