Downtown

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Empty Building at Baltimore & Paca Streets

Picture of a four story beige brick building with boarded-up windows on the first floor against a bright blue sky.

The spring semester started this week, and for me, teaching started Tuesday. That means I’m back on my bike commute after six weeks of working from home. It is a huge relief. I love not having to commute into the office, but after a few weeks of that, I miss just being around people. I know many white collar folks who can work from home want to keep doing that, but I like being in person with people, especially with students. And I think there is real value in being together with students in the flesh to talk about ideas.

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Mural and Blighted Building at Monument & Howard

Mural and Blighted Building at Monument & HowardTuesday’s ride downtown to meet the shuttle to work was a chilly one. It was that kind of cold that makes your eyes water and freeze over, the kind that makes the cold of the helmet buckle almost painful against red skin. The good thing about biking, though, is after about ten minutes, you’re all warmed up, and that takes the edge off. It took more like fifteen minutes on this early morning, but it just felt good to be back on the bike and part of the world in that way that is so very specific to being on a bike. Continue reading →

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Boarded Buildings in Old Chinatown at Park & Mulberry

Boarded Buildings at Park & MulberrySunday’s ride took me down the hill to meet N. for some work. We’re co-teaching a class, which I’ve never done before and now want to do all and every time, and we’ve got our students putting together short pieces for the radio. The students are doing all the work–the research, the writing, the interviewing, the recording–and on Sunday our job was to go to the places they’ll be talking about to gather some ambient noise to add to their pieces. I locked my bike up in Mount Vernon and we gathered the recording equipment and headed out on foot. Continue reading →