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Commuting Down St. Charles

I’ve been out of town for a few days for a conference, catching up with old friends and new, which means I haven’t been riding my bike. In fact, I was off my bike for four whole days. Four whole days. I can’t remember the last time I went that long without pedaling. I was looking forward to getting home and taking a nice long ride, but the airplane gave me some kind of sick, the kind that makes you feel out of balance and nauseated and weak. Sadly, that’s not the kind of sick I feel like riding through. Today’s ride, then, was confined to the commute, but even that was a relief. My cadence feels like coming home, so I let myself spin along, concentrating on the rhythm, happy to be back in New Orleans.

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Adventurous Asphalt at Robert & Camp

It has been too long since a good old fashioned blog about how hard it is to ride a bicycle in New Orleans. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love riding a bicycle here. I do it almost every day, sixty, seventy, eighty miles a week. I ride for exercise and transportation, for fun and for pleasure. Becoming a daily bike rider has been a life-changing experience, and it all happened here in New Orleans. I wouldn’t want it any other way. But these streets suck. Continue reading →

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Rain on St. Charles

And then some days you are at work for 14 hours, the last two of which are spent discussing the dismal job prospects in your field, and then you get to ride home in a dark and heavy rain, slowly, slowly. Meh, can’t win ’em all.

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Yellow Flowering Tree at Constance & Annunciation

Do you ever have those days where you just feel exhausted in the very marrow of your bones? Today was that kind of day for me. Which meant that as much as I wanted to ride my  bike to the Po Boy Fest or the Congo Square Rhythms Festival or out to Chalmette, I walked to brunch and then straight back home to laze about with my cats and The Grapes of Wrath. I can’t believe they let high school kids read this anti-capitalist, anti-private property, anti-disciplinary state apparatus screed, or that there isn’t a revolution of the working class led by high school juniors every year. Everybody should read this book. Anyway. Continue reading →

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Tulane VS South Alabama Women’s Basketball Game at Fogelman Arena

I teach a lot of student athletes at Tulane–basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, football, I teach them all. Athletes get a bad rap sometimes for blowing off coursework for the culture of the game. Well, all kinds of students manage to blow off coursework, so it hardly seems fair to lay that on the athletes. And in my experience, athletes balance an incredible number of commitments, often impressively. So when the football team invited me to go behind the scenes at a game, I eagerly said yes, because I wanted to show my support for my students, and because who doesn’t want to watch the game from the field! My body was requesting a rest from the bike, so I thought I’d drive, but alas, when you leave your car idle for weeks because you’d rather ride your bike, the battery dies. So I put on the bike shoes, climbed on the Surly, and headed down to the Superdome with N. in tow. Continue reading →

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Sun and Clouds at Bienville & S. Rampart

I spent today reading and writing at home until I heard that tell-tale crash in the other room, the one that says the cats are up to something. It turned out they were teaming up on a lizard, trying to play it to death. After watching the lizard play dead and then try to scramble away, only to be caught up in so many paws, I locked myself in my bedroom and wondered what to do. N. said to just get out of the house–great advice. Continue reading →

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John A. Shaw Elementary School at Music & Law

It has been a long week, so when I was finished with work early, I took the late afternoon to ride my bike around in what continues to be absolutely ridiculously nice weather. I hadn’t ridden the new bike lane on St. Roch Avenue, so I headed there to check out our new bicycle facilities.

I spend very little time in that neighborhood, so I just rode around, checking things out. I turned on Music Street and noticed this school, seemingly abandoned, gutted by fire. I circled around it, waving to the guy standing on the corner, smelling the barbecue wafting on the air, thinking about how this is a neighborhood, but this abandoned school is rotting up the place instead of being alive with kids and playground equipment (there is some–not in usable shape by any means). Continue reading →

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Ramshackle House on Calhoun & Rocheblave

I had one of those days where work just gets the best of you, so when the day was done, I needed to go on a bike ride. I headed toward Broadmoor with no real destination when I stopped to take this picture of a dilapidated house on Calhoun, between Rocheblave and York. It looks like it’s made of weathered old cardboard, lacking the comfortable facade of its neighbor. Just a few blocks on and I was on Versailles, looking at huge and beautiful homes. Continue reading →

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Speaking Out for Education at First Grace United Methodist Church

Today I got to ride my bike in a skirt and a tank top. Thank you, New Orleans, for giving me another day of summer, in November. I pedaled down to the Bywater to meet J. for a meeting to talk about planning a bigger meeting. And then I headed over to Canal and Jeff Davis to First Grace United Methodist Church, for a the event Post-Katrina Education in New Orleans: A Human Rights Violation. There’s a lot of talk about how education in New Orleans has improved since the takeover of schools by the state and their decentralization through charter schools. There has surely been improvement for some kids, but the picture is just more complicated than that. Continue reading →

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Seafood For Sale at Louisiana & Baronne

First, it’s amazing what a day off the bike and a freshly-lubed chain can do for your ride. I was happy to get on the bike and stretch out for a surprisingly mild commute to work, but strangely, I forgot my helmet. My helmet! I know there’s a debate about helmets, but I wear one, and I felt positively naked without it. I didn’t have time to go back home to pick it up, but after almost being cut off by an errant parker on St. Charles, I stopped at home to put it on before my evening ride to the gym. Tonight riding felt like flying, and it was good. Continue reading →