Inclusion

In the interests of keeping this post from rambling too horribly, I'm going to try to keep my thoughts in little sections. Let's see if it works...

The Minnesota State Fair:

I got into Minnesota early on in the day, and had plenty of time to wander around confused until I found a hotel willing to provide a shuttle and a somewhat cheap rate. I checked into the hotel, called the information line for the State Fair and found out that I could catch a bus at the Mall of America to the Fair. So I hopped on the hotel's shuttle to the Mall. I made a lame attempt to check out the mall but was instantly bored (even the promising "Legoland" was highly disappointing). So I managed to find the Fair bus and was on my way. Now, I've been to the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts, and that's pretty big, but it's nothing compared to the Minnesota State Fair. The place is gigantic. The size of a small city. It took me 4 hours of walking around before I even found the midway. It's about 70% food, I'd say. With "everything fried or on a stick" as the locals claim. I'd already eaten myself ill when I found the batter fried candy bars that are apparently so popular in England, so I had to pass. But I watched a very reluctant man take a bite, and he to live to tell about it, so I assume it was edible. In the agricultural hall, I encountered a room full of plant "art", including pictures made with seeds and several scarecrows made to look like Jesse Ventura. The governor is not particularly popular with his constituents these days... Other things of note I found at the fair included: a local, but fairly professionally done, version of robot wars; a huge dinosaur sculpture made from various intreguing peices of trash (including some bicycle parts!); more white people than you could imagine; and to top it all off, REO Speedwagon and Styx (Ok, I didn't actually get to see them, but I could hear them outside the stadium).

Thunderhead:

No, not an eighties big hair band, but a bicycle advocate's retreat. Every year representatives from bike coalitions from around half of the United States get together to join forces and share ideas with the goal of making people realize that bicycles are the coolest thing of the roads. Being a relative newby to the profession, I had a lot to learn, and talk to everyone I could about stuff I've been thinking about. The group was mostly all warm fuzzies and fun, though I had no idea how passionate people were about the segregation vs. integration issue of bike facilities (more on that on a later date). But as long as I didn't say the dreaded four letter words "b*ke l*ne", it was all good. I met a ton of great people, including my new buddies Clair from the brand spanking new North Carolina Bicycle Coalition, and Steve from the Sonoma County (CA) transit department and also a board member of the Sonoma Bicycle Coalition. I also got some much needed advice on the public service announcment and the candidate questionnaire projects that I've been working on lately, and I learned all about America Bikes' efforts to reinvigorate the US' trasortation policy through the renewal of the TEA-3 legislation. The idea is to spend a little less of our tax money on encouraging automobiles, and more money for other more effecient forms of transit, such as biking and walking. One of the big pushes these days is for a program called "safe Routes to School" which works directly with communities, schools, kids, and parents to provide safe ways for kids to walk and bike to school like they did in the old days when I wa a kid. (I was shocked to find out that only 2% of all kids walk or bike to school now, as opposed to something like 40% in the 60's. And I know of at least one parent who drives his kid 6 blocks to school, double parks, and then drives home because he says he doesn't have enought time to walk.) To finish off the great time at the Thunderhead camping extravaganza, we had a disco party, complete with a polyester requirement. Boy, are great incriminating photos of people from that party... And the morning after was spent riding the 40 miles from the camp to downtown St Paul. I was highly doubtful that I could make the trip, especially on a rental bike not really designed for such touring, but I was happily surprised to find the 40 miles an absolute joy. The easiest ride I've ever done. I think we passed a total of about 10 cars for the first 38 miles, and I've not seen terrain as flat as that in all of my adult life (If there is one thing that New England ain't it's flat). So yay, for that ride.

Pro Bike/Pro Walk:

So then it was on to the suit and tie bike advocacy event. Pro Bike Pro Walk is the big conference for professionsl bicycle and pedestrian planners. Mostly government traffic planning folks, some contracters, and a bunch of us advocacy organizers. Lots of lectures, with some good stuff, and even more of the dull stuff. But definitely a great place to schmooze. Andy Singer, the incredibly talented gentleman who draws the "CARtoons", was there and I got an autographed copy of his very cool book CARtoons. Oooh! I also got a chance to attend a discussion by David Engwicht who is a pioneer in the field of street reclaiming and wrote the aptly titled book "Street Reclaiming". He's a visionary in that he's promoting the idea of taking the streets back for our communities by putting the communities back in the streets. And he's got all sorts of really neat ideas on how to do that, including putting random art, toys, and furniture in the streets to slow car traffic down. I'll definitely have to do a little article about the idea when I get a chance.

The most fun I had at the conference was, of course, the partying with my new pals. We made an effort to storm Minneapolis one night, but ended up only finding some very dead clubs. It was entertianing though. And we got to see some pretty weird bike lanes. On the last evening there I managed to get myself into an arguement about the aforementioned b*ke l*ne dilemma and I ended up in tears while our audienced tried to shut us up by singing silly dirty songs about biblical characters. I still haven't quite recovered from the arguement, and at some point will need to get it all off my chest. But for now, I'm just happy to start making my way through the piles of reading material that I collected all week, and waiting to develop the pictures I took of my buddy Steve french kissing one of the Lucy (from Peanuts) statues that was dotting the streets of St. Paul.

Air travel:

I was under the impression, post 9/11, that airport security was searching people who happened to show up on some sort of FBI profiling list. But it doesn't seem to be the case. The searches were truly random, and were conducted by people who had not even seen people's tickets. And they didn't seem to be taking people who looked "suspicious" but pretty much a sampling of everyone. That's cool. I did forget to take my bike tools out of my courier bag on the flight home, and had to surrender my swiss army knife (and it's requisite phillips head). They also made a big stink about my 6 inch adjustable wrench for some reason. They had to go through four people before they decided that I wasn't a risk (I was wearing a bright yellow "safe routes to school" t-shirt with a cute little mouse riding a bike on it) and let me keep my wrench.

Finally, I can't strees enough how absolutely gorgeous the Earth is. From an airplane, you can really see this world for what it really is, a beautiful blue-green planet. Seeing it like that it reminds you of how important life is, and how stunning and precious the grass, trees, water, and dirt are. Humans with their technology may impressive, but nature is truly the master here.

astounding

Well, I made it to Minnesota and back (or was it all just a dream, like it seems right now?). What a week! I tell ya, that was one of the best adventures I've ever been on. 500 bicycle advocates and their bikes took over a fancy schmancy hotel. A significant portion of them worked for the government, including not just one but two mayors. I also met a few very awesome people on the first part of the trip, and was innundated with all sorts of information about running a bicycle advocacy organization, aas well as getting the lowdown about a whole slew of bike projects going on across the world.

I'll have a big wrap up of my trip as soon as I get a chance. Now, I'm just trying to deal with the having-been-gone-for-a-week stuff. It's a little depressing, because I came home tonight to find the house empty of people but full of someone elses stuff (the new roommate is even more of a packrat than I, and she's already put a ton of her stuff all over the house!), and two less than nice cats (I was only home for a couple of hours before one of them made me bleed!). But my little girl is very, very happy to see me, and that's cool, and I'm happy that I have web access again.

Always look on the bright side of life...

The US Environmental Protection Agency is finally admitting to the fact that global warming exists (against the whinings by King Georgie):

"Potential benefits could include extended seasons for construction and warm-weather recreation, and reduced heating requirements and cold-weather mortality."

