Today’s ride took me down the hill to work, as per usual, and then back up the hill to home. I took this picture of signs outside the University of Maryland parking garage at Eutaw and West Fayette. No Trespassing Violator Prosecuted, but also, bicycle air is in there. I had a couple of thoughts: first, what a great thing to know, that there’s air here, in case I ever need some. Continue reading
Clouds and Blue Skies In Waverly
The sun came out for today’s ride up to Roland Park, and it brought the wind with it. I pedaled up and down the hills– it was the kind of wind that won’t let you coast– and felt the difference sunshine makes. I rode through Waverly’s hot spots of violence, through Oakenshaw and Roland Park’s different shirts of violences, and it felt like I was the only one alive out there. And then I was home in my neighborhood, where I snapped this picture if how pretty it looks when you look up. I went to my neighborhood association meeting a couple nights ago. Three was lots of talk about how to get kids of the street, how up break up the gambling rings on the alleys, how to move the loiterers from the stoops and storefronts. I wondered how everyone decided who belongs outside under this sky. It was a short ride, but I saw so many ways people are living under it. We best figure out how to make some peace with don’t of it.
Rain and Rain and So Much Waiting
Today’s ride was a walk, the long way to the free bus where I waited for 20 minutes for a bus that’s supposed to come every 15 for a 35 minute ride that’s supposed to take 20. I don’t like to start a ride in the rain, though, so that was my choice. And oh my goodness, it doesn’t take much bus riding to become enraged at what passes for public transit in this city. The self righteous rage is a bit of compensation for it, I suppose. At least I don’t have to own a car. Here’s to the sun coming out tomorrow!
Looking Down Eutaw at Mulberry Street
Monday found me back on my bike after a long, restful Thanksgiving break. For four days I didn’t get on my bike or in a car, relying on my feets to move me from my couch to the movies to lunch out and about. It is rare for me to take that many days off the bike, and getting back on was like getting back to myself. I sped down the hill and up the hill, a right and a left and a right and a left, and I was on my way to work again. Continue reading
Join the Conversation Sign in Front of the Lee-Jackson Monument at Wyman Park and Art Museum Drives
Thursday’s ride took me through the thick air of our humid heat wave to Hampden to meet L. for lunch. We know each other on the internet, and we’ve got a lot in common, it seems, so we decided to finally go offline and actually prove that we are bodies in real life. Turns out we are, and we both like to eat at Golden West, which we did before splitting ways, him to his writing hovel and me to a bar to do some grading and sip on some pumpkin pie flavored sangria–grading makes a girl do outrageous things. Continue reading
Vacant Homes at Lanvale & N. Patterson Park
It was another spring-like fall day in Baltimore on Tuesday, and I had a few spare hours in the afternoon for a bike ride. I left the house with vague plans for ice cream, but I took a left instead of a right at the intersection of the grocery store and hardware store, and ended up heading south and east on streets I’m not used to–the very best. Continue reading
Advertising on S. Fremont & Vine
Thursday’s ride took me all over town, up to the Arcadia neighborhood in the other side of Lake Montebello to talk about what the city might look like of we prioritized the quality of the soil and worked out way up from there and then down to Southwest Baltimore for a ride around that neighborhood and a reminder of the power of MLK Avenue to slice a city in two, and then up to Charles Village for coffee with a filmmaker and a chat about what, if anything, has changed since theorist. My answer: I don’t know. It was the perfect day for a ride, all sunshine and blue skies, and I was grateful to have so many places to be and a bike to ride to get between them. West Baltimore was so unlike the other places I rode to and through on this day– so many vacant properties, so few throughways to the city on the other side of the street, so many different scars from urban renewal and subsequent attempts to renew again. I snapped this picture of advertising on the side of one of the many crumbling buildings over here. Steve Jobs changed everything, I think that movie argues. Lots of things changed everything, I thought, depending on who and where you are and what you’re looking at. What do people see when they see this place, and what change it’s visible to whom? I capped off the day with a drink before riding back home, best Thursday in awhile.
View of the Potomac Near the Catoctin Aqueduct
I’ve been doing plenty of around-town riding lately–to work and back, errands, doctor’s appointments–but last weekend I got to put my bike on the back of R.’s truck, all cozied up to her Surly Long Haul Trucker, for a drive out toward Harper’s Ferry and a ride along the C&O Canal. We had a general plan, but then exited early to follow signs to the canal. We weren’t sure we were going the right way, but then we saw the railroad tracks–a sure sign a canal is in the area. Continue reading
Live Here Reduce Your Commute Sign at 20th & Guilford
Wednesday’s ride was back to the ol’ commute, down the hill early, lock up at the racks by the med center, shuttle to campus, a full day of teaching, meetings, and writing and emailing and emailing and omigod so much emailing, and then back on the shuttle, pick up the bike, and ride up the hill to home. It was a long day and my legs felt heavy, so I found myself very much wishing it could be up the hill to work and downhill on the way home. I took the lane, grumped at fellow cyclists who didn’t ding a bell or say “on your left” as they passed or even return my how you doin’ (why are so many cyclists so unfriendly? isn’t part of the point of being on a bike is you aren’t trapped in a metal box and so can say hi to everybody?), and eventually got to that place where I’m glad I’m riding my bike because look at me, looking at all the things! Continue reading
View From Watersedge Park in Dundalk at Bullneck Road & Dundalk Avenue
Tuesday was one of those perfect early fall days that feels like late summer. I got up early and got my day’s tasks done, hit the gym with my favorite gym buddy, O., joined her for lunch on her sunny back porch, and then it was all me and my bike. I headed south and east and south and east, a quick stop for froyo at a place where I got myself a gift certificate a few months ago–planting a present for future me–and then kept heading south and east, under the freeway, a left and a right and then I was in Dundalk, riding its bike lane which is also a parking lane, but I’ll take what I can get. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 