solar

Finally, some sun. Sunny warm weather makes you forget all your troubles! I'm trying to convince myself to get out for a nice long bike ride. Not being employed (much) means that I don't have to go anywhere most of the time, and that means that I'm getting out of shape (I'm even rounder in the middle than I usually am!). Plus, I need to get used to long rides so that I can keep up with my MassBike buddies when we all go to a bike event in Maine. These guys think nothing of riding centuries (100 miles) in a day. Ug! I've done about 70 miles a couple of times, and that was torture. (And that was when I was 70 pounds lighter!)

Is that a cloud up there? Go away!

Here's a little thought I had recently... You know how Ireland is always thought of as being gorgeous, lush, and green? Sure you do. When you think of Ireland, you think of three things: alcohol, celtic music, and vast stretches of beautiful green land. Want to know how Ireland got to have such lovely green hills? They don't mow!

swing

I've been really up and down lately. Partly it's the post Bike Week/birthday quiet, and partly other stuff. Nothing big, just those little frustrations that add up. Like the fact that I finally got my printer that I've been researching and saving (birthday) money up for. I get it and discover almost immediately that it's not a postscript printer. That means that it takes all the precise mathematically generated line art that I make in Illustrator, and turns it into a muddy blob. It also prints tonal images (aka photos) pretty crappy. What's shocking is that I read all of the reviews and did all the comparison shopping before I settled on the Brother 1440 printer that all the critics were raving about. So, its not my fault that I'm so devastatingly disappointed - I did my homework. So I'm pretty bummed. On top of this, I tried to set up a scanner that had been abandoned at my old job, only to discover that it's motor died just like my other scanner did. (Doesn't anything expensive work well these days?) So, I had to order another one. This will be my third in two years.

On the other hand, I've been hanging out with the roommies lately and that's been quite entertaining. I'm going to miss Arlo when he moves out next month. (Anyone know of a suitably cool roommate to fill his space?) Conversations with Arlo almost always end up involving people like Terrence McKenna, William Borroughs, and completely unheard of insane people he knows in Maine. Add Eric, who isn't afraid to say whatever is on his mind and usually has some pretty wacky stuff on his mind, and Seth, who really likes his liquor and his Star Wars, into the mix and it's an all out funfest. I put up some pictures of one of our household's wacky adventures with a pizza insulation box that a delivery person haplessly abandoned on our porch. Me, Eric, a little tug o' war, and Arlo and Seth partying with the pizza bag.

No SCUL tonight for me (or last week either). I'm too mopey and its too cold. Hopefully next week I'll be feeling up for it. I also really want to finish making my own chopper, prematurely named the SBD Freak Pride. I'm sure I'll feel much more comfortable on a bike my own size and speed. I had an inspiration the other day on how to do the fork, but I need a mountain bike fork for it, and don't have a spare around here (at least not one that isn't permanently bonded to the bike frame by rust...) If I don't find something in the trash soon, I'm going to raid the illegally parked/abandoned bikes in Davis Square that are about to be cut off by the T security. And I, of course, need to find a banana seat.

sewage

So, there were two bike events yesterday that I was able to make it to. They were both very mildmannered. The first was a historical archetecture tour of Somerville. It was actually fairly interesting, and I was surprides to discover that Somerville had a lot of involvement in the American Revolutionary War. It's too bad that we didn't get to go into any of the buildings, or spend more than a few minutes talking about each. It's also too bad that several of the really unique public buildings have been turned into condos. (My old elementary school in nearby Arlington was also afflicted with the dreaded condo disease.) I never understood the condo concept - you payed hundreds of thousands to own the place, but you still have to pay a ton of rent (sure, sign me up!).

Then it was on to a Cambridge event celebrating a new sewage treatment plant and adjacent bike facility (yep, pretty odd). While I was there I got to experience a number of unique things: people getting excited about sewage, modern dance set to the musical stylings of a microphone dropped into ocean waves, a really creepy miniature man/robot on a tricycle which the police were parading around in an attempt to teach bike safety to frightened children, the biggest fucking American flag ever, and a few bike friends who were protesting the event because the bike "path" that was being celebrated was incredibly poorly designed and is guaranteed to cause a number of fatalities along with multitudes of other, less lethal, accidents. If you are ever riding in the Fresh Pond area of Cambridge, MA, avoid the off-street bike "path" (i.e., the funny looking sidewalk) between the rotaries! Believe it or not, the road is 100% safer, even though the car drivers in the area don't seem to grasp the concept of a 30 mph speed limit.

