2,833 Miles

So, we're in Portland now.

There was a more impressive welcome sign a few hundred feet from here, but I missed it.

I'm not going to get much into the trip itself, because I'm saving that for the split zine I'm making with Rob, but suffice it to say that it came out much, much better than we expected it to. All three cats are still alive, though Oxford managed to destroy his own carrier. The most beautiful state we went through (including Oregon, which is half desert) was Utah. The worst state was Idaho, with the caveat that we only traveled through the south of it, and the panhandle is supposed to be way better, and we were also getting very tired of traveling by that point. Everyone we met was friendly as hell. Seriously, the Midwest has the most ho-hum topography but the best people. We went through twelve states, eight of which were new to me, and somewhere in Wyoming the terrifying visage of Abraham Lincoln passed judgment upon me and found me lacking.

Rob pulled a U-ie to see this. It was worth it.

Our apartment is fantastic, a very short walk from the bus stop and a longer walk to the Alberta district, home of a fancy waffle shop I imagine I'll be frequenting quite a bit. Surprisingly, I haven't been doing much biking since I got here, since our apartment's one downside is that there is no way to lock up your bike in the front. We have a tiny back yard, but it has a fence around it and is only accessible through the apartment, and my bikes are both 35+ pound behemoths with wide handlebars. I'm thinking about selling one or both of them and getting this contraption, which I'll actually be able to carry easily through the door/apartment. What biking I have done, however, has been glorious. People aren't actively trying to kill me anymore!

It's very peaceful here. We're still mostly in the setting-up phase, and haven't started jobs yet, so that could be part of the reason for the calm. But there's also such a sense of friendliness here, of community, which is strange considering that three-fourths of Portlanders are transplants, but there you go. While I hate to be one of those people who constantly compares Portland to the place they come from, I do think that the friendliness reminds me a lot of Pittsburgh. You know how people in Pittsburgh kind of smile and do a little wave at each other, even if they're complete strangers? Sort of like that, only minus the wave, because come on, that's creepy. It's very flat here and you can walk for miles without getting tired, and Rob's health is improving so much.

This terrible statue in Nebraska is supposed to represent the Oregon Trail. Isn't it ugly?

So yeah: Portland. It's a thing that's happening, right now. I've already met a few writers here, and I'm looking forward to meeting more people in both the science fiction and zine communities, as well as putting together some paying work! Oh, and it's barely rained at all, although it is spring. I like rain anyway.

In writing news, I've sold my short story "We Take the Long View" to Shimmer, one of my favorite magazines! I've been a reader of Shimmer since my friend K.M. Szpara had a short story in one of their previous issues. I'm very excited to share this bit of shimmery science fiction with you all.

This Very Small Amount of Internet Fame Will Go Straight to My Head

In the past few days I've had almost four hundred hits. Four hundred! That's how much I get in a typical month, and what makes it a little frustrating is that I can't figure out where you people get here from. The keywords are not helping, the referral sites are the same ones that always refer my site (and the numbers there look the same), and the pages "hit" are a motley collection of bikey posts, writing posts, and posts way the hell from last year. So if you're on this site for the first time, my question to you is: why?

So I might as well take advantage of my sudden Internet fame to update you with some important life news:

• I got a new job! My last job, as I think I might have mentioned here at some point (or maybe it was on Dreamwidth), was at this deli, and while it definitely gave me fodder for a potential writing project, it wasn't the job for me. Even "in this economy." I'm not going to say anything specific about the new job because hi, separating Internet life from work life is always a solid plan but it's the best job I've had since 2007. Looking forward to staying the course, racking up experience points, and learning much more about the profession I work in.
• I've been re-reading a lot of my favorite books this month, because that always gets me more into the groove of writing my own stuff. First I re-read Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem, which might be the book I've read more often than any other. Now I'm onto the Light/Nova Swing duology by M. John Harrison, which was groundbreaking when I first read it (I still hadn't read all that much SF by that point despite writing it... the fact that I only got into SF as an adult and how that's influenced my reading/writing/thoughts about "fandom" should really be its own blog post at some point) and is still amazing now. Up next: probably some Philip K. Dick, since I'm getting the Exegesis for Giftmas and I want to get in the mood.
• Sparkle Season isn't annoying me this year as much as it has in the past. I still don't like the semi-compulsory participation in a holiday I have no religious connection to, I still really don't like giving or receiving presents, but this season I've managed to be more Andy Rooney than Lewis Black about the whole thing.
• My new work commute is over twice as long as my old commute, which would make most people groan but not me, because I'm insane. Or a bike commuter, same difference really. Maybe I'll write about it on the bikey blog but I update there even less frequently than here. I'm learning how to ride safely with one earbud in which makes the commute all the more sweet. (And will hopefully get me back into music. I've only listened to ONE album released this year, I used to care so much more about new music. Of course, I am also 30, and I gather that one's enjoyment of new music tends to wither after you hit your third decade.)
• Working on stories, same old, same old. The revised story I thought about self-publishing as a social experiment is actually turning out to be good, so I may attempt to publish it for real after all. I've come to the conclusion that blogging about writing is sort of boring because it's pretty much a one-woman enterprise and anything that isn't "hey I finished something" or "hey I published something" (and dudes I totally did publish something this year) is frankly kind of dull, don't you think? Being a short story writer and zinester, I hit this "finishing point" more often than novelists but still, it's not climbing Everest, exactly. Maybe taking "action shots" of my netbook in various exotic locations will help, it certainly works for bike bloggers.

And... that's it! Bye for now, my hundreds upon hundreds of mystery readers.

Different Blog News, Same Blog Channel

So I've decided to start a bicycle blog. What, you mean this isn't already one? Well, it's sort of turned out that way, but originally I just planned to have this be a blog about my writing, my zines, general life updates, and the occasional poorly rendered MS Paint comic. However, my new-found love of transportation cycling has gradually taken over this blog until I feel like that's all I talk about here! And then, I feel like that's all I CAN talk about here, because blogs are supposed to be about one topic and I feel like I would be boring my, uh, "fanbase" if I talk about things other than bikes.

But I still want to blog about bicycle stuff! Hence, splitting the blog in twain, and since it makes a lot more sense to keep the zine/writing stuff under my zine's title, and give the bikey blog a bikey title, so it is written that Speeding Pedalcycle is where you want to go from now on to read my bikey updates. Of course, you can still read both blogs! But I feel like splitting in two will "maximize my search engine potential" and "expose my readership to startling new ideas" and "synergy." Really, it's just so I can customize my blog headers to hell and back without feeling like I have to cram too much in there. Even though I know that everyone only reads on RSS feeders now, I still feel the need to tinker with my damn layout every two weeks.

Look for content on Speeding Pedalcycle pretty soon. Maybe even today! I want to update at least twice a week, maybe three times. I have a bad tendency to forget about blogging for weeks at a time, but I think if I set a goal to update on certain days, it will get done. And I'll still be updating here, although probably not as often, because as I've mentioned my writing process is highly idiosyncratic and doesn't make for good blogging. But still, probably once a week or so, or whenever I have a project I'm really excited about (which, right now, I do!).

It worked for Netflix, and by gum, it will work for me.

Reality Doesn't Have to Suck: That GM Ad

There was some predictable outcry over the above General Motors ad a few days ago. Basically, the ad is terrible and so is GM (for a much bigger reason than this). But, IDK, I can't get as fired up about this as others.

I think my take on it was a little skewed compared to the rest of the bikeysphere. The "Reality Sucks" line struck me at hopelessly nihilistic, and definitely connected to the car (as it's a car ad) instead of the bike. As Rob likes to tell me when I go on about hating cars and driving, driving is a reality, and it's not going away, and yes, for most people it does suck. Yet, why a company would want the term "sucks" to come anywhere near their product baffles me. Fast food is often a necessity in our modern lives, but would you see Burger King running a commercial where a family is sitting down to a nice home-cooked meal, and then there's a cutaway to a dad rushing home with a bag of Whoppers? "Reality sucks, stop cooking, eat BK." No, because it's insane to compare your product to a slower, yet far more fulfilling alternative. Likewise, cars are a tool, ones that are often a necessity in our modern lives, but being reminded of this "reality"... does not strike me as the best way to go. If anything, it might cause someone to think "Hey, yeah, driving DOES suck! Wait, you can ride a bike to work, like it's a car? Does that suck as much as driving does?" Putting your competitor's product in your ad is a risky venture, and should only be done if you're absolutely certain your product is superior. It isn't at all clear that driving in areas that allow for transportation cycling is superior (in fact, proving that it's inferior is sort of the point of bicycle advocacy, right?), so really, the main thing I take away from this is GM is a self-hating corporation which is secretly engineering its own downfall.