Well, that settles it then.

Also, playing in the streets is officially now a no no. At least in Fairfax, Virginia, where the city council voted on an ordinance to send a message "that it is not ok to play in the street". And other communities are removing "children at play" signs because they think that the signs give the wrong impression: "The street should be strictly for cars." Ok. got it. No more using the streets for fun. Only serious car business. And Shriners.

In an odd twist of activism, the band Chumbawumba sold one of their songs to GM (no, not THAT song) for $70,000 and then turned around and donated the cash to IndyMedia and CorpWatch non-profit organizations which work to expose corporate greed and illegal activities.

veggie whopper

I never intended to bother trying one, but the house posse went to the mall yesterday and Mr. MP7 pointed out that B*rger K*ng had a veggie burger. And so it just seemed like the thing to do. I even double checked the ingredients list posted prominantly by the registers (vegans need to ask them to leave out the mayonaise). It was bland, and that's being kind. Nothing unique, just a plain old veggie burger with some lettuce and a cardboardy tomato and a bun apparently made of sofa cushion foam, and it didn't even have any ketchup on it. But, the fact that they even offer it is pretty impressive. I wonder how widespread this trend is.

Also, on our little adventure yesterday we all went in to Mr. MP7's work (at a software company) and discovered that they've got quite a setup there. A coffee bar, a large screen tv, another humongous screen tv, a huge room that looked just like a private club, and a pool table. The last thing was the spiffiest, as we played a couple of games and I just so happened to be the best player of the three of us. Shocking, because I pretty much suck - I know what I'm doing but I'm just to uncordinated to do it right. I even won one game. Yay for me. I haven't won a pool game in a decade, at least not by default.

Then we trudged (well the bus trudged, some folks are too lazy to attempt a 15 minute walk...) on to T*rget. I made sure to remind everyone how evil it is, but was kind of shocked to find out that the store is just an ordinary discount department store, like KM*rt (I'd imagined that it was more like a Best Buy or something more high end). I got a blender and some storage bins, because I'm just not able to get those kinds of things in a locally owned place (and I'd been looking for a blender at Goodwill for months with no luck). When I got home I made myself a big glass of pina colada (I tried putting some rum in it, but it was terrible, so I'll be sticking to the non-alchoholic type from now on).

To round out the afternoon's journey, I bumped into an ex who I hadn't spoken to in years. We had a nice little chat while riding the bus, and he offered to let me know when his band plays next time. It's always interesting to find out what art school graduates (and exes of course) end up doing with their lives. He's been working for years at a photocopy/print shop and plays in a couple of bands very occasionally. For comparison, other friends from MassArt have gone on to become a wildlife caretaker, a warehouse guy at an indy music label, a punk rock spoken word performer with the day job as an ad guy at an anti-cigarette campaign, a designer at an automotive book publisher (actually, several MassArt folks got sucked into this one!), an art teacher, a bicycle activist (Hey! That's me!), and a music producer with an Emmy nomination (wow!). Thankfully, all of us still do at least some sort of art, even if it is wedged into that infinitesimal scrap of time between work, chores, and sleep. It's really in the blood, as they say.

stuff

Mopey. Just trying to adjust to the new, "just roommates", version of Mr.MP7. Gah. And people wonder why I'm antisocial. Anyway, I think I'm pretty much done adjusting. So, hopefully I won't be going on and on about it all anymore.

I've been avoiding work stuff. So much to do. When I get overwhelmed sometimes I just shut down. But today I made myself work on one of the big projects I needed to do, and managed to do a pretty darn good job, if I say so myself. We had a questionnaire that we sent out to all the gubernatorial candidates in Mass, and got a few responses. Sadly, we didn't get one of the biggies (one that I would be happy to see in the statehouse), but we got the frontrunner and two of the really progressive ones, so it's a decent result. I made the questionnaire look all pretty and I'm kind of shocked. If any of you readers are MassBike members you'll get to see my handiwork (and the candidate stuff too) in a week or so when we send 'em all out. Now I just have about ten more things to do before I leave for Minneapolis...

Including get a roommate! Eeek.

It's 1:30 am, do you know where your weapons of mass destruction are?

It's not that I'm not tired, it's that things were weird here tonight, and I wanted to see what came of it all. What I revealed is that it is a very, very bad thing to lack some sort of outlet for your frustrations. Not me, I should say, but someone I've quite apporpriately named after an explosive weapon. Mr. MP7 is like a loaded gun, and he just doesn't have a release. His stress is oozing out though, and it's oozing right toward me. I don't know whether I should take it as a compliment that I'm trustworthy enough to be oozed on, or if I get it just because I'm an easy target. We drive eachother crazy, and we're not even a couple (not that I would mind if we were...). It's all very complicated, and I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it sorts itself out.

On the less confusing front, we've been interviewing a lot of people for the fifth room in our household, and we've gotten some really interesting folks. At least two of which were crossdressers. Cool, huh? Our missing roommate is also coming home from his overseas mission (to play video games in England) soon. I really missed the guy and his extra long tongue! (Heh.)

We had a power outage tonight (odd that it happened now that the temperature is back to normal), and it was enjoyable. The world, especially the city, is such a different place when there aren't televisions, computers, radios, florescent lights, and so on. People are nicer, and you can see the stars. As I was sitting out on our porch listening to the neighborhood, I saw the most impressive shooting star I've ever encountered. It must have been a huge meteorite, as it looked more like some sort of roman candle fireball than something way the hell up in the atmosphere. We are supposedly in the middle of a big meteor shower event this month, but you usually can't see much in the city. So I feel blessed to have caught one. Thank goodness for power outages.

heat stroke

I managed to do two out of the three events that I was planning on for the weekend. I did the SCUL mission, which was kinda a dud, but enjoyable enough. Then, on Sunday, I went to the Lars Anderson Bike Show, which is chock full of stuff I couldn't care less about. It's mostsly collectable parts and fance expensive old bikes that I just can't work myself up for. Fortunately, there were plenty of cool folks to hang out with, and I got some white kids tires to stick on my SCUL bike that I've been working on. As I was leaving, there were a couple of boxes of free stuff that I was happy to sift through and I grabbed a bunch of random things which struck me as good material for some art, so it wasn't a complete bust. Which is good, because I seemed to have destroyed my body riding in all this heat. I knew it was bad when Mr. MP7, who's been pretty much ignoring me lately, kept coming up to my room to check on me to see if I needed anything. He even brought me a bag o' ice to cool me down. It's bad enough that I'm thinking of taking the T into MassBike today.

This week promises to be at least as busy as last week, and Tim, big guy at MassBike is off to do some campaigning for some politician in Pennsysvania or something, so I get to be in charge of the office for a bit. Oooooh!

bikes, bikes, and more bikes

Yeah, I'm busy these days. Finding a new roommate, planning two count 'em two working vacations for September, working on a bunch of amazing projects for MassBike, trying to avoid being grumpy with Mr. MP7, and reading Neil Gaiman's latest book, "American Gods" has been keeping me busy.

This site's apparently back in Google's search list. I hadn't gotten any hits from search engines in a very, very long time, but I seem to be getting them again. I just got one person from New Zealand looking for pictures of eye cataracts. Funny thing is, they actually hung around for a bit and browsed. (Do they know something I don't?)

