Wednesday’s ride found me pedaling up Old York Road for a rather roundabout trip to Morgan State. I followed the googleymap directions and was glad I did, because I got to ride through neighborhoods I’m rarely in, having the distinct tendency to go down the hill rather than up the hill, at least to start. It was early, so I dodged the school buses and got to say my how ya doin’s to the many folks walking dogs, walking to work, and walking to school. People were out doing yard work before the midday heat started, and the whole place just felt like a friendly neighborhood where I’d love to have a front porch for tea-sipping and waving. Continue reading
Month: May 2014
Looking Toward 35th & Greenmount From Southway
Tuesday’s ride kept me mostly in the neighborhood, down the hill to meet K. for lunch and a good shared rant session, and then back up the hill to Abell to meet R. for some co-catsitting and a conversation about our Very Big Project that we both needed to break down to be a whole lot smaller so as to avoid that familiar “oh shit, it’s due” feeling. In between there I talked on the phone with J. about renting her house in Waverly starting in August. N. and I need a bigger place, and a friend of a friend heard this house would come open then, and you know how it goes. Our renting her house solves a whole bunch of problems for her and for us, so it looks like we’re moving up the hill come August, and I couldn’t be more excited. Continue reading
Kayak Stacks at the Fells Point Pier
If you know me in real life and have known me for awhile, you know this about me: I have a tendency to get really into things for a really brief time, and then I move on. Some of you have been with me long enough to have seen the break baking phase, the cigar collecting, the online support group dedication (13,000 posts in 100 days of quitting smoking–I was 100% dedicated to quitting smoking), running, drumming, swimming, and the list goes on. Continue reading
Freeman Hrabowski Speaking at UMBC’s Undergraduate Graduation at the Baltimore Arena
Thursday was UMBC’s graduation, and rather than wait in traffic to find a parking spot with increasingly grumpyproud parents, I stuffed my tam in my bag and rode my bike the 20 minutes down the hill, locked up precariously to a fence right outside the side door to the arena because that’s what the security guard told me to do, and headed inside to eat all the buffet lunches with my fellow faculty members. A. brought my sorcerer robes with her on the Circulator, and by the time she figured out how to get into the place, she was one angry pregnant lady with her eye on the food tables–she’s eating for two, so don’t fuck with her. Continue reading
Bike Tangle at 32nd & St. Paul
Tuesday’s ride was a tough one, straight up the hill and then down another and up one more on my way to an appointment in Mount Washington, winner of my Least Bike Accessible Neighborhood in Baltimore award. Then again, I got there, so I guess the least accessible is fairly accessible after all, but don’t forget your water. The ride home’s much easier, once that damn Lake Avenue is climbed. Thank you, gears, and thank you, self, for not being too stubborn to ride slowly enough the get passed by pedestrians. On the way back, the hill levels out right around Boys Latin School, with its sprawling campus and impressive tree canopy and bridge over the street so these high schoolers can make their way around the campus that looks more like a small college than a high school. “Living the Laker Legacy,” their signs say. Continue reading
Safe Pedestrianism PSA Seen From Fallsway & N. High
Monday’s bike ride took me up to Locust Point, and oh, it was lovely after a morning reading for pleasure and doing some light grading. I followed the usual bikeway down the hill and up and around the harbor to Federal Hill and then down Fort Avenue. The ride back was just the same, and I spent some of each ride thinking about cars, as one must do, of course, when trying to share the road with them. There’s so much push back about bikes on the road–cyclists break the rules, they run stop signs and red lights, they refuse to use proper lighting at night to be seen, they ride too fast/too slow/too bicycle-speed to be on the road, they don’t wait their turn, etc. I get that. I see it, and it makes me unsafe too, especially when riders don’t heed my right of way as a fellow cyclist. Ok, true. Continue reading
Greenery at Patterson Park in East Baltimore
Friday morning was so, so much rain, pouring out of the sky, waking up the cats, and actually necessitating the closing of two whole windows in order to keep the bed and the record player dry–we’ve got our priorities in line over here. I had the luxury of hibernating inside, so I did that until the rain stopped, the clouds cleared out, and it was all blue sky and clean air, our city given a good shower to rinse off our pretend summer from the previous week. Yep, time for a bike ride. I started up the hill for a lunch date with myself and then back down, the vague idea that I could maybe get an ice cream cone in Canton and still make it back to Harbor East for Godzilla–these are the hard choices of the first day of summer vacation. And then I remembered I am a member at the Reginald Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture–why not stop on my way and see what’s new? Continue reading
A Ring of Safety Cones at E. Pratt & Gay
School’s basically out for summer, minus a whole lot of grading and the part where I start teaching summer school in less than two weeks, but hey, school’s out for summer! Woot! But first: Wednesday’s meeting. The thing didn’t start til 10, so that meant I had plenty of time to ride my bike down and up the hill to meet A. for a ride out to the suburbs. The ride’s always a bit slower during rush hour even though I’m not a car, probably because I’m one of those (mostly) rule following cyclists who stops at red lights and tends not to snake up the side of cars–pass me once, and you’re done. It was a bit slower, but I also just like feeling myself a part of the traffic flow, and oh, so much better than tin canning it by myself. Continue reading
Looking out the MARC Train Window at 40 & the West Baltimore MARC Station
Sometimes I’m too tired to ride a bike because I’m not sleeping well, but that’s how I get to work, so bike I shall. And then I’m stopped outside the West Baltimore MARC station, staring out the window at cars queuing up for the slow snake back to Baltimore, and I’m relieved I never have to wait in that line, even if that means biking when I’m not in the mood or waiting at bus stops. Anything but a car, I swear.
View From the Harbor Connecter En Route From Canton to Locust Point
Monday’s ride took me over to East Baltimore to meet with the folks at the Creative Alliance to talk about the upcoming LGBT film festival. It was already hot, because that’s what a late summer day fast forwarded to May feels like, but oh, it felt good to be riding through it, especially after a weekend spent entirely in a car. Yeah, I needed to shake that off with a ride. By the time I pulled into the rack at Eastern and S. East I was plenty reminded of the need to bring water at all times when biking in Baltimore. Hills in heat are a different animal from NOLA’s even streets. I remember my cruel introduction to this fact on a long ride up Fulton Avenue on a rented 3-speed a few Julys ago on my first trip to Baltimore. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 