The pictures further fuel this interpretaton. For one thing, the cyclist is attractive! He's not really my own type, but he's definitely got that generic advertising-model look going on. And while he's not smiling, he also doesn't have a doomed expression on his face saying "oh, man, I wish I had a truck right about now." He looks like he's concentrating, which I can understand, as my own face tends to scrunch up when I cycle, to the point that I look like I'm probably not enjoying myself very much. The girl in the picture, meanwhile, is smiling at him. Not sneering, or rolling her eyes, but genuinely smiling at him, even if she's WAY too close. Meanwhile, she's not watching the road. Does this mean GM customers are bad drivers?

So, really, my deconstruction of the ad would have to be: "The reality of our current transportation infrastructure is sub-par and often requires the use of a car, which we provide. However, there are alternatives, and these alternatives may not 'suck' as much as our product or others like it. Have we said 'suck' enough? Suck suck suck, our products suck." Awesome pitch for my side, GM! Here, have another bailout.

Of course, that's not what GM was going for by a long shot, I know that. I realize that my interpretation of this ad is influenced by my own hatred of cars (despite their "reality"). Still, I wonder just what they were going for. Nobody who currently has the privilege of being able to ride for transportation is going to "make the switch" after seeing this ad. I guess it makes GM truck owners feel a little better about themselves and their choice to carry around a 3000-pound steel cage. And of course, it got us all talking about GM, which is the ultimate goal of any and all advertising.

The below response ad by Giant is pretty awesome:

Basically, the fact that a major car company even deigns to "attack" transportation cycling means just one thing to me: they're scared and we're winning. Even ten years ago, you wouldn't have seen an ad like this, because cycling was so on the margins that this ad would have been a waste of GM's ad money. Call me an optimist, but I count this as a victory.

BikeyLinks

Hey, so, I've read some interesting stuff in the bikeosphere this week, so how about I let other people do my work for me and just link to them? /lazy

First off, if you like bikes and you like comics and you like humor, you need to put Another Bike on your RSS feed, like, yesterday. Even if you only like one or two of those things, still read it. How can you not love a girl who treats her new bike to a bath by candlelight?

Credit to Lulu @ Another Bike

Second, Sam at Brown Girl in the Lane perfectly sums up how I often feel when I think about people I know taking preventable car trips (FYI, most car trips are preventable), and how hard it can be to support them in their decision:

When I see a friend is a car, I immediately think of studies I've read, about the toxins the very existence of car creates, about the number of lives lost....for no good reason.
It is at times like this I wish I could get a lobotomy and just put myself out of this misery. I wish I could just forget everything I've read, everything I've seen, and everything I've smelled and just be happy and enjoy the fact that I'm lucky to live in a world where so many people are privileged to have such an abundance of luxury. [....]
But I can't forget it, and I'm not being honest when I say that I can really, truly appreciate this gift.

Thirdical, a recent only-tangentially-related-to-bikes article at NY Times caught my eye: Keeping (Weaker) Eyes on the Road. Apparently, people seeking license renewal in New York will no longer have to take eye retests. I didn't know that any state required retests, so I did a little digging and found out that most states don't require a retest if you renew by mail (Maryland is one of the few exceptions, although you can have eyes as bad as 20/100 and still drive here with a doctor's note). I do sympathize with sucky-eyed folks who are in danger of losing their licenses, since I know first hand that not being able to drive and living somewhere that isn't transit or bike friendly is a major handicap when it comes to employment, social life, education... well, everything! It's incredibly isolating. However, that pain just doesn't compare to the thousands of people who die every year in car accidents, many of them caused by people who should not be driving. (P.S. I include myself in this. I don't believe my optometrist should have written me an exemption, because I don't believe there should be vision exemptions. I'm still planning on taking my driver's road test because I've put a lot of money into this thing, but I also think a truly safe driver vision policy would be one that excludes me and people whose eyes are even worse than mine. And I don't plan to actually drive.)

Finally, is bicycle commuting really catching on? Well, it depends on where you live, but I'm pleased:

Credit: The Atlantic Cities. Boo on you, Newark!

Who's that at the largest increase in the Northeast US? Why, it's my old hometown, Pittsburgh! And coming in at #2? You guessed it, Baltimore! As I've never ridden in any area other than Baltimore City and County, I don't know how our cycle facilities stack up against more world-class places like NYC or Boston. I do know, however, that in general I feel very, very safe riding in the city, and while I can imagine things being better (as can anyone who doesn't live in Amsterdam or Copenhagen), I'm ridiculously pleased with the amount of lanes and sharrows we have already. Also, 1% ride share seems kind of low, I'd say the ratio of bikes to cars is more like 1:20 or even 1:10 on the Avenue or around JHU. But if they're only counting people commuting to jobs, that changes things, I don't even commute to a job (because I don't yet have one).

Pittsburgh being at #1 is a surprise, because it's just so ridiculously hilly everywhere. You'd have to be pretty athletic already to tackle Pittsburgh as a transportation cyclist. I also don't remember many lanes, although I wasn't looking for them when I lived there. I'm going back in two weeks and I'll look for bike infrastructure then! I would definitely continue riding if I moved back to Pittsburgh, although I'd have to get a bike with more than seven speeds. More like thirty-seven.

The biggest increases, though, came from the Midwest, although the overall percentages there are pretty tiny, except for Minneapolis (which I gather is a lot like Portland, only with snow, so, worse than Portland). If you live in the Southeast or certain parts of the Southwest, sorry guys, better luck next time.

Bloody-Minded Collectivist Cyclist (an Irene-delayed post)

Read an interesting article by British environmentalist George Monbiot, about how the car is turning England into a nation of antisocial bastards. First, I love that you can use the word "bastard" in the headline of an editorial over there. But more importantly, he makes a lot of good points, and gets in some well-deserved cracks in at Americans and Australians. The article's from 2005, but as cars still exist, I think it's relevant. A quote:

"When you drive, society becomes an obstacle. Pedestrians, bicycles, traffic calming, speed limits, the law: all become a nuisance to be wished away. The more you drive, the more bloody-minded and individualistic you become."

I can say without a doubt that this is true for me. I've logged around forty hours in a car since getting my permit in January, and while it hasn't turned me into a Tea Partier, I have noticed subtle shifts in both my mood and attitude during and after driving. My fuse is shorter, and considering that it's already pretty short, that's saying A LOT. Extrapolating from this, I come to the conclusion that if I had to spend two hours in a car five days a week, I'd basically become a fire-breathing dragon.

Get out of my way, I'm a motorist!

In a car, you basically can live in a pod if you want to, shuttling from home to work and back on an interstate where you won't have to see another living soul other than yourself and the shadowy beings ensconced in their own pods. Never before in human history has it been so easy not to associate with people you don't choose to associate with, and at the risk of being controversial, I think that's a bad thing. When you don't know that people other than you and your immediate family exist, when they're only hypotheticals, it's easy to say things like "schools (other than my kid's school) are over-funded" or "Social Security doesn't help me, why should I pay for it?" Because you have less real-world experience. And sure, a commute is only a small fraction of one's day, and maybe not everyone feels as I do. For all I know, everyone else in a car is appreciating the full and rich humanity of every other human being on the road. But I am saying that I, personally, feel a lot more misanthropic (and keep in mind, I'm already pretty misanthropic) toward humanity after being in a car, and probably less inclined to support social programs to benefit those ants who dare to suck my mighty fumes.