When I got home, I discovered that the universe intended to redeem itself for my lackluster birthday, and, in the form of Seth - the aformentioned Star Wars addicted roommate - offered me a fantastic birthday gift: Douglas Adams' posthumously collected "Salmon of Doubt" book. Yay! (Though I still get teary eyed thinking about the universe's loss of this amazing example of a human being.)

Final note of the day... My last boyfriend finally put a picture of his latest conquest up on his website, and she looks almost exactly like me, 18 years ago!

wet

The last two Bike Weeks have been full of rain. Weird, usually it's nice in the middle of May. Oh, well, the lack of events today will give me a chance to relax for a change. And maybe I'll make myself a belated birthday cake, with frosting this time. Speaking of my birthday, it was kinda sad, only two people wished me a happy birthday. But I did get to hang out with SCUL and Jef for Star Wars, so at least I had a fun evening.

So, my review: I'm not really thinking about it. Not because I don't want to have an opinion (heaven knows I always want to have an opinion!), but because there really wasn't much to think about. There was next to no plot aside from moving the characters randomly around the galaxy in order to set them up for the next fight scene - or, in the case of Amidala and Anakin, of getting them all coupley. So, basically, there was no thinking necessary. It was ok, but I actually like Episode 1 better.

Now, on to more important business: isn't there supposed to be a new Star Trek movie this summer?

33

Happy Birthday to me! I'm 1/20th of the mark of the Devil. That must count for something, right? :-) Seeing Star Wars tonight with SCUL is the best present I can think of. Jef is coming, too. Yay!

This morning, I'm off to hand out baggies of goodies to bike commuters in Somerville. I spent the last two days frantically looking for goodies to put in the bags and came up pretty empty, but we already had some fun things, so it's cool. Happy riding everyone...

Happy Bike Week

Bike Week. Busy. I'll check in when I get a chance to catch my breath. Good stuff, but lots of cold and wet. Oh, and I may get a chance to go to an all expenses paid week long retreat for environmental organizers in Maine. I love being an activist!

And my mouth is finally string-free, thank heavens.

I love having a roommate with a Star Wars addiction

I spent a good 13 hours straight playing a surprisingly well-designed Star Wars strategy-based board game with my roommates today. Yay!

string does not belong in your mouth

Ug. I'm so tired of dealing with my mouth that I don't even feel like writing about it! But I will, for posterity's sake. More bad stuff this week. Turns out that the woman who extracted my tooth fucked me up royally. She broke part of my jaw bone (just a small part) and they had to open me up some more and fix the damage. Even worse, was that when they tried to suture me up, I nearly passed out (something I've never experienced). They had to give me oxygen, and smelling salts. (Ammonia, apparently. Absoutely nasty stuff. I can't imagine that it's healthy for you.) Anyway, I'm finally feeling a bit better today. What really sucks is that I lost a week and a half to this thing. I've been almost completely unproductive, and now I have to catch up with all of my projects. Eh.

On the bright side, bike week is coming up, and that should be a lot of fun. It's one of those times when there is just so much going on that you can't possibly do it all. I think the highlights are going to be the Redbones Valet Bike Parking party on Monday, and the S.C.U.L unofficial mission to see Episode II (that's not really a bike week event, but it does involve bikes...). There's also a bike film festival on Saturday that should be really good, except that it conflicts with S.C.U.L., so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. If you are interested in some good bike events, check out all of the bike week listings at MassBike. Lots of free stuff, and cool people.

ow, continued

Dentistry is a dangerous business. The tooth got pulled, but it was a messy job, and there are still problems, including pointy things. Ow. I've now lost a whole week to this crap. Times like these make me wish for the option of downloading my brain into a robot.

On the slightly productive side, I've managed to get two written peices published in my local "Somerville Journal" newspaper in two weeks. I'm such a media whore, aren't I? :)