So, speaking of my vacations, I'm going to be in Minnesota during the Minnesota State fair. My buddy Tim wants me to check out the rodeo, but I pointed out that they do some nasty S&M stuff to the poor bulls to get them to act the way they do, so no rodeo for me. But blooming onions, carny games, and fast spinny rides sound good to me. I wonder how far away the fair is from St Paul...

exorcise

I can't sleep. Too many demons running around in my brain tonight. I'll see if I can exorcise them here.

Rafi - I dated a guy (a boy really) once, a beautiful boy, who was a street musician from Isreal. He had gotten out of the manditory Isreali service by claiming that he was a heroin addict.

There really is no more to the story. It just seemed like that information wanted to be let out.

Nader - I watched Bill Moyer's "Now" show this evening , and my buddy Ralph was on. Seeing him makes me sad now. He just reminds me of how horrible a country the US is - a country that believes that might makes right, and that greediness is next to godliness. During the interview, Moyers read a whole slew of whiny, accusatory letters to Nader, which pretty much regurgitated the same old crap about third parties messing it up for the "good" old boys (the democrats, of course). These people are even more annoying than the republicans. These people are like the ten year old kid on the playground who gets beaten up by the 13 year old bully (who got held back a couple of years), and when the 10 year old stops crying he then turns around and kicks sand in the 5 year old's face, in order to save face in front of the girls. Anyway, at the very end of the interview, Moyers reads a letter praising Nader for his neverending quest to bring real fairness to our world. The letter also asked Nader how he is able to find the strength to keep fighting the inhuman giants, and Nader's response was so matter of fact that it made me cry: "because the alternative is worse." And it's true. That's why we continue to fight, even though we are up against the almost insurmountable enemy of human greed and ignorance, because there simply is no choice in the matter.

Mr. MP7 - Eh. I don't know whether this happens to other people, or if it's just a symptom of being me, but I tend to find these people who are, at first, incredibly interested in me, and lavish me with attention and warm fuzzies. But then, almost immediately, their little inner lightbulb goes off and Poof! all the good stuff disappears. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with what I'm doing. Mr. MP7 went from being the most flirtatious person I'd ever encountered (and a really cool buddy to have philosophical debates with), to being, well, cordial I guess is the best word for it. Is it a guy thing? You know, turn on the mojo first, ask questions later? Or what? I keep getting sucked into these people, and then being left with a kind of empty feeling in my lower intestine when they change their minds about me.

Soulmate - You know, I'm not a big believer in the idea of a soulmate - one person in the whole world who truly completes you - its just too wishy washy for the Vulcan blood in me. But I do know that out of all the people I've met, there's been only one who was really someone who made me a better person, and who really understood me and all that traditional soulmate crap. But, alas, he didn't want me. I scared him off like I do with 'em all. What's interesting, though, is that I don't even know if he knows how important he was (and still is) to my life. It's not like I spend any great amount of time thinking about him or anything, in fact he was the very first guy who I wasn't obsessive about (well, after he broke up with me, I had a bit of an episode of Ms. Sinade O'connor's classic syndrome of wanting-what-I-haven't-got). Actually, he's not even much a part of my normal life anymore and I only rarely think about him, but I have also yet to meet anyone else like him. And as I get older, I become incresingly convinced that I never will. I know that there are lots of really great people out there, and I haven't given up hope yet. But, hey, I'm starting to peak I think, and it's only downhill from here :)

Goodwill - Having said all that, I've discovered a rather amusing little added attraction to one of my favorite shopping experiences. One of the fine young gentlemen who works at my local Goodwill thrift shop seems to have a bit of a crush on me or something. Its sweet. But dangerous. I almost bought a box full of Barbie dolls the other day. Barbies! Eeek. (Well, I was planning on doing something evil to them, but still. Barbies!)

Ok, the demons seem to have quieted down a bit, as have the neighbors (who were having a party that I ended up avoiding for no good reason). So I'll give the sleeping thing another try. Sweet dreams everyone.

picktures

And here are the Critical Mass photos. Please excuse the infinitesimal thumnails, just click on 'em to get a normal sized image. If you want any of these for any reason (bribery, perhaps?) let me know, and I can get you a decent TIF.

Also, here's a picture of my roommates and their buddies lounging around our living room.

be the media

Here is the Globe article.

just sittin' here, melting

So I had all these big plans for last weekend. But I bailed. No SCUL ride to Rhode Island for me. Instead I hung around and did absolutely nothing except for a little walk with the roommies to do some grocery shopping. Oh, and we played a card game, called Munchkin, that is supposed to be a parody of role playing games. Its obnoxiously complicated, but the characters were very cute and often hysterically funny (for example, Mr. MP7 was cursed with "a Chicken on Your Head").

I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately, and when I went to the doctor to see about my weird ankle, the nurse told me that I had a fever of 100.something degrees. The doc said that my ankle was fine - "sometimes these bumps on bones just happen, it may go away in a few months or you may have it forever" - but I'm still suspicious. And the fever has dropped to a more low grade one, but I still feel like crap. My guess is that the fever is a result of the infection that's been raviging the hole-where-a-tooth-used-to-be. I'm hoping it'll all sort itself out soon. I'm really not up for another traumatic event at the oral surgeon's...

A funny coincident keeps happening to Mr. MP7 and me, we keep bumping into a couple of my friends at the supermarket. It's happened three times in a month now. When we remarked on it, Mr. MP7 said that it was because he was everywhere, like a god, but without all the other powers and stuff. We declared that he was "omnipresent, but omni-impotent". He and I both thought that it was very funny. Also, at the supermarket, we discovered the latest trend in shopping technology - the electronic cashier. Sometime last week our supermarket ripped out a couple of the 12-items-or-less lanes and replaced them with these human-free monstrosities which are supposed to allow you to do self serve checkout. You scan your own groceries, and then stick in some cash (like you would at a vending machine) or a credit card, and Voila! you're done. Sounds fine, except that almost every single customer had a problem with the machines which required a human employee to come fix, and at least once it took a good 5 minutes with not one, but three, employees to figure out the problem (the machine wasn't giving a 2-for-1 discount).

Oh, and this past Sunday's Boston Globe had the Critical Mass article in it. It was pretty good, though it had a few glaring factual errors. No pictures of me, though they did mention a person with a black veil and someone who was handing out flyers about the dangers of riding in the door zone (me and me). I'll try to get a link up for the article today (and I'll get my pictures from teh ride scanned and up, too).

Finally, I found out last week that, even after Ms Laird's horrible tragedy in Cambridge, Somerville is still planning on striping a bike lane in the door zone on the full length of major throughway. I had no idea! Apparently, the bike committee knew about this from before I was involved, but weren't aware of the dangers of this design. I'm a little surprised at that, but I'm much more shocked that the committee (aside from my one dissenting vote) decided to do nothing to stop this dangerous stupidity, and, in fact, they are sending a letter to thank Traffic and Parking for accomodating bicyclists! It just boggles my mind.

shoulderless roads are the devil's work

Or is that MDC?