I also feel less creative after I've taken a long drive or car ride. I'm one of those writers who needs to work over an idea ad infinitum in my head before I feel comfortable enough to write it for real. (Note: don't be this kind of writer if you can possibly avoid it! I'd be so, so much more prolific both blog-wise and fiction-wise if I could "write by the seat of my pants." Alas, I am and will always be a follower of the 99% inspiration, 1% perspiration philosophy.) And the one thing that makes me get into the groove of writing, aside from smoking which I no longer do, is physical activity. Either walking or cycling works, but cycling has the added benefit of getting me to my destination faster, and varying the sights I see along my journeys, which aids in my ability to put together my plots and rework my sentences over and over (and over (and over)) again. I don't know exactly why exercise works this way for me, but it does, and driving for me is like an anti-exercise, making me less able to think and write than I would have been if I'd just stayed home.

I thought these "quirks" were limited to me, a by-product of being an old (in relativistic terms) practically-non-driver who hates cars, and also of being a hot-tempered rage-face in general. Yet, I've been driven in cars with people who are normally very sweet-tempered and not normally prone to rages who get absolutely apoplectic when things slow down or pedestrians step in front of them or they are stuck behind a bike. I won't name names but think about who I ride with most often, heh. I don't think it's that far-fetched to speculate that the car has something to do with this Jekyll and Hyde transformation. And I also don't think the liberal vs. conservative/collectivist vs. individualist dichotomy is that far-fetched either. Perhaps someone in the liberal media should conduct a survey seeing if long car commutes correlate with conservatism on the political spectrum.

Monbiot is also a pro-nuclear environmentalist, so clearly this is a man after my own heart!

Breakfast at Twilight #4 Is Out and Buried Under a Cat

I've been living in Baltimore for a week now and it's pretty awesome! The neighbors are friendlier, the sights are interesting, and the bike lanes and public transportation are existent. And while I will put up a big-ass update post with pictures and such soon, I still can't find my camera in the moving boxes and bags and I sort of hate pulling pictures from my phone. Also, I've been spending too much time on the Internet, as evidenced by the fact that I haven't even finished a book this month. (The book I am reading, The Godwhale by doctor-turned-SF author-turned-doctor T.J. Bass, is awfully written but awesomely idea-ed. It's the sequel to a book that's even worse and I don't really know why I'm continuing to read it except that it's a fairly unique dystopia and I love me some dystopia fiction. Maybe I'll put up a post about it at some point. But basically if you enjoy 1970s-era environmental dystopia and don't mind reading sentences like "now the more purposeful cutaneous capillaries puckered to conserve heat," these are the books for you!)

A zine so awesome, it killed a cat.


But! This post is actually an official announcement of my new zine, Breakfast at Twilight #4: The Bike Issue. My new zine touches on such hard-hitting topics as:

• My history with driving, and also cycling
• Confrontations with drivers
• How to bike in suburbia without getting murdered
• Beginners' Gear 101
• My beef with athletic cycling
• A very short urban planning history

And more! Okay, no, that's pretty much it. It's forty pages, quarter sized, and pretty text-packed except for some hand-drawn illustrations. If you want it, copies are $1.50 and you can Paypal me at blacklightdiner at gmail dot com. Outside the US, please add a little for shipping. Distros who want a copy, get in contact, and it will be available at my own distro (for the next month or so that it's open online) once I hook up the scanner. But what I really want is trades! My zine reading has really slacked and I don't know why, except that I haven't gotten very many new zines in the mail lately. So if you're someone I've traded with before, or even someone I haven't, email me. It will be awesome.

Hampden, hon!

Over the weekend, I moved to Baltimore. The general sequence of events:

Saturday, 9:00 AM: Pick up truck. Find out Rob is awesome at driving truck as long as I don't talk too much about the questionable racial politics implied in The Jetsons. Talk about it anyway because that's what I do.

Saturday, 10:00 AM: My parents and sister arrive from Uniontown, PA. My dad immediately made himself useful by managing to Tetris almost all of our belongings into a 16' Budget moving truck. Considering that we couldn't even manage to get everything into a 24' truck when we moved to Towson from Pittsburgh, that represents both an incredible downsizing of stuff on both our parts as well as some first-rate packing on my dad's part.

Saturday, 1:00 PM: Break for lunch. I ribbed my parents for a while about having to drive less than a mile to the nearest restaurant, but these are the ideological sacrifices that you make for people who are helping you out. Although I still maintain I could have biked there faster.

Saturday, 3:00 PM: Commence unpacking. Find that almost everything fits, and that unpacking is way easier when you don't have to move heavy oak pieces up and down narrow row-house stairs. Come to the conclusion with your significant other that stairs, while a useful invention of mankind, are best avoided in any apartments we may rent in the future.

Saturday, 8:00 PM: Break for dinner. Retrieve cats from old house. Are slightly amused that the cat that reacted the worst to moving last time (her behavior earned her the title "Queen of the Rafters") is apparently unfazed, and that old cranky cat is reacting the worst. He's still hissing and swiping at legs. Make a crack about how this will be the last place he ever lives and feel bad about it because that means he might die here and that's morbid, but REALLY, it's just that we hope to be here at least five or six years and he's already ten and cats don't live THAT long. Except for this cat. If Oxford turns out to be the feline Jeanne Calment he's gonna have to suck it up.

Sunday: Let's just not talk about Sunday, okay?

The apartment looks like this, except that there's all kinds of stuff in it now which makes it look like a hoarder house but we're totally not hoarders. Except of LOVE. And canned goods.

The many colors of our new apartment. Just add boxes.

So far Hampden is pretty awesome although we haven't really done anything here yet because we had to go back out to the suburbs for irony and necessary house supplies. I also haven't been able to do any exploring on my bike but SOON, hon, soon. Thanks to Rob (who will read this post) for agreeing to the move and being awesome at driving the truck, and my parents and sister (who probably won't), for being a major help! Even if they do hate to walk.

Also, I have a new zine! Well, I have a new zine PRINTED but not yet collated because of the move, and I don't know when it will be collated. By next week, definitely! It's all about bikes, suburbia, how to start cycling for transportation, fucking drivers, pet peeves, and more. Okay, not really that much more. It's forty pages, which is the longest zine I've ever written and it's even longer than that because for the first time I wrote it on a computer, not a typewriter, which means the words are smaller and closer together. Figures that when I decide to write a 24-hour zine, it actually turns into a week-long project.

In lieu of cover image, please accept this similar concept.

If you want one, it's $1.50 Paypalled to blacklightdiner at gmail dot com, or a trade. Trades are awesome! I haven't been reading very many zines lately besides the ones submitted to me for distro consideration. You can email for my address. That needs to change.

Tax Cars, Subsidize Bikes

Some "foodie" named Mark Bittman wrote an article in the New York Times calling for the government (because we all know they don't have enough to do lately!) to levy sin taxes on pop and processed foods, the building blocks of the Standard American Diet. The way we eat makes him SAD. He proposes using this tax money to found a program to make healthy food more widely available and teach people how to cook it. Which is nice in theory, except that these things never work out as intended and that revenue will go where it always does, a tax cut for the top 10% of Americans.

The comparison to anti-tobacco programs is a shaky one at best. The link between smoking and cancer is direct; the link between obesity and diet, not so much. (Otherwise, I'd weigh four hundred pounds! Seriously, my diet sucks and I should probably do something about it eventually.) The link between obesity and ill health, again, there's a link but it's not a direct one in the way that smoking and cancer are directly linked. And fast food is still food, which is something you need to keep living. It's definitely not the best food, but nothing pisses me off quite as much as food fascists who smugly declare that Taco Bell isn't food.

But you know what's a better analogy? Driving. Just like eating, transportation is a necessity. And just like the government has subsidized corn and soybean manufacturers for more and for longer than we ever should have, it has also subsidized and bailed out oil companies and car makers. We've bent our infrastructure around the almighty car, just as much as we've bent our diet around what's cheapest and easiest. Just like some people in the inner city live in food deserts, people in Houston or South Podunk live in transportation deserts, wherein car-less transportation is only theoretically possible, forcing people to chain themselves to expensive, dangerous steel cages whether they want to or not. Even exercising can be impossible in those kind of places if you don't have access to a car. I grew up in a suburb/small town where there weren't even any sidewalks to walk or jog on, and where if you wanted to do some hardcore exercising, you had to join a gym, which required the cage! That's some vicious circle, dude, and it's no wonder that lots of people just stay home. They've spent too much time in the cage that day already.

