Today’s bike ride took me to Mid-City for much-needed iced tea with R. before joining A. and M. for margaritas (much-appreciated, in not needed). M. has a blog where she’s taking a picture of herself every day while growing out her hair. Like my sister’s blog, where she’s logged her lunch every single day for three years (and no, I don’t think she’s missed even one day), this one sounds strangely specific, something you wouldn’t check out unless you were her mom. But I love these blogs that track one very specific thing, very closely, taking a moment out of each day to concentrate. Talking with M. reminded me to spend the rest of my ride around town today concentrating in the way my blog let’s me do–outside myself, because you’ve got to look where you’re going. I pedaled lazily around Mid-City seeing what I could see, stopping on S. Lopez and Palmyra to snap a picture of this building that’s being demolished. The back is just missing, cut off, showing its guts. Scenes like this are all over this city–are they all over yours? Is this normal for people who don’t live in New Orleans? I have to remind myself to notice scenes like this–do you? A couple blocks later I was pedaling onto Canal, but I wasn’t sure how I got there, because no matter how much I ride, I settle in to patterns, and on days like this I’m happy to be reminded to take a different turn. I biked over to meet L. for an evening in her studio/workshop in St. Roch where we cleaned and lubed and greased every moving part on my bicycle while talking about why we love our bicycles. Several hours and beers later and I was headed home on a bike that is now completely silent, enabling new and dangerous levels of stealth, to watch S.’s latest movie suggestion. It’s about a guy who loves his city, even though their relationship is troubled. And then he tells everybody about it. Don’t you just love people and the stuff they do, and also the doing of stuff?