So yeah, Critical Mass (I know that was four days ago, sue me) was quite an event this month. We had the media, we had mourning, we had asshole cops on motorcycles, we had fun, and we had a ten foot by ten foot trailer with a four person rock band on it being pulled by two extremely in-shape cyclists on a tandem. We even injured one of our own (she got squeezed between a parked car and the trailer) and had her sent off the the hospital. Pictures will be forthcoming (though getting a good picture of a ten by ten trailer with a rock band and a tandem is surprisingly difficult). Oddly, there are no articles in any of the newspapers which sent reporters/photographers. Weird.

The weekend was very quiet. (Well, except for the SCUL ride, which was gravity filled, with a gummy penis filled party at the end.) I followed Mr. MP7 around and had some Indian food and visited with the scruffiest looking sheep I've ever seen (maybe it was because they lived in Waltham...). My ankle, which I twisted on a malfunctioning sidewalk a few weeks ago, seems to have some sort of serious problem. My best guess is a chipped bone which has set crooked. It doesn't really hurt, but looks really wrong and feels icky. I had to spend half an hour on the phone to get an appointment, but was impressed that my little subsidized community health center has a podiatry department.

As if that wasn't enough, the hole where one of my teeth use to be is hurting. Did I mention that I hate my body? When are those cybergenic replacement bodies going to be ready?

Don't you hate it when your whole outlook on life is tied directly to one person's relationship with you? I do.

Someone told me the other day that I was beautiful and it made me cry.

RIP Dana Laird

Tonight's Critical Mass ride will be a memorial ride in Dana Laird's name. As I mentioned before, she was the woman who was killed when a careless SUV driver opened his door into her and pushed her under the wheel of a passing bus on Mass Ave in Cambridge, MA. This CM ride should be quite an event. The media has been invited, there will be mourners in black, the couch will have a New Orleans style funeral jazz band, and who knows what else will show up. I, myself, am properly dressed for mourning - with a veil and everything - and I have "don't get doored"/"don't door someone" flyers to hand out with info on the back about Ms. Laird's tragedy.

thunderbumpers

Yay! I just made it home before the downpour started. I had a nice ride out to Bedford, just 'cause I felt like it and I was already near the bike path in Arlington. I took a course in grantwriting this morning at some employment and training place. it was really very well done, and I learned a bunch of stuff. Yay for free social programs!

On my way home from my ride, I had to yell at some asshole who nearly hit me and told me to get off the f'n road. I asked him why, but to no avail. (He probably doesn't test well, I should have known.) Then he called me a "stupid cunt" at which point I reminded him that it was he, not me, who was spending a good $5000 a year to drive his vehicle, and that my vehicle was clearly much cooler than his big ass Chevy. After I left the jerk (to waste some more of his cold hard cash at a gas station), it occured to me that I should try to use the patriotic thing next time another oblivious individual pulls something dimwitted like that. Maybe something along the lines of this:

Dimwit: Get outta the road!

Me: Ahhhh, I see. You're one of those un-patriotic-Americans. Well, I'm sorry you don't like this country, maybe you should leave.

Dimwit (with stunned look on his face): ???

Confusion is always a good tactic, I say.

I'll leave you today with a not so terrible picture of me, along with Tim and Tom, from last week's bike trip to Maine. Look at how hip I am!

tailgunner

I really wasn't going to go on the SCUL bike ride last night, but I wanted to see the video from last week, so I figured that I'd just say hi, watch the video, and then go home and sleep. But I ended up discovering a perfect ship for me! So not only did I ride, but I really enjoyed it, and even did the important job of tailgunning (sweep). Sadly, my walkie talkie was being flakey, so I didn't get to be all cool with the radio. But now I really want to get a pair of the things. I'm such a geek. My MP7 buddy says he'll pick some up for me at Costco, cause they're really cheap there.

Speaking of geeks. I was wearing my "geek" (on the front) "/geek" (on the back) shirt up in Maine at the bike rally, and some elderly gentleman asked me what a geek was. I actually had a hard time explaining it!

Finally, I've been noticing several recent appearences of Jethro Tull. Is it a comeback? I hope not. Not because I don't like the band - cause I love 'em - but because revivals almost always suck. And that would just be depressing to have one of my escapism bands from my childhood be turned into some lame pop band for the kiddies. (For heaven's sake kids, leave the classics to us old folks!)

banana powered vehicle

I managed to pull myself out of my moping this afternoon and get myself, my bike, and my hastily assembled banana costume down to the Art Beat parade in Davis Square. It rained a bit the whole time, but there was a great turnout, and I had fun. The theme this year was "food for thought". My neighbors Joel and Lynn had a canoe and the life cycle of compost (complete with bin, real compost, and even a tomato plant), respectively, being towed behind their bikes. Yay!

fermented cat?

Alcohol. Throughout my life I've always had a very suspicious feeling about alcohol. Its just never seemed like a good thing. Having had a pretty messed up childhood due to a mom and stepfather who treated alcolol as self medication for whatever ailed them certainly created a solid base of dislike for the drug. But above that experience, I think that I have too much appreciation for my mind to want to subject it to a substance that turns the brain all sloshy.

I do understand the benefits of one of the side effects of alcohol - relaxation - but I'm just not sure that its worth the effort. The other effects of the drug seem to be overwhelingly negative. Why would I want to make myself lose motor control, be more vulnerable to suggestion, and generally function less than optimally, all added to the possibility of getting a crippling addiction? Sure, sounds great, sign me up!

So, when I have friends who are particularly fond of the stuff, I find myself at a loss. I want to trust that people know their limits and that they can take care of themselves, but I'm afraid that they're screwing themselves up. And lately, I've been around a whole lot of friends who have a bit of a drinking hobby. Hmmmmm.

fame

I came into work today and was told that I was now famous. Apparently, after years of trying, I managed to get a letter to the editor published in the Boston Globe. Sadly, and somewhat inexplicably, they didn't see fit to put my letter online. So, no link for you. The letter was about a proposed piece of state legislation that the Segway company is dragging around the country, in a bizarre attempt to ban the vehicle from roads, while making it legal to ride the thing around on the sidewalk.

Also this morning I had my first meeting with the VIPs about the police bicycle edication program that I've been working on. It went incredibly well, and the participants were very supportive and excited to be getting closer to having a real curriculum (a DOT person, someone from the Governor's Highway Safety Bureau, a couple of transportation planners, and a bunch of cops).

Its continually shocking to me to be working with a non-profit, environmentally friendly, somewhat radical cause and have the general public and even politicians honestly be interested, positive, and gasp! helpful.

What's next? Linux going mainstream?

back in civilization

Well, whether the city folks are any more civilized than the country folk is debatable, but there are certainly more people here in the city.

Maine was lovely. The weather was gorgeous, the company was great, and the biking was very nice. I didn't do as many rides as I would have likes, as logistics got in the way a few times, but I did have a lot of fun. I got a chance to kayak down the Androscoggin River, which was fantastic, but shockingly shallow in many parts. I got to go on a stargazing ride to the top of one of the local mini-mountains (the area I was in was right next to the Appalacians). And I twice visited a lovely waterfall/tidal pool area called Screw Auger Falls (I just like saying the name...). I actually drove the car more than I rode, at least milage-wise, which made my guilt muscle twinge, but I figured that it was only a moderate slip in the grand scheme of my transportation policy. (I also made a point of letting the Maine Bike Coalition folks know that they should do their best in the future to locate the bike rally near public trasportation.)