And that's not even getting into the health effects of driving! Did you know that sitting will kill you? How about commuting? It seems to me that the car is at least as bad for you as fast food, and possibly worse. So why single out food?

In Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization (which is awesome, by the way), Jeff Rubin talks extensively about the gross, egregious subsidies that our government uses to keep the price of oil lower than it has any right to be. He also talks about the sky-high subsidies that developing nations like India and China are giving their drivers as a way to usher them into modernity, even as the modern world is realizing that car culture is not long-term sustainable.

I picture a world in which Americans (and Canadians and Australians and Indians and the Chinese) are forced to pay the real cost for their oil, a cost which includes carbon offsets because that's an integral part of oil use. A world where "fitness" is not something you do after work or on your lunch break, because everything you do requires physical effort, whether you're walking to the store or biking to work. And although I'm not any kind of expert, I sorta think that emphasizing physical activity and making our communities a good place to walk and bike would do a hell of a lot more good for our collective physical and mental health than slapping French fries out of someone's hand, saying "no!," and telling them what they should be eating instead. (Fun fact: Poor people already know this. They are not dumb.)

And guess what? A society where people don't drive as much, and don't import as much food as they used to due to carbon taxes being taken seriously, is by necessity a locavore society except for the upper 10% of income earners who can afford to buy fancy imported Big Macs and Kobe beef. My dream of high carbon/oil taxes isn't too dissimilar from Bittman's dream of taxing "bad" foods, except that I'm cutting to the source of the problem, not the effect.

So, don't look down on me for eating poorly, and attempt to change my behavior, not unless you're prepared to turn the camera right back on yourself and admit that you, too, benefit from Standard American Transportation (SAT... this is also an apt acronym!). Fast food, and the people who enjoy it or who see it as a necessary evil due to living in food deserts, is an easy target. But make no mistake: what got us to this point is globalization and the deceptively cheap oil that makes it possible. Sin taxing fast food is a surface-level "fix" that allows foodies to sneer at fatties without doing anything to solve structural problems. Let he who is without sin cast the first, uh, tax.

The Cat Days of Summer

Bikey news: One of the bike blogs I read, Let's Go Ride a Bike, is sponsoring a Summer Games for those of us non-athletic-type riders who nevertheless enjoy a bit of friendly competition. The challenges, intended to push one out of their transportation cycling comfort zone. Some examples of activities you too can participate in: ride on a bike path you've never been on before, ride somewhere new in your city, commute to work if you don't already, go on a group ride. As I'm moving into an essentially new-to-me area in six days (!), and plan to explore the hell out of things during the first week of August, I figure I'll have this one in the bag!

Not that I've been doing a lot of riding lately. Today's temperature clocked in at 102 degrees, and I don't know what a heat index is but it can't be helping anything. I am, in general, a huge fan of hot temperature; my ideal temp is around eighty degrees, with just a slight breeze. But this triple-digit crap that's been going on for the entire past week is a different animal. It's not as bad as winter because nothing is as bad as winter. Yet it's still weather that keeps me indoors when I'd prefer not to be, which is crazy-making even without all the white shit on the ground. But it's supposed to be down into the nineties next week in Maryland, which will be a relative relief.

Non-bikey news: As previously alluded, Rob and I are moving from the suburban college town of Towson to the neighborhood of Hampden in Baltimore, to a lovely first-floor apartment with multicolored walls and a tree in the backyard, and from which I will have non-trivial access to public transportation, independent non-chain businesses, and other things that make life worth living. But before the moving comes the packing, and wow, I really hope we stay at this new apartment for years and years because the process of packing to move is one of the most miserable things of all time.

We have a lot of books. I mean, a LOT of books. Lots and lots of books. So far, we're up to a mighty thirty-four boxes and while mostly done there are a few stragglers which I'll just throw into crates or something because we're out of damn moving boxes. I'm pretty sure that if I piled all the moving boxes on top of one another and jumped off the pile that would be a stupid idea. In addition, there's the furniture and clothing and such to deal with, but those aren't beyond what most "normal people" have in their houses. And no, an e-reader wouldn't really help matters, since 80% of the books are comics. At least the situation is improved from the last move, though, when we had probably over fifty moving boxes for books alone and also a dozen long boxes of single-issue comics. The latter is gone almost completely, and there's a significant dent in the former. We're also both becoming a lot pickier about what we bring into the house, too, which is going to cut down on the accumulation while we continue to chip away at what's already there.

Just in case there's anyone who reads this blog and also orders from Black Light Diner Distro, I'll be boxing up zines (both my personal collection and distro zines) around mid-week, and unboxing whenever I get around to it, so if you want to order anything (and help me lighten my load) then do it now, now, now! Also in zine news, I'm seriously thinking about doing a 24-hour zine for International Zine Month, since I've never done one, aside from a comic flipbook in 2008 that I promptly put out of print because I didn't like it. I have so much packing/moving-related stuff to do, though. It will probably come down to whether I feel like I can justify squandering a few hours to work on a zine. But as I've already spent most of this afternoon sitting in a blissfully air-conditioned Panera doing nothing... maybe my time isn't as precious as I think it is.

And--out!

Like, seriously, fuck car culture. Right in its EAR.

I swear I'll get back to funny/light posts that aren't about transportation issues eventually but this is too important a news story to not comment on. Raquel Nelson, an Atlanta woman whose child was killed by a drunk driver while she was crossing the highway in front of her apartment building, is now being charged with vehicular homicide for her son's death. Nope, not the driver who actually killed him. The woman who lost her child due to the combination of a selfish asshole driver and piss-poor urban planning is being charged with murder. Welcome to another battle in the war between pedestrians/cyclists and drivers.

Of course, comments are making much to-do over the fact that she crossed illegally. This is true, she did. But why should a mother with three young children be forced to walk almost a mile round-trip to get to the crosswalk? Why are crosswalks so scarce in this part of Atlanta? Why did the bus let her off in an area without a crosswalk? The story says that other bus passengers also illegally crossed there, and if I'd have to guess based on the aerial picture on that link I'd say that it's a pretty popular spot for illegal crossings. There appears to be a large housing complex on the opposite side of the street from the bus stop, a wide median strip, and no obstructions to prevent walkers from seeing cars speeding toward them. And there also doesn't appear to be a sidewalk on that road, meaning that walkers who do choose to travel along the shoulder to the crosswalk would still be in danger from cars drifting onto the edges of the road, plus the exhaust and harassment and possible disease-ridden debris normally found on shoulders. I've seen dead rats and broken beer bottles alongside highways, been panhandled, had things shouted at me. I don't blame her for taking a chance crossing that highway instead of mucking around on a shoulder for an additional half hour with three young kids, who tend to be inquisitive and put things in their mouths and such.

Naturally, race and gender have a lot to do with this, too. Would Nelson have been charged with killing her child if she was a white man? Well, maybe not, but maybe so. It's no secret that non-drivers are marginalized almost everywhere in the United States; a greater percentage of non-drivers are POC/poor/disabled which skews things, but even a person privileged in almost every other category becomes suspect when they choose not (or are forced not) to travel in a two-ton death machine, when they live in a walker/biker/human-unfriendly place. And in another news story, which did not mention Nelson's race, a commenter came right out and said a woman with children who doesn't own a car is a child abuser. Awesomesauce, right? To top it off, Nelson's jury wasn't comprised of her peers, not just because all six (and since when does a jury only have six people on it?) jurors were middle-class whites, but because they were all drivers. God forbid, if I am ever in a serious accident, I for damn sure don't want people who have never walked or cycled anywhere to be on my jury, no matter their race or class. (Actually, I don't want people who have never walked, cycled, or taken public transportation in their lives to even exist but we're talking about possible hypotheticals here.)

Being a pedestrian in a walker-unfriendly city is not a crime. Raquel Nelson is guilty of crossing a road illegally, but nothing else. The drunk driver who killed her kid bears the greatest responsibility (natch), but so does the city of Atlanta for allowing this situation to happen via some seriously shit-ass urban planning and bus routing. I think it's about time for people who take "alternative" transportation to start organizing around these issues, and for cyclists to care more about pedestrian issues, and vice versa. Walkers, cyclists, bus-riders... we all have more in common than we think we do, and the Nelson case sets a dangerous precedent for all parents who can't or don't have a car to be charged with murder (like, really, my mind's still trying to wrap around that one) for just attempting to get their kids safely home.

