Thursday’s bike ride took me down the hill and up the other side to visit A. and her sweet baby girl for the afternoon. It was such a nice ride on a cool, windless day–and that second part makes a big difference. I was mostly just happy to stretch my legs on a ride that wasn’t taking me to work. And then we had a ridiculously nice day, the kind you can only have when one of your companions reliably giggles and coos every time you fake-sneeze or stick your tongue out at her. For all the ugly in the world, it was good to remember that there’s this other kind of divine goodness, the still-fresh baby; she’s also part of this world. We took her to lunch, to visit Santa, to stretch her legs at the Science Center, and then back to her house. I dragged myself away from her and headed back to the house to get some writing done. I walked part of the way, chatting with E. on the phone–another really good part of the world–before getting back on and pedaling up the hill. I was back in downtown, weaving through pedestrians and police and service vehicles, taking my left at President and Pratt to trail the Circulator up the bike lane. I snapped this picture while waiting for the light at Fayette, cars, trees, a church, and against the church, a line of people who live in this park. And then I was riding up Baltimore’s carceral highway, past the service centers for people without homes or money, past the strip club–a regular reminder for me that some sex work is good for post-game shows and bachelor parties, while other sex work lands you in a cell up the street, and that often depends on who’s doing it for whom–and then past the jails and prisons before climbing up the hill through the latest episode of gentrification on my way to the one I might be starring in, depending on how the next years go. And then I was back at home, watching a video A. sent me of that baby laughing in my arms. That’s where I decided to settle, that place of easy, easy love.