Now that I'm back, I'm horribly busy and a bit on the grumpy side (mostly caused by a lack of attention by certain males of the species). But I'll probably be too busy to notice my grumpiness in a few hours, when I get cracking on activism stuff. Actually, I already wrote a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe about some horrible proposed legislation forcing a specific kind of vehicle (the Segway) off of public roads and onto the sidewalks, setting up a terribly discriminatory and dangerous precedent for vehicular law.

Oh, and I thought of another nickname for the new roommie - one that I think he likes better than Fairy Godfather - the "MP7". It's a reference to some insanely deadly weapon given to "peacekeeping" forces in the military that is featured as a centerfold in this month's Wired magazine. The guy is obsessed with weapons, but is essentially a very nonviolent man. Ironic, to say the least. Kinda like me, with my love for technology being completely out of line with my desire for life of Thoreau-like simplicity. What can I say, irony is my pal.

watch out for those spider webs in the morning

The Fairy Godfather woke me up early this morning and made me drag my sleepy ass into the kitchen, because he wanted to show me a spider web that connected one side of the room to the opposite side of the room via a chair in the middle. The web stretched a good 10 feet at least. The tiny little thing must have been damn busy while we were sleeping. And we had to go and have breakfast and destroy it's hard work.

It's off to Maine for the Maine Bike Rally. Sadly, we won't be camping (I love camping and never get to do it), but it should be lots of fun anyway. I'm sure I'll be unbelieveably exhausted by Sunday. And next weekend is the Art Beat festival. Wheee!

lane striping

Tonight I happened to sneak my way into the Cambridge Bicycle Committee's monthly meeting (ok, it wasn't the slightest bit sneaky, but it sounded better than saying I walked right in, didn't it?). I thought it might be interesting to hear what they had to say about the death of the cyclist who was riding perfectly "correctly" in their badly designed bike lane. I don't have any particular animosity for the people who recommended the dangerous lanes, but I am bewildered at their insistance that having a bike lane is always better than not, even if it is clearly causing danger.

Anyway, I got to make a suggestion for a different approach to bike facility design, one that I came up with for Somerville. It was not only well recieved, but someone else had independently come upon the idea as well. We're very likely to try my idea on a road or two in Somerville, and now maybe Cambridge will try it out too. It could mean a transportation revolution! Or not. If this design ever gets applied to an actual roadway I'll show ya all pictures!

question

What is the male version of "nymphet"?

full

I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with things these days. I've got a fantastic job/volunteer thing going at MassBike and other places, have great roommates, and I'm having lots of fun. The school-based bicycle safety program that I've been working on is promising to be amazing. I'm having an absolute ball with my new Fairy Godfather (I'm still working on a nickname for him, as he isn't entirely thrilled with that one, but I kinda like it). And riding with SCUL and Critical Mass is keeping me heathy and weird. Now all I need is a nice guy, who is willing to put up with the likes of me, to flesh out my life (pun intended!).

Last weekend's SCUL ride was one of the best ever. We rode out to a pond in the Fells (somewhere near Medford, MA, I think) and went skinny dipping. I've never been really thrilled about getting naked in front of anyone (being fat in this "thin is in" society does that to people, especially women), but I just went for it and had a blast. The water was absolutely perfect, and I rode the very comfy, good looking chopper known as "Greed".

On a down note, a local woman, who was riding in the bike lane on Mass Ave in Cambridge, was killed when a thoughtless SUV driver hit her with his door causing her to fall under a bus that was passing by insanely closely. Several factors contributed to the tragedy, including an ignorant and careless automobile driver who illegally opened his door without checking for traffic, a really poorly designed roadway which squeezes way too many "lanes" of traffic into a very small space, and a bicyclist who didn't know enough road safety to avoid the dangerous bike lane and it's accompanying "door zone". (See a picture of the crime scene here.) I visited the roadside memorial that sprung up, and took a moment to mourn the woman's needless passing. I also stuck a "share the road with bicyclists" pamphlet to the tree, in case it might be able raise a tiny bit of awareness.

I am the Steve Buscemi character

We rented Ghost World (the film, not the comic book) since I was babbling on about it anyway. I'm Seymore, not Enid, just to clarify.

On the fourth, I had, for the first time ever, been invited to three different events. I attended none (missing the giant penis piniata that was alledgedly painted with the stars and stripes of old glory), but had a lot of fun anyway. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to catch up on my complete lack of sleep this past week.

In another few days a bunch of MassBike folks, including myself, will be heading off to Maine for their bike extravaganza. In preparation, I picked up some nearly slick tires which should help me zoom along a bit faster on the long rides, I also got some sports food goo to power me up on said rides, I lost around 8 pounds, and finally I managed to lightly twist my ankle while walking all around Somerville and Cambridge yesterday doing errands with the new roommie. I'm not sure if I'm going to want to ride in SCUL tonight on this ankle, especially since there's a possibiliy that we're going to be riding out to Walden Pond.

The new roommie (I know, he needs a name, but I'd like to come up with some sort of nickname for him rather than using his real name, for a few reasons. I'm thinking about "Fairy Godfather"...) likes to do housework. He bought two sixpacks of Coke and poured them into the tub, saying that it was the most corrosive thing you can get in the supermarket. It didn't really do all that much, but it certainly didn't take much effort, either. If he'd let it soak for a couple of days, it might have really made a difference. Or not. Right now, the guy is doing my dishes. Sometimes I feel like I should be paying him for services rendered...

celluloid laundrybasket

Why am I up and writing here at 4 in the morning? Because my life has very recently become some sort of independent movie. This movie includes all the requisite oddball characters who seem to float in and out of the plot, having philosophical conversations and getting involved in really non-traditional relationships with oneanother. This particular film that is my life has elements of a Richard Linklater piece ("See that tree? See those leaves shining in the light? That's why you're alive." he said when I told him that I didn't have the ego to believe that I needed to be alive.) My movie also has some bits straight out of Daniel Clowes' Chost World ("I'm not sure if I should show you my comics or not." I said, completely unaware of how surreal it was in the context of lounging on a bed with someone who you probably shouldn't be lounging on a bed with). He's only been here for four days and I've already lost nearly five pounds. It's the first time in a long time that I've had someone who I feel completely comfortable discussing philosophy with. As a first impression, I've decided that he's a fairy godmother and the devil's advocate all rolled into one (maybe that's why he's so large...).

I think I said something about this new roommate being someone who's going to be very interesting to live with. His response was "You don't know the half of it." And I'm absolutely positive that he's right.

I love Massachusetts

And for once I'm not being facetious. Critical Mass tonight was followed by an unusual amount of cop cars. Near the end of the ride (does it ever really end?), we encountered a couple of officers, in a paddy wagon no less, who simply didn't want us to be in their district. When they finally succeeded at completely blocking the road and forced us to stop, I ended up getting into a very respectful debate with them for at least 20 minutes. The rest of the gang sort of fizzled off in various direction, but I stuck around because I was having a grand old time. They seemed less interested in arresting us for any real infringement of the law, and more interested in generally telling us that we were wrong. I love it when cops are just annoyed enough to start making laws up. What's ironic is that people usually are, in fact, doing something illegal, only the police are so unfamilliar with the laws that they don't know it. Their basic complaint was that we were holding up traffic, which they eventually decided was grounds for arrest as we were "disturbing the peace".

Some of the highlights of the argument included:

Grumpy Cop - "I don't care about the law. The law is irrelevant." (This one really cracked me up.)