Soapbox dismounted!

Why I Am Not An Athlete

I recently picked up a book that I bought many moons ago at a closing Borders entitled The Non-Cyclist's Guide to the Century and Other Road Races by Dawn Dais. In retrospect, I should have known that it wasn't going to be a book written for me due to the presence of the word "race" in the title, but the cover had a cute ladies' bike and it was only like eight bucks, so why not. In the process of flipping through it to discover whether I was going to read it cover to cover, it brought up a lot of feelings I have regarding cycling for sport; namely, why I don't do it.

I have nothing against people treating cycling as a sport per se. And in some respects, I treat it as one too: probably around half of my riding isn't strictly necessary, i.e. not a grocery run or a doctor's appointment or meetings with friends. Sometimes I travel to a further place instead of a closer one, sometimes I go out without any destination in mind at all. And yes, cycling is great exercise: pound for pound it's not as effective as running or swimming, but in my opinion it's way more fun than either of those things. Also, I have this weird mental block surrounding exercise where I don't want to do something unless it's in some way "practical," even if this practicality is a stretch. I can't exactly run to work or to a fancy dinner party, can I? I can't swim to Target! Yet I will happily bike six miles to a distant coffee shop instead of walking less than a mile to the closest one, because that's "practical." I am probably insane.

So, anyway, problems with athletic cycling--GO! First, there is the equipment. Some of the things Dais recommends as a "probably should have" are: cycling shorts (which can easily cost over $75 for one pair), special shoes, special gloves, and a whole lot of other stuff that seems to be obscenely overpriced. And, of course, a racing bike, some of which can easily cost a grand and up. Talk about your barriers to entry! Then there are the century races themselves, which usually cost money to enter, and are often held (at least, most races here in MD... not that I'm ready for a century but I've looked for others) at places I can't bike to, which is a no-go for me due to the irrational hang-up discussed in the last paragraph.

Another beef I have is that many (again I'm generalizing based on what I've read online and seen in person) athletes are terrified of riding with traffic. Simply terrified! And while I don't want to discount someone's fears, because lord knows I have my own, this is an attitude that I don't understand, especially when the athlete is also a driver. It's the same road, the same rules, except you're going much, much faster. If anything, driving should be the terrifying activity, and that's certainly how it feels for me. But take someone out of their giant tank, and they turn into a wuss. Just like a gun owner, the "weekend warrior" feels helpless without their weapon. And as someone who is endangered (both as a pedestrian and a cyclist) by cars, it is hard not to feel perturbed by this "roads are dangerous!" nonsense. Yes, they're dangerous--because of you!

Probably my main objection to sport cycling, though, is because these athletes by and large aren't doing anything to increase the accessibility of roads for those of us who use our bikes for transportation as well as to "feel the burn." In fact, some of them lobby against riding for transportation. How many times have you been flipped off or called a jackass by someone with bikes (usually much fancier and more expensive than your own bike) strapped to the back of their SUV? When I think "athlete cyclist," I think of folks like that, folks that will drive five miles to get to a nice safe path and think transportation riders are losers. This is probably definitely not a fair assumption to make, but it's the one I make.

In the end, I guess it's dumb to have an anti-sport cycling bias, as dumb as a driver in a Ford Focus hating someone in a Formula One racer for not caring about their needs. We are doing completely different things, the athletes and myself. But biking is marginalized in a way that driving will never be in America, so it's hard to not see athletic cyclists who drive short distances as part of the problem. Truthfully, I get angrier at them than at your average driver, because they have both the physical strength and the equipment to ride a bike for transportation and they... don't. So close, and yet so far.

What I've Been Doing

So, I've been pretty busy for someone without any real responsibilities, so here's a list of some of the shit I've been up to.

• We are moving into Baltimore City! Not only that, it's to the best apartment in the world! This apartment is really huge, at least 1.5 times bigger than everything else we saw. The living room is painted the exact same color of mint green that I would have painted it, if I'd chosen the colors of my walls. The dining room is bright blue, and the bedroom is reddish fuchsia! The kitchen is a yellow which I can only describe as "kitcheny," which is apropos. There is a dogwood tree in the backyard (yes! in the city!) and a small plot of land which I might use for a garden. There are tomato cages which I'd like to use because tomatoes are one of the few vegetables I actually like and the only one that would grow well in a backyard garden. There is a basement where I can park my bike and where we can store excess books. We are almost certainly inheriting a fourth cat from our landlord for convoluted reasons to be explained later.

Needless to say, I am stoked. The last year has taught me a very valuable lesson: don't live in the suburbs. As a non-driver (and one who is increasingly uninterested in getting her license), I can't handle it: the monotony of only being able to shop at chain stores and eat at chain restaurants, the utter meanness of townies who assume you're a student, the impossibility of getting a job because interviewers assume you're unreliable simply because you don't drive. (I've never had to call into work because I had to take my legs into the shop. Just sayin'.) When we moved to Towson, we thought it would be a lot like State College, PA, which is also a college town of approximately 50,000 people. Except that it's a lot easier to get to a big city from Towson vs. State College. But State College is very walkable/bikeable, and to some extent so are smaller PA college towns like Indiana or, hell, even California (which is where I went to college), and I don't think I would have had a lot of problems making friends or getting a job there. Towson is more like Monroeville, except with two colleges lodged in its bowels like nuclear bombs in a mixed-metaphor word salad. Also that reference will not make sense to you if you're not from Pennsylvania. Sorry about that.

• Working on short stories! I have two in the pipeline right now: one about evil cars, the other a Machine of Death story. I had been working on a novel in progress, but sort of abandoned it when my computer crashed and I lost the last five pages of writing. Maybe that doesn't sound too tragic, but it was only eleven pages overall. Perhaps it's for the best, I don't really have the attention span for novels. I've said it before: if I only ever write one novel in my life, that is totally fine with me.

• One of our cats was turned into a lamp by an evil sorcerer:

Rob wouldn't let me put the sweater on her. "It's too hot, she'll roast."
So you can blame him for this picture not being as awesome as it
might have been. It would have been on for ONE MINUTE
and cats are hardy little critters. Simply elucidatin'.

• Selling shit on Amazon. Now, it will be no surprise to people who have been to our house that we own A LOT OF BOOKS. (Although not an alot made out of books.) But we've been practicing Discardia, which means getting rid of many hundreds of our books. In the past, we'd always take the books to a used bookstore, which would maybe give us thirty bucks for four bags of books, if we were lucky. But then I had a brainstorm: why not Amazon? I've bought things off Amazon Marketplace in the past, because used CDs are usually much cheaper than new or digital download. Probably because hardly anyone keeps CDs anymore (although I do!). And yes, putting up hundreds of superfluous books is sometimes tedious, and sending them out is definitely tedious, but I've made several hundred dollars on there already, including over a hundred bucks for an out-of-print expansion board for Arkham Horror, the game of mind-numbingly banal Lovecraftian terror. While I don't want to bad-mouth my "customers," it constantly shocks me what people will buy, and for what prices. Granted, I am not into the mangas that the kids are reading right now, but $40 for a comic book? However, as this is the closest thing I have to a paying job right now, I am going to continue doing it until all the books are sold, or I get a real job doing something exactly as tedious for slightly more money.

(Aside: before beginning my extended period of unemployment, I don't think I realized how utterly useless I'd feel. I am someone who crashes and burns without a schedule, and while I do try to write lists to structure my days, it's easier to follow a schedule when it's imposed from without by someone who's paying you. I feel guilty for doing things that I don't consider my "job," i.e. putting items up on Amazon, going shopping for basic necessities, cleaning the house like a motherfuckin' adult. I don't consider writing my job even though I've been paid for it. It's hard for me to talk about this because it's such a first world problem; we can get along fine on Rob's income and I don't NEED to work. But I've realized that I WANT to, especially if I can get back into the only jobby thing I've ever been good at, medical research. Hello, Johns Hopkins University, soon to be within my reach/clutches.)

