It’s the end of September, but Baltimore feels like early summer. It hit 80 degrees this weekend, and it was nothing but blue skies, perfect for a bike ride. I hadn’t been on the B&A all season and the ladyfriend was up for anything, so we strapped our bikes to her car, stopped at the bike shoppe for a new tire for her (her tube was bubbling right through the old one! gasp!) before lunch, and then we were off. Continue reading
personal
Bike Corral at Lombard & Greene
Classes started last week, just as they have for the past ten years I’ve been teaching. There’s always something different–a new syllabus or classroom, a new office or a new class blog, and always there are new students, familiar but different, and each group has to find its own chemistry. Sometimes, though, a new semester means something earth-shatteringly new that makes everything different. Like this past week, when I got an email the day before the new semester began announcing a free shuttle service between downtown Baltimore and UMBC. Wow. This is a game-changer for so many of us–or at least enough of us to justify the expense and to make them keep the shuttle line. My excitement was not without some reservation. Continue reading
Empty Lot at Guilford & 20 1/2 Street
It has been a long few days of moving–this time not from one part of the country to another, but from one neighborhood to another. We’re surrounded by boxes, but are ensconced in the new digs–a whole entire house, just for us and the cats–with plenty of room to move around. This is the biggest place I’ve lived in since I left Boise in 1993, and the first easy-to-reach table and chair I’ve had the pleasure of breakfasting at since 2006. I’m not the best with change, in spite of having it as a near-constant, but this one’s going to be good, and it’s settling down, slowly and in fits and starts. Continue reading
Youth Curfew Ordinance Protesters at UB School of Law at Charles & Mt. Royal
I’m moving this week, just up the street, but still my anxiety is through the roof–you’d think I hadn’t moved at least every three years of the last twenty. Oh well–I’m doing what I can, and on Tuesday that meant taking the bike out to meet a friend for a walk, riding over the the gym for step aerobics (never changes!), and then riding all over running self-care errands. Yeah, it was slightly better than sitting in the house, waiting for it to pack itself. Oh, I love this town–its trees, its cheap haircutteries, its community acupuncture and friendly eyeglass shop! The ride was an excellent reminder that I may be moving, but I’m not starting over–I get to stay in Baltimore this time! Continue reading
View From a Bridge Over Spa Creek in Annapolis
Last week featured plenty of bicycle riding, and I even managed to get lost in the Pen Lucy and Hillen neighborhoods. I love getting lost, and I love that I seem able to do so no matter how long I ride around a city. You just have to make a different turn and be willing to go up the hill, and I’m easily willing to do those two things. Saturday, though, was all new. My ladyfriend threw her back out almost two months ago, but she’s finally up and moving around again, and we got to break in the double bike rack. Continue reading
The View From Bike Parking on Sisson & 28th
The week rounded out with some easy bike rides, Friday over and down to Canton for a late lunch and grading before settling in for some solid people watching before catching a ride home with N., and the a jaunt up to Hampden on Saturday for acupuncture and fries, a most excellent combination. I made a stop in Remington on my way home to pick up this week’s farm share at Mill Valley General Store. I don’t even remember forking over the cash for this–I signed up months ago–so it feels like Christmas every week, walking in there with my bike bag to pick four of whatever I like from the bins filled, this week, with chard, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, arugula, garlic scapes, snap peas, and the list goes on. I was limited by what I could fit in my bag, so I grabbed a couple of cauliflower, a bunch of arugula, and a cabbage. The bag was overflowing and I was happy and on my way. My only complaint? Get us a bike rack, please! I snapped this picture from my bike, locked to a sign on Sisson, and while I love the view of traffic and blue sky and warehouse, I’d love to be able to park off the main drag. But if that’s my only Saturday complaint, I’d say I’m getting off easy.
The YMCA at 33rd & Ellerslie Against Blue Skies
First, I have to say something about the weather. It is so hot and humid out. This is obvious to anyone in the are, but wow, it makes a difference in how riding feels. I’m sleeping like a rock, like I’ll need a crane to peel me off the bed in the morning, because riding in this humidity sucks the life force from me. I mean, I still love it, but it takes some acclimatizing is all. I got some of that out of the way with my long ride on Tuesday and commuting on Wednesday, but on Thursday the best I could do was the mile to and from the YMCA. N. and I just joined for pool access so N. can use it to heal this back spasm that’s gripped her for the past three weeks, and I’m using it to get back to weight training and maybe a group class or two. Thursday’s was Urban Line Dancing, which as far as I could tell meant Black folks, not white country folks. I rode to the gym, sweaty after just ten minutes, locked up to the rack, took a minute to judge the blue fixie rider for locking their impracticable bike horizontally on the U-rack, and headed in to join the twenty or so other dancers. I was close to the youngest, and the only white person, and it struck me how rarely that ever happens in my life. Our social spaces are so segregated by age and race, generally, that rarely do I find myself in the minority, other than sometimes in the classroom–a privilege, but also a cost of whiteness. It’s only Smalltimore because we live such segregated lives, you know. Everyone was friendly enough, and I gamed my way through the six or so dances (though Bmore Nights is going to take some out-of-class work if I’m going to get it), and had a really good time. The steps were complicated, so all I could do was focus on them, and that was a treat. I said my goodbyes on the way out, happy to have found another place to play, this one in ac. Thanks, this YMCA, for being welcoming to so many kinds of folks. I snapped this picture on my way out. All blue skies, no sign of the humidity.
Playground Equipment and a Closed School in East Baltimore
Oh, I needed to get a little lost on Tuesday, have one of those rides where I’m not just transporting myself but getting myself settled in to the city, a reminder that I live in a place bigger than my *place*. So that’s what I did, snaking south and east and south and east until west again. I had two stops in mind–ice cream at the place where I had a coupon for free ice cream (did you know the first commercial ice creameries that made the treat available for mass consumption opened right here in Baltimore?) And Federal Hill, where I was on tap to hold a still-new baby so her mom could take a shower and shake out her arms. I never got totally lost, but I can’t tell you exactly where this school is, the one with the exterior in scrubbed shades of blue that suggest it’s going to get torn down but with the new playground equipment that says it’s here to stay. It was near Harford Road or Aisquith or one of those diagonal cuts through the city, which I know because I waited at the light with a construction truck driver who had waited for me to pull out into the street. We did the ol’ smile-and-nod and then I was on my way, past a park with a tree halfway fallen over, past rows and rows of vacant homes and stoopsitters and road construction crews and food trucks outside Johns Hopkins. And then I was on Baltimore Street watching the guys fill the pool and admiring the head start these community gardeners had gotten. I rode my circles until I was back on my old route from Canton to Fed Hill and back north to Charles Village, and I only wished I could have stayed lost just a little bit longer, because that’s how I know where I am.
Target America Sign on the Maryland Science Center
Summer is actually, finally, for real here, and that meant a sweaty ride down the hill and up again over to Federal Hill, making sure to take a hit of water at every red light. It’s no joke, riding on hills in this heat, so if you’re out there, do not forget the water. Or the sunscreen. Seriously, people–bring your supplies with you, and get a rack so you don’t have to lug a bag around on your back. Alright, enough preaching. Continue reading
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
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 