Grumpy Cop - "There's a minimum speed!" (Completely untrue on Comm. Ave in Boston)

Grumpy Cop - "Half of you don't even have helmets on!" (And your point is what?)

Me - "If we were in cars, would you have pulled us over?"
Grumpy Cop - "Of course not."

Significantly Nicer Cop - "You obviously have a talent for arguing." (To me. A nice complement, coming from a guy with a badge and a gun!)

And, finally, as we were finishing up our little debate, a guy, also on a bike, came by to mock the couple of Critical Massers who were left. He seemed to be genuinely pissed off (though I have no clue why), and he told us that we were lucky we weren't arrested, riding in the middle of the road like that. He rode off in a huff, cruising right on down the sidewalk - an action that is, of course, illegal in Boston (a fact that neither he nor the police seemed to be interested in).

All in all is was a fine evening. I got to eat at Grasshopper finally, met a nice young gentleman who I had known about but never gotten a chance to meet, hung out with Jef and Rich, participated in some wonderful dinner conversation, and got some vegan cherry cheesecake that I plan to devour tomorrow. Yay!

He is a bit annoyed, to say the least.

Hear what the big guy in the sky himself has to say about his name being used in the Pledge at this Indymedia report

Don't praise the lord in my school!

50 years after president Eisenhower snuck a bit of lord praising into the Pledge of Allegiance, essentially turning it into a prayer, the supreme court's west coast district appeals court has declared it unconstitutional to say the Pledge in public schools. Thank goodness someone is finally paying attention to this blatent disregard for the founding fathers' idea of the seperation between church and state. Jefferson, Madison, and the gang were adamantly opposed to any sort of Federally-sponsored religion. They were wise enough to have looked at Europe's wartorn history and see that the cause of much bloodshed was (and still is!) the conflicting beliefs of various religions. So, it was no religion for the US of A, at least not officially. And, as old as our constitution is, it still provides the basis for an incredibly well run country. The US is first and formost based on freedom, and that means that citizens are completely free to believe whatever they wish, whether that is an omnipotent creature who wants you to eat fishies on a certain day of the week, a blue elephant with eight arms who likes to have sex, or something else entirely. Sad that our politicians see fit to ignore the wisdom of their predecessors in this matter.

Some of you may remember that, back when I was being sworn into office for the Bicycle Committee, I wrote about the problem that I was expected to swear "so help me god" before the city would allow me to serve on the committee. I was worried about the best way to deal with the problem. Should I politely decline, admitting that I am an atheist? Or should I lie? Lying while entering a public office obviously seems like a very bad idea. But declaring oneself an athiest means opening oneself up to government-sponsored religious prejudice. And, while I'm proud to be an athiest, I know that a lot of people who I need to work with in City Hall and the State House would be much less likely to want to work with me if they knew that I did not share their beliefs in an omnipotent big-guy-in-the-sky. I ended up choosing to lie, promising myself that I would try and do something about it all later (but, in the meantime, making me no better than any other two-faced politician).

Well, it seems like now is the time to get this issue off my chest (both here and in a more public view): It is not only unAmerican, but it is also completely unconstitutional to make someone pledge their allegiance to a religious figure as a part of any federal business:

The US Constitution, Article VI, Section III
"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

And furthermore, the First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Seems pretty clear to me that there is no place for gods in government. So, why are politicians so adamant in their persecution of anyone who wants "God" left out of public affairs?

modern primatives

The average American, when confronted with a proponent for peace (like myself), generally reacts with one of two emotions: violence or inquisitiveness. The violent ones react that way because they are lost and confused about life. But these people are not the ones I want to talk to right now. I want to talk to the ones who, when discovering that I'm anti-war, say "well then, what SHOULD we do?" I applaud anyone who is willing to ask this question. My answer probably isn't what most people want to hear, but it's the truth: I don't know, but I'm sure if we put our heads together we could come up with plenty of good ideas.

Think about it, the human species has been evolving for millions of years, and we've been civilized for several thousand. You mean to tell me that in all of this time we haven't been able to come up with an effective way of dealing with our problems other than resorting to violence? Seriously?

Sure, I know that violence is a holdover from our fight-or-flight days when our species was constantly in danger. And violence served us well when we encountered bigger, faster, or more clever species who wanted to eat us. But hey, we've pretty much taken care of that little inconvenience by wiping out most of these species' habitats, and running them over with our automobiles. Violence simply isn't necessary anymore for the majority of us humans who live in modern society. Its, literally, overkill. With all of the billions of dollars we humans pour into the fields of psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology, theology, epistomology (the study of learning), and other human behavior-based sciences, you'd think that we could develop a vast array of potential non-violent solutions to our problems of getting along with eachother.

The fact is that we do actually know of many solutions already. There are multiple tomes out there that offer ideas. And there are scientific studies to back up these solutions with concrete evidence. These non-violent solutions may not all work in all situations, and many may take a long time. But I'm absolutely convinced that there is always a non-violent solution to a given problem that will work as well or better than violence. If only the people in power would listen to the possibilities, instead of reaating the way humans have been reacting for millions of years. And, the only way to get the politicians, and those pulling their strings, to change their kneejerk responses is to change the way society itself responds. And that means opening people's eyes. In other words: education.

Education doesn't have to mean boring lectures in stuffy classrooms (that's not real education, anyway). Education means talking to one another. It means writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper or tv station. It means participating in your community in whatever form you feel comfortable with. School committees, hobby clubs, neighborhood picnics, coffeehouses, even bars, are all great places to talk to people and engage them in meaningful dialogue about the world. As cliche as it sounds, the pen (or spoken word) really is mightier than the sword.

As a place to start when talking about solutions to world problems and the violence caused because of them, think about why people act the way they do. As you already know, acts of violence stem from the basic premise of fight-or-flight. When people feel scared the have the choice of either running away or of lashing out at the perceived danger. (Those who choose to run away are generally less of a problem to the world.) Those who choose to lash out are the ones who we are worried about. Anger and hatred are just extensions of fear (as the wise Yoda reminded us all), and would not exist without the basic fear emotion. So, terrorists, suicide bombers, and other violent, angry, and hateful persons do what they do because they are all deathly afraid of something. Whether that threat is real or just perceived is secondary to the fact that they are quite simply afraid, and are not at all "evil". When we start thinking this way, we're able to understand these dangerous people, and only them are we able to address the root of the problem by helping them alleviate their fears. If the fears are real - like starvation, political oppression, or the threat of violence - then we can easily do something about it. We can offer sanctuary, food, education, healthcare, and other humanitarian aid. If the threat is perceived, then we can educate them or work to un-brainwash them if they've been subjected to a violent cult/religion (obviously a bit more difficult and time consuming, but perfectly doable). I guarantee that such humanitarian actions are infinitely more productive than reinforcing their fears by exploding these people's homes, families, and friends would be.