• Riding my bike, natch. As cycling has turned out to be the loose focus of this blog, I feel obligated to mention that, yeah, still at it. Last night I abandoned my old, broken BSO in my front yard for the first taker, because even though I did have plans to fix it up and teach Rob to ride on it, we all know I wasn't going to do that before moving and it would have just become more moving clutter. Also, it would have been way too small for him, and also a girl's bike. I feel guilty about this, even though I know that's dumb. I'll probably feel better when I see a lady riding around on my old bike, all fixed up shiny and newish. But right now I feel like a consumerist jerk.

In praise of "bike-shaped objects"

(Note to people who don't care about bikes: I will be writing a non-bike post soon. Maybe. The downside of having a potpourri blog like this is that sometimes I will get really obsessed with a single topic and talk about it to the exclusion of anything else. For weeks. But hey, it's not like you're paying for this thing and I only get like fifty hits a week, so, neener.)

Over on Lovely Bicycle, there is a post entitled A Handful of Rust: Bicycles as Waste that's engendered some pretty interesting discussions. I can agree with the gist of it: that ideally, every bicycle (or object in general) would be built to last, and we would place a higher priority on fixing the objects we own instead of buying new things. It is true, we should do these things. However, I think there is a tiny bit of elitism in the sentiment that "more expensive/handmade/vintage is better," plus the idea that anyone can afford a "good" (i.e. more expensive/handmade/vintage) bicycle if they're willing to save or hunt for it. No, not everyone can afford it, and no, they're not always better. Somebody below the poverty line, who bikes not because they want to but because they can't afford a car or can't get a license due to their legal status, isn't going to have an easy time pulling together even $300 for a low-end "real" bike. For them, a bicycle is not intended to be a thing of beauty, it's a form of transportation plain and simple, and I'd be a real jerk if I told someone who might be supporting a family on a few hundred dollars a month that they're doing it wrong by buying a cheap Walmart bike and replacing it every few years. Of course, not all people who buy the cheapest bikes are poor illegal immigrants... but at least SOME of them are, and they're the ones least likely to be able to change their ways. Any blanket condemnation of cheap-ass unrepairable bikes has to include at least a small caveat for those people who use these bikes not out of ignorance or wastefulness, but because it's the only option.

I also don't believe that there is a direct 1:1 relationship between the price of a bicycle and its quality. Granted, I haven't had much experience with different makes and models of bikes, but I DO ride a lower-end (though not department store level) comfort hybrid, and I've noticed that comfort bikes in general tend to get the short end of the stick in bike-blog-land. To which I wonder: why? Yes, a bike like mine won't get you speed, it won't go on the roughest trails, it is not as aesthetically pleasing as a Dutch bike. But as a general, all-purpose bike? It's great! I can take it a mile to the store, load it up with 20 lbs worth of stuff, and bring it home, and then ride some twenty miles on paved roads at a national park. It's slower than most of the other bikes at the park, sure, but it'll get me up all but the steepest hills, and that's more a fault of my still underdeveloped leg muscles than the bike. I've read some reviews (again, mostly from people whose tastes run to fancier road bikes) that these bikes cause back pain if ridden for a long period of time, but I've not had that happen yet, cross fingers. Some bike blogs, including Lovely Bicycle, say that it's better to get multiple bikes for multiple uses, and to that I agree... again in theory. But in reality, I don't have the space for a half-dozen bikes or more. I could say I wish I did, but I don't: me and Rob have been on a big decluttering kick lately in preparation of moving into a smaller place, and having multiple bicycles, however awesome and specialized, would interfere with this new less-stuff philosophy. So a bike that can "do it all, kinda" is the best option I have, and so far it's been a great bike. Although maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones for whom a comfort hybrid fits like a glove.

Department store bikes also serve an important purpose by allowing people who might be a little rusty on their biking skills (many adult bikers, myself included, had not ridden since childhood before taking it up again) to not make a huge initial investment in what might turn out to be an expensive piece of modern art, if they can't remember how to ride or dislike it for whatever reason. Of course, a bikeshare or rental program would serve this purpose just as well, or better. I would have only needed to use a bikeshare bike a couple of times before realizing, yeah, I like this, and spending the money on my Raleigh without buying a $70 BSO from Amazon first. The fact is, most people won't invest a lot of money in something they're not sure they're going to like, so a $100 crap bike isn't a lot to spend in order to realize that you enjoy biking and want to get a better bike in order to fully enjoy it.

Of course, there's labor concerns involved with these department store bikes, most of them being built in China with semi-slave labor. Then again many Dutch bikes are built in Eastern Europe with semi-slave labor that is only marginally less exploitative than the Chinese factories. My Raleigh was built in Vietnam and I'm almost certain it was built by slaves. See also: most cars. Unless you get your bike from a local builder--and I may do that for my next bike in five or ten years--you're almost certainly going to get something made by people working in substandard conditions. Keep in mind that a bike made with exploited labor is still better in a human rights sense than a car made with exploited labor, as that car also requires daily infusions of fuel, the extraction of which exploits additional thousands of people. Everything in life is a compromise.

Maybe "timeless" vintage bikes have a better chance of not winding up in the dump than blue-light specials, but maybe not. Some people on the thread mention that they have department store bikes that have lasted for years and been passed down. And some of the vintage bike-buying bloggers seem to get a new bike every year, which doesn't seem to me to be any less wasteful than the recurrent Walmart bike buyers, except that they'd probably donate or sell their old bikes instead of junking them. But when it comes down to it, consumerism is consumerism, and everyone is guilty of it, whether they're spending $200 on a new department store bike every few years or constantly upgrading a vintage bike to make it "perfect." How many replacement parts are made with slave labor, anyway?

My opinion? Find one or two bikes you like, pay what you're comfortable with, and run them into the ground. You're still supporting a lot of unseemly things, but not as much as if you were to keep replacing and upgrading, whether it's to a Walmart bike or a vintage bike. And remember that no amount of "bike waste" comes even remotely close to the environmental and social damage wrought by the car. This doesn't give one a pass to be needlessly wasteful, but it's an important bit of perspective.

The Car That Farts Rainbows

An editorial in last week's Baltimore Sun got me to thinking. The story, for those not clicking: When aggressive government subsidies allowed Swedes to easily purchase electric hybrid cars, use of the cheap-to-run cars, and concurrent pollution, went up. The hypothesis is that if cars are cheaper to run, people (being morons) will take that as a green light to use them more. In fact, considering how normally environmentally conscious Swedes are, we could expect an even greater overuse in electric cars in America. If we overuse cars now when it's expensive, just you wait, rest of the world! We'll drive from here to the next block, just because we CAN. (Oh, shit, we already do that? Nevermind.)

This article made me wonder about whether I'd be so anti-car if fully electric cars became mainstream, and really did cost some ridiculously small amount of money per day to run, and didn't kill the environment. Say that they actually, in some science fiction twist, helped the environment. How much of my hatred of cars is due to the environment, and how much is due to the fact that I hate and suck at driving? The answer: it's almost all because I hate and suck at driving. If there were an electric car that was somehow better for the environment than my bicycle, thereby making me the awful polluter, I would continue to rail against cars and sprawl. My reasons for being an anti-car/pro-walking/biking advocate are not altruistic, but selfish. Ayn Rand did teach me something, after all!

Oh, there's other reasons to hate cars besides the damage they do to the environment. Truth be told, even before having this epiphany last night, the environment wasn't even in the top five list of why I hate cars. (Want the top five? Driving's boring, They're expensive, They're dangerous, Sprawl Sprawl Sprawl, Biking/walking helps me think in ways driving doesn't.) Maybe we'll render the Earth uninhabitable by 2100 through our own actions, but I'm not going to live that long! But meanwhile, I DO have to live in a world where you can't (in most places) get a job without a car, where walking or biking to the nearest grocery store can be a minefield, where your choice of transportation (and once I do get a license, not driving WILL be a choice for me) informs your life decisions instead of merely being the way you get from Point A to Point B.

The fact is, the way we live now--especially in the suburbs--is not healthy and it's not because of smog or obesity. It's because when you remove the place you work from the place you live and the place you play, it creates a fractured kind of existence. Hell, we even have a separate place to get exercise, instead of getting it just from our daily interactions with society. I'm not a spiritual person, but I'll be damned if this fracturing isn't at the root of a lot of what's wrong with the world and with our selves. And that's my high-horse bicycle advocacy moment for the day.

