Today’s ride took me down the hill and back up another hill to my favorite new strip mall in Locust Point where I locked up to a rack before spending the day getting a massage, going out to lunch, talking to S. on the phone, and eating frozen yogurt as I tried to circle around an argument for this thing I’ve been writing all summer. It’s scary sometimes, the point where you have to stop making Interesting Observations and start making larger sense, and I have to take very good care of myself so I don’t scare myself away from that part of writing. I finally managed to figure some stuff out while waiting for the rain to stop, scribble, scribble, scribble, and then it was time for a celebratory beer, some grousing about the USA men’s basketball team~holding for the last shot of the half when you’re up by 33 is just tacky~and then I pedaled over to A. and J.’s for wine, good food, chatter, and more Olympics action. I stopped to take this picture before I got there, at the end of Webster. You call it Webster Court, but all you’ve got is this half fence to keep a distance between you and freeways and waste treatment plants. And then a groundhog scurried by and I was reminded that a lot of things are willing to make a life right at the edges. I rode home late at night, for me, and realized it has been awhile since a warm night ride alone, which meant the sense memory was all New Orleans. It didn’t make me miss that place, though; it made me happy that I can still access that feeling of being the only person on the streets, flying by with my skirt waving, my own breeze cooling me down. Oh yes, that is a nice way to spend a summer evening.