Its funny, we like to elevate the human species to be better than the rest of the animal family tree. But we really are no better than any other species when it comes to getting along with one another. If we truly want to be "eveolved" then we have to come up with a better way to live together.

bags under my eyes

Man am I busy for the next several days. I've got events up the wazoo. So much so that I've run out of room on my calendar for Friday through Tuesday. (Does this mean I have a life?) Yesterday I went to a Rail-to-Trail conference out in the town I term "the suburb in the middle of nowhere" (Waltham is a very rich suburb which is mostly surrounded by quaint rural towns). The conference was ok, though I didn't really get to participate much as I ended up getting monopolized by one fellow there. He had some unique viewpoints on folk music and it's lack of republican (or libertarian for that matter) songs. After that it was on to Boston for the Fort Point Channel art party. It's funny, last year, under the aegeis of Random Turtle Productions, I held a bike ride on the Solstice (in celebration of the Rolling Blackout energy policy protest event). It was very successful, and I had hoped to keep doing it as a yearly event. But I was just too busy this year,a nd I felt kinda bad about it. The funny thing is that the Fort Point Channel artists ended up having a bike ride on the Solstice. It was even cooler than my ride, because most of the riders had gone all out decorating their bikes. (I'll get some pictures up soon.) Very cool.

Today, I'm going to try to make it to the Solar festival around the corner from me. Then I hope to get to the first ever Boston tatoo fair. Tats were banned for several decades in Massachusetts. But the state supreme court ruled the ban unconstitutional last year. Yay! Then, finally, if I haven't collapsed yet, its yet another funky SCUL ride. Hopefully, I'll be alive enough to get up early and do the Bike to the Sea benefit ride a few hours later on Sunday morning. Ugggh. What's bad is that I've already got bags under my eyes!

So anyway, happy solstice everyone!

one eye is looking through rose colored glasses

The other seems to be looking through cyanish-green golored glasses. I've had this weird color difference in my eyes since I was a kid. I only really notice it on bright sunny days, and it's not really obnoxious. It does occasionally freak me out a bit though, making me think I've got a cateract or something. But then I remember that I've had this since at least age 12, so even if it is something wrong, it ain't getting worse any time soon.

So we've finally got a new roommate. He promises to be a pretty interesting guy to live with, and he definitely fits in as far as personality goes. For one thing, he's married, but his wife is going out west to forage for a house and a job while he hangs around here and toils away at a tech job. I'm sure I'll have some interesting stories about him soon enough. (He's mentioned that he's got a really good one that he only tells when he's really drunk. I'm just waiting for he and the "alchohol connoisseur" to get together for a bit of liquor...)

70 pound paper

If you ever have something printed on paper, like a book, magazine, or brochure, you've encountered the weirdness that is the paper thickness/density measurement system. It starts out fairly understandable, the paper's "weight" is defined by how much a specified number of sheets weighs. I can live with that. But then, for some reason the whole weight system shifts when you have a cover stock of paper. You can have a 70 lb. text paper, and a 70 lb cover paper, and they are a completely different thickness. Maybe it's because they use different kinds of fibers and screens, but it's really confusing. And then I just discovered some sort of cardstock measurement system expressed in points (a 7 pt. cardstock is about the weight of one of those annoying business reply cards that always fall out of magazines). The only sure way to know what you want is to get a sample of the exact paper you think you'd like. Having said that, I just ordered some brochures for MassBike and I have no idea what the actual paper is going to be like. But at least it has an impressively high recycled content, and that cool matte coated surface that became so popular on Generation X fiction books by the likes of Bret Easton Ellis.

SCUL last night. A quiet ride, but enjoyable. I spent the afternoon and evening working in the SCUL fort. I'm really finally putting together my own chopper. Skunk is helping me out, and will be doing the welds on the fork extentions, when I get the chopped up kid's bike forks ready to go. It won't be a fantasticc machine, but it will be mine, and it'll be my size. Before working on the fork yesterday, I had no idea that you could cut the steel so easily with normal tools like a hacksaw. I'm not sure why I didn't know this, since I spent many a day in college happily hacking away at metal in a jewelry class. I just had that picture of steel being neigh invulnerable like the Tick (Spooon!). Now that I have this information readily available in my brain, I'm having all kinds of weird ideas about chopping up trashed bikes and reassembling them into sculpture. If I can figure out a way to stick the various pieces together without involving massive amounts of flame, I'll be all set.

watertowers are hard to find

Mmmmmm, lemonade. I normally don't like lemonade, but on hot days, cold fresh lemonade with a bunch of sugar is nice. Ice tea is better, but the caffeine makes me ill.

The roommate search isn't going so well. We've only had one person actually show up to look at the place, and he called immediately to say he wasn't interested. I'm always amazed at how picky people are, even in this cutthroat housing market. I guess its good, since it screens out the people who wouldn't be very fun as roommates.

The pride parade and rally was on Saturday. It was fun, as usual. Though I didn't stay much after the parade finished. The place was so overrun with people waiting in huge lines to get crappy meat products (real "food", not man meat), that you couldn't move. Funny, because the rally was right in the middle of Boston, where you could find all manner of restaurants and delis just a block away. The parade was also interesting, because it 75% of the people marching were representing churches or politicians. You know an issue has gone mainstream when there are more politicians than activists participating.

Then it was onto SCUL. They were trying a new thing for the evening's event - a scavenger hunt. It was pretty much wildly successful. We worked as a team, against time, not another group. We wandered around a few cities, specifically looking for some of the items with higher points, and generally finding the littler items on the way. We found almost all of the things on the list, too. Some of the things we were unable to track down were roadkill, a Playgirl centerfold, a tube top, orange pants, an acorn, New Hampshire, and a preist. The fact that we were doing this between 11pm and 1:30am didn't help matters. Boston is such a puritan city that even the gay clubs were closed by the time we got there. We were able to locate, and photograph, a drag queen at the last minute, which was worth a healthy 30 points. And PigPen was kind enough to puke on command, which garnered us a respectable 20 points. We also scored in finding a revolving door to rival any revolving door I've ever encountered before. It was in some fancy Cambridge hotel near Technology Square, and it had a whole revolving platform about 15 feet in diameter. The pie-like sections between doors were big enough to let a couple people bring their bikes in with them. (Clearly, the people who stay in that hotel have way more money than they know what to do with. Just think of how many blinky lights you could buy with the money it cost to build that door!) The final outcome of the game/ride was that we all got a fuckton of points and were all promoted to extreme levels. I went from being an Ensign to being a Lieutenant Commander in one night. Weeeeeee.

Looking up the word "lieutenant" (literally, a placeholder) in the dictionary, it occured to me: Have you ever really thought about how many words there are? In the English language alone, there have got to be a million or so. (Maybe not, since on a rough estimate of my dictionary I figure that it's got about 93,000 words in it. But that's still an immensely giganticly enormous amount of words.) Even the most literate smartypants in the world probably knows less than half of 'em. Weird.

"open source vehicle"

I got my bike stickers (which have the above quote on them) about a week ago. Yay. I love stickers. Anyone want some? The other day, I tucked one into the handlebars of the recumbant parked next to my bike. It's owned by a computer geek who works in the offic next to MassBike. The place is some non-profit open source code organization that's supposedly quite famous, but I can never remember the name. I've always felt an affinity for Linux people, even though I don't use it. (Macs are so much better for artists.)