Stumbling Into Baltimore

Yesterday, with Rob away at Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con I decided to haul ass to Starbucks and force myself to either finish the first edit on one of my short stories, or the first draft of another, so that I can finally have something for writing group this following week. But when I got to the Starbucks, I just didn't feel like getting off my bike. So, I didn't. Instead I went "exploring," which as previously noted is not usually a good idea for me. But this time, it paid off, as I found a safe route (as in, no highways) into Baltimore and was able to do some city riding for the first time ever.

And it is so much better, you guys. I didn't get sworn at, cut off, sideswiped, or told to get on the sidewalk once. It was almost surreal, how much better it is to bike in Baltimore City vs. BalCo/Towson. I rode on bike lanes for the first time. Saying it that way makes me sound like a hick, which, maybe I am. But I'm also a badass for daring to ride in the suburbs, so it evens out. You city riders have it so easy. And what's interesting is, Baltimore isn't considered a bike friendly city by most. I don't know where it falls in the rankings, but it's never spoken of in the same breathless tones as PDX or Boston or Minneapolis. Yet, I don't know what a city could possibly do to be better. Like, if this is just a "normal" or even "bike unfriendly" city, what the hell are they doing in Portland that's so great? (Then again, maybe I was just there at a really good time. It was Saturday afternoon after all, not rush hour.)

I'm growing to realize that one of the reasons I hate Baltimore County so very much is that, unless you have a car, there is no possible way to explore. There are parts of the county that are beautiful and would be biker/walker friendly, but they are separated by many miles of interstate highway. Yes, this is true for most places, including my old home of Pittsburgh. Once you get out of the city, if you don't have a car, forget it. But I haven't lived in a place like this since 2005, and I forgot how depressing it is, how constrained it makes me feel to only be able to visit the same half-dozen places over and over again (and yeah, I usually wind up only having a half-dozen "haunts" but at least I get to pick them!). I don't ever want to feel this way again. And in two months, I won't have to, because we're moving!

I forgot to take pictures, but I will rectify that on my next trip in (and there will be a next trip in, oh yes).

The moral of today's story is: I will do anything to avoid writing. Or maybe oh my god, is it August yet?!

Sick and Tired, or, I Tried for a Half Hour to Think of a Better Title for this Post

Amputee bike isn't going anywhere.

Two months ago, my front tire sustained a glass puncture that never quite healed despite patching. Although I probably could have tried harder to patch it, I instead decided to take advantage of a sale at REI to get tires that might work better for street riding. My bike originally came with "Kenda" mountain bike tires, which worked okay for my purposes, but were not road tires and were clearly not puncture proof, as that is the weakness that led to the problem in the first place. I almost chose perfectly smooth city tires, but Rob pointed out that they would be useless on trail riding, and although I don't do any trail riding right now it's something I want to do eventually. (And I don't have space for a dedicated mountain bike.) So I instead selected a pair of Continental TravelContact tires, which normally retail for an out-of-my-price-range $45 each, but I got them for a sweet $30 apiece. Sales are awesome. I also picked up a portable CO2 tire pump for commuting (when I have a job to commute to) and tire levers to assist with the switch.

Tire comparison: Continental TravelContact vs. "Kenda."

The Continental tires, like my bike, are a hybrid: slick in the middle, and knobby around the edges. According to the REI sales dude, they'll be great on the road and okay on rougher terrain. The reviews online say they are good for crappy roads, and there's no shortage of those here! (Although, to be fair, PA's roads are WAY worse than MD's. I didn't ever even ride my bike in Pittsburgh because the roads were so potholed and steep. I think I would do it now, though, if I were transported back to Pittsburgh.)

One thing that can make me feel a little superior as a suburban cyclist is that there really is no question of having to perform my own repairs. I don't have an LBS, I don't know anyone around here who repairs bikes, and most importantly I don't drive (and have a hyper-independent streak that makes it hard for me to ask Rob for rides), so if something goes wrong or I want an upgrade, it's all up to me. And honestly, changing tires and tubes isn't hard at all! There's no reason why someone would have to go to a bike store to get this done. I don't think I even really needed the tire levers, although I guess they're a good thing to have (and were only like three bucks). I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to make all the upgrades on my bike and install all the accessories (front basket, rear rack) myself, since from some of the reports I've read online (I didn't read up on these tires until after I'd bought and installed them), some people find tire replacement way beyond their talents. This is the kind of self-sufficiency you develop when you don't have a choice otherwise.

All ready to go!

So far, I haven't really noticed a difference in the Continental tires vs. the Kenda, aside from possibly being faster on inclines, although since I don't have a bike computer (I had one on my old department store bike, but never switched it over and now it's been rained on a lot... remember when I said I don't take care of my stuff too well?), I can't know for sure. I don't ride for speed, although if they can gain me even a few extra MPH (thus increasing my safety among cars), then they're worth the cost. I was able to keep up with some spandex-clad roadies that I shadowed for around a mile on Sunday; I don't know if I would have been able to do that on the mountain bike tires. I also expect that they'll settle a bit as I use them more. I usually have to transfer to sidewalk at least once every ride because I can't go fast enough to feel safe among cars, but today I was able to do road-only riding including several stretches of 35 MPH road. So, even though I don't really feel a difference, there likely is one.

Free Money Party!

First, a blog recommendation: Brown Girl in the Lane. I love this blog! Firstly, it's written by someone who like me doesn't ride a fancy road or Dutch bike. Nothing against those bikes but I'm doing just fine with my comfort hybrid right now, and while I do appreciate beautiful bikes, I don't have it in me to be a connoisseur. (I don't take care of my stuff well enough!) Second of all, San Diego's (lack of) urban design is roughly approximate to Baltimore County's mess of strip malls, nice residential neighborhoods separated by impassable gaps of 55 MPH highway, and malls with room for eight hundred cars and zero bike racks. It's a refreshing change from reading blogs from women (for whatever reason, almost every bikey blog I follow is written by a woman) in PDX or Boston or other super-friendly places. Not that I wouldn't prefer to live in those places myself! But most people don't, and if bicycle advocacy is ever going to get beyond the big hipster cities, people from other places (including the suburbs and rural areas) need to start talking too. Any recommendations for bikey blogs from non-city dwellers/non-bicycle meccas?

Now that our move into Baltimore City is not just a possibility but a definitive (I have no idea if I'm using that word correctly), I've lost most of my desire to get a driver's license. Oh, I'm still going to get it; I've already paid $350 for useless mandatory driver's ed classes from a total asswipe and that's not chump change. But all of the necessity is gone. Hopefully, I will get a job in the city (JHU is my main target) and be able to bike or walk both there and also to any social events I may want to attend. I never, as in do not ever, want to get a second car. Having one is bad enough. I guess having a license will be helpful on the remote chance that I am invited to a free money party in, oh, let's say Delaware and Rob is too zonked on cheap Sudafed to drive me there. But what's the chances of that happening in Delaware? Less likely than in some other places, I reckon, and probably not likely to happen at all.

More importantly, I never, as in do not ever, want to live outside of a city again. If I have learned nothing else from the past year of living in the suburbs (and I haven't!), it's that I can't deal with suburban living. It isn't just hipster dislike of big-box stores and nicely manicured lawns. It's that everything--everything--is built around the car. Distances that are normally nothing for me to walk or bike suddenly become impossible gaps. And the most depressing thing is that apparently nobody has a problem with this. Everyone accepts it as normal that you drive two miles to get to Target, and then drive four miles to get to a gym or bike trail to get exercise. Even before I moved to Pittsburgh, I never thought this was a healthy way to live, and my opinion really hasn't changed. In fact, I think it's become more extreme. Once I became used to city living in Pittsburgh, where almost everything was a walk or bus ride (even if it was sometimes a long one) away, I can't re-adjust to suburbia. And I think I'm okay with that.

Further Adventures in Transportation Cycling

Last Friday I got a new addition for my bike: a rear rack. I had wanted a bike that came with one pre-installed, but as my bike (a Raleigh Venture 4.0) is pretty much perfect in every other way I didn't stress too much about not having a rack. After all, would I really be using it for shopping that often?