You know that there's something amiss when I can be caught watching televised sports. This is how much I love (in a mostly platonic sense) my roommates. They've been watching the recent big finally basketball games and I've been hanging around them. I now know all sorts of completely useless facts about the game and the players. (Kobe Bryant is cute, for instance, and Shaq sweats about a gallon a quarter.) I've even gone so far as to go out with my roommates to the basketball court and play a pickup game! Gasp. What's next? Beer drinking? :)

home is where your dirty dishes are

I just got into a big spat with the one roommate who doesn't quite fit in here. I have two rules for the house: don't throw any of my stuff away, and no complaining about the dishes (nitpicky arguing about the specific location and duration of dirty dishes always seems to be the downfall of otherwise wellmannered roommates). Within weeks of moving in, this guy breaks both rules! He's generally a nice guy, so I usually just humor him, but I'm suffering from severe sleep deprivation and a sore body from riding 57 miles yesterday (including 21 on a chopper), and I came home to see that he had messed up part of my garden that I'd just planted, and he'd thrown out some of my dishes that were in the sink because he didn't like the looks of them. Grr arrgh. It's not like it's a big deal really, but the thing is he's not the least apologetic. Luckily, I still think that three out of the four roommates are completely awesome.

On to the more interesting stuff. As I previously eluded to, I spent almost all of yesterday (from 10am until the birds woke up chirping there happy little 4:30 am songs) riding around. I started out riding out to Drumlin Farm, a few towns away, to visit Jef at his wildlife care job. Alas, he wasn't working. I would have checked with him earlier, but I figured that I'd never get out on a big ride if I didn't have somewhere specific to go (I loathe "recreational" riding for no really good reason). I had an enjoyable time at the farm (a working farm/museum kind of place, run by the Audobon Society), and then I moved on for a little visit to Walden Pond. Poor Thoreau must have been rolling in his grave yesterday because the local military installation was showing off their jet fighters right next door at the air force base. So, as I lay down on the beach, next to the forest, for a relaxing afternoon, sonic booms could be heard with occasional sightings of zippy airplanes doing loop-de-loops and divebombing the locals. Watching the planes competing with the birds and dragonflies for my attention I had to vote for the biological flyers. When humans can zip around without an engine like sparrows do, I'll be officially impressed. (Though I've gotta admit, I absolutely love flying!)

When I finally got home, I had about an hour to cool off and get ready for the SCUL ride. It was a great ride, and included a pirate disco party, nude men riding around on choppers, a fantastic view of Boston at 3am, and a broken axle on a six foot tall bike (no, I wasn't the one riding it!). Good stuff.

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? :)

ow

One of my teeth got a nasty infection, so I went to get it pulled (yes, I live in America land of the free, unless you need medical care, in which case it's unbelievably expensive). The guy shot my mouth up with enough novacane to kill a large marmet, but it was still excruciatingly painful to have the guy even wiggle the damn tooth. So they gave up. I've got some antibiotics to kill off the infection and they're going to try again in a couple of days. Ow. So now I have to go through this all over again. Did I mention ow?

the answer to life the universe and everything

I had an interesting dream this morning, one the had me physically in tears, upon waking up. It was fairly involved, but the gist of it was that I was extremely upset about how the people around me were living their lives. I was frustrated that they were spending their time doing things that were basically just keeping the status quo and not making life better in any way. In the midst of a big rant, I suddenly blurted out "What is the purpose of life!" What I was trying to get across to my family and friends was that the real goal of life is to survive, prosper, and reproduce. And, from my perspective (at least in the dream), people were living their lives in a way that was robbing the Earth of its ability to sustain life. If we don't preserve the environment for future generations of life (including humans) then what, really, is the point? Everyone likes to think that taking care of the Earth is somebody else's problem, and that when crises arise someone important will fix it all. But that, as we all know, is really just denial of the fact that were incredibly greedy and probabaly have done completely irreversible damage to the planet that provides us life. I don't mean to be apocolyptic here, but I don't see that we're going to be able to change our downwardly spiraling direction before its too late.

I think this dream all started with Earth Day this year. I was at a booth for some moderate environmental organization that had suggestions for steps one could take to tread more lightly on the planet. One of their suggestions was to, one day a week, forgo the car and choose another form of transportation. Ooooh. Its this bland, compromised attitude that got us here in the first place.

Anyway, onto a more palatable subject, last night's party was really fun. It was supposed to be a fairly small affair, but we had a great turnout, and we had pizza coming out of our ears (no, not literally). The inner S.C.U.L. circle came, and so did my buddy Tim, so I was very happy. There was also a big Trivial Persuit game that lasted until 3am, and I came pretty close to winning. You always learn some weird stuff playing that game. Apparently, there was a scheme in China to drop cats, via parachutes, into rice fields, in order to get rid of the mice that were destroying the crops. That gave me the funniest visual when I heard it.

pizza, ice cream, and exhaustion

This weekend was, indeed, quite full, and I'm definitely pretty darn pooped. But my roommates are having a little party tonight, so I've got to try to stay awake and alert for the festivities. Pizza making is risky business and I wouldn't want my sleep deprivation to make me make a critical mistake, ya know? Anyway, it was all fun, and we got the bicycling word out to a lot of people at the Earth festival, so it was worth it.

The plan for this week includes a massive attack on the pile that is my bedroom, giving my wesite some actual content beyond a pretty face, and figuring out a place to grow the catnip where my neighbor's cat won't mutilate it. (I came home the other night to find the normally timid kitty rolling around my yard and staring up at the sky, completely oblivious to my presence. It was funny, but a couple more of these tripping sessions and she would have completely destroyed the plants.) Last year, I had a cool birdcage in the shape of a victorian house that worked perfectly to keep the birds (and cats) out. But some loser stole it. I could just use some chicken wire, but that doesn't look very attractive, and we've already got enough junk around the place as it is. Any suggestions?

bikes on the brain

You know how they say that men think of sex once every seven seconds or something? Well, that's me, except that I'm thinking of bicycles instead of sex. My trip to Maine was full of bike education and more work on designing promotional stuff for the various bike organizations and events. And now that I'm back I've got even more stuff to do. An Earth Day fair tomorrow, Critical Mass tonight, and SCUL tomorrow night. In all of this bicycle brewhaha, I decided to abandon my plan for setting up a table at the Somerville Art Beat festival to sell my recycled art. It was just too much. I've still got big plans for my website, and I'll be able to sell stuff on it, and that can be at my own pace, rather than trying to rush into getting a ton of stuff done in a couple of months. Maybe I'll sell some stuff at the bike tables and donate the money to them.

My stepfather is doing extremely well for someone who just had his artery scraped out. He was rototilling the garden within a week. Yay.

I got to hang out with a groundhog up in Maine too. The little lady was wandering around the arboritum where my bike education workshop was being held. She didn't really seem to notice or care that there were a bunch of people riding bikes around in circles just a few feet away. Later on, I followed her and almost got her run over by a car. Oops! But she was fine, and dissappeared into a gulley. Cute little thing.

antidisestablishmentarianism

It just occurred to me why geniouses seem to be such social outcasts - it's because society makes no sense. Most people just go about their lives, adapting their behavior to whatever the latest societal norms happen to be, without any attention to what they are doing. But smart people tend to do that whole thinking before acting thing, and would obviously see the insanity in certain things that are normally socially acceptable. The smart person, if she approaches life in a logical manner, is likely to get herself into trouble with the more traditional contingent of society. If she gets the opportunity to observe and study social behavior, then she's at least got a chance to see how weird "modern" civilized behavior really is, and she can choose to go along with it all, or just to give up and not care what anyone thinks. "Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world." goes the saying. (No that wasn't Freud, it was some other, less libidinous, psychiatrist named