As it turns out, I use my front basket A LOT. I don't (previously can't, hopefully someday will, but for now don't) drive, and carrying items in the front basket is a lot easier than throwing everything on my back. My front basket (a Wald quick-release one) holds a fair amount of stuff, but there are some things that are too unwieldy or surpass its weight limit. Thus, I would need to get a rack.


I rode out to the bike store (Performance Bike) at Perring Plaza in Towson, which was probably a mistake. Once you get outside the few blocks that constitute the "city" of Towson, this area is not at all bike-friendly and that is especially obvious when you're foolhardy enough to attempt to actually explore the area. Most of the sidewalks did not have curb cuts or were inexplicably replaced with gravel, and riding on the road is out of the question, as the speed limit on the main road is 40 (which means 60) and there are tons of huge trucks. There are no back routes. Welcome to suburbia! I wound up walking most of the way, although the sidewalk is scarcely any better for pedestrians and I encountered no other pedestrians. The best part of the trip: no bike rack outside the bike store. Based on the dumbfounded expressions of the dudely workers when I rolled my bike into the store, I wonder if I am the only person who has ever shown up at the bike store on a real bike. Brings to mind the "put a bird on it" Portlandia sketch for some reason.

(The bike store itself was really disappointing. All racing bikes, and mostly men's racing bikes. There was a small accessory section which did have a passable rack, which made the trip worthwhile. But I would not recommend this store unless you are male and also want to be Lance Armstrong. And you should probably drive there.)

The rack (a "Trans-It" model) fits fine, except for a slight slope toward the seat, although as it turns out that slope is helpful in terms of keeping stuff from falling off the back of the bike, as the stuff sort of slides down the rack and wedges against my back. On its inaugural shopping run yesterday, I was able to fit a large bottle of laundry detergent and a 12-pack of toilet paper on there, as well as a full basket in the front and a loaf of bread hanging off the handlebar (and more stuff in my messenger bag). Hardcore! I doubt I'll load it up as full again, at least as long as we're living in the suburbs (hopefully only for another 2.75 months), since I did get honked/yelled at a couple of times and I think I need to work out a better system of ties, although I didn't have to stop to readjust at any point. And I still want to find some panniers, since I think I'll enjoy shopping a lot more with them vs. tying everything to the rear rack with a bungee cord. But on the whole, Operation Ridiculous Bicycle Load went off without a hitch.

The bigger question is WHY I do these kinds of things, since we do after all have a car, even if I can't take it out alone. It probably has everything to do with feeling inferior because I don't/can't drive, and having spent all of my life before I moved to Pittsburgh living in areas where that wasn't just a quirk, but a real problem that has cost me jobs and educational opportunities and fun times. One thing that annoys me about the "car-free blogosphere" (and yes, there is such a thing) is that it's so often framed as a choice, which for the vast majority of car-free people, IT IS. And I'm glad that people make that choice! Driving is sort of awful and so is the expense of keeping up a car, and if everyone who could drive did so all the time at the expense of other forms of transportation, the roads would be even less safe for pedestrians and cyclists, and there would be no public transportation anywhere (as opposed to just most areas). But a driver who doesn't have a car can always choose to get one. They don't have (emphasis is important) to turn down a job just because of transportation issues (something I have had to do many times), or factor transportation into their decision of where to live. And yes, not everyone who can physically drive a car can afford one; I won't be able to afford my own car (if I even wanted one) once I potentially get my license in October. At which point I will become one of those whiny car-free-by-choice people I'm complaining about. Oh well! My point is, the option is still there in a way it's not for people who cannot drive.

So, in a roundabout way, I guess that's why I choose to make grocery runs by bike even though we could do it so much easier by car. It's a way of proving myself, showing that I can do useful things even though I don't have a driver's license and all the lack of self-worth that comes with that. It's something I can do without anyone's assistance, and is therefore important to me as a person who is hyper-independent to the point of dysfunction. Besides, toilet paper just feels so much softer when you bring it home on the back of your bike.

Adorabletown, USA

I've been getting some Bulgarian spam on this blog lately, which probably means that it's time for an update, lest my fallow blog serve as a fertile crossroads for Balkan insurrectionists, counter-insurrectionists, counter-counter-insurrectionists, and people selling discount Tramadol at low low prices (protip: it's really Tums).

The week before last, Rob and I went to Virginia for our second anniversary. We started by going to some Civil War sites around Richmond, and then Richmond itself. As previously stated, Richmond is one of my favorite cities, but as I have already spoken of my love for it I don't need to talk about it again. AND THEN we drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway, which I had never been to. And it is fucking gorgeous.

Look at this fucking mountain.

I drove most of the way, and even though I hate driving, it was a good experience to have. Along the way, we passed a group of like thirty people on mountain bikes, which gave me the idea to bike on the Blue Ridge Parkway myself someday, although I probably won't be able to do it on a fifty-pound Raleigh comfort bike. But even through the windshield of a car, the majesty of the Blue Ridge shines through. It was like spending three or four hours in a postcard. And everyone we talked to along the way was really, really fucking nice, the kind of nice where you don't know if they are actually sincere. But they are. They do the same Pittsburgh "make a little bit of eye contact, wave and smile" thing that I've had to train myself out of doing here, because on the coasts eye contact is considered a threat resolvable only by mashing one's forehead into the aggressor, antelope-style. I don't think I realized how much a very slight amount of eye contact with strangers meant to me until I was back in the Appalachian corridor.

AND THEN we visited Roanoke, which is the most adorable city I have ever been to. Among the cute things we saw there:

One of Roanoke's many, many adorable storefronts.

• Tons and tons of old-timey advertisements, including an original Muffler Man, these giant coffee and Dr. Pepper ads on the top of buildings, and "gas" lamps lining the main downtown streets. Oh, and their buses look like old trolley cars. Even the chain restaurants and stores in town (and there aren't many, I only saw a defunct Subway) are made to look old-fashioned. And all these old-fashioned buildings are still functional. It's like stepping into a time machine, except the people aren't horrible, like real old-timey people are.

The only thing that would
make this better is a
squirrel in the saddle.

• Everything is themed around trains because Roanoke used to be an important railroading hub and even though it's not as important now we still saw at least 37 trains come through while we were there. Okay, more like five. But, still, more than you expect to see on a daily basis. Rob is a big railroad geek and even though I'm not as super into it I still thought all the train stuff was awesome. The trainy highlight was a visit to the Virginia Museum of Transportation, which houses over sixty old train engines, a few dozen cars, and three bikes!

• Bike riding is a thing there, which is surprising as Roanoke isn't that much bigger than Towson, but it's way less suburbanized and sprawley. There is even a Roanoke pedicab service. I saw over a dozen people on bikes while I was there, and since we were only in the town itself for like three hours... that is a lot. And even the bike-related stuff is cute; see the bike rack at right.

Roanoke is the kind of place I could see feeling comfortable in for a long time, and while I'm not about to up and move there (I can't imagine their employment situation is great), I felt instantly comfortable there, which is a lot more than I can say for Baltimore. It's no secret that I haven't been very happy here. Although, things might be changing for the better now that we're maybe definitely probably likely possibly moving to Hampden in August. I came to this we have to move NOW realization after my relaxing ride on Easter Monday afternoon turned into a near-disaster when a fratboy (who are to Towson as trains are to Roanoke -- huge, loud, and ubiquitous) reached out of his passenger-side window and grabbed my handlebars while his crony slammed on the horn. Even if it weren't for the hostility toward bikes, there would still be the un-walkability, the crush of chains (hey, I like Target as much as any Walmart-hating hypocrite, but not when it's the only place I can shop), the townies who don't like me* because they think I'm a student, the students I don't have anything in common with because I'm not one... the list goes on. I realize that I haven't really given Baltimore a chance because I don't LIVE in Baltimore. It's like living in Monroeville and hating on Pittsburgh; yeah, maybe you have a taste of what the city is like, but you don't really know, man. I doubt Baltimore will be our forever home, but maybe it can be more than our two-year home. And at least we'll have given it a fair shot.


* An example: I was riding in Rodgers Forge and this tiny shriveled-up white lady in a nightgown cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled "you don't live here!" It was actually kind of cute, but not as cute as Roanoke.

Don't worry, ma'am, that meth you ordered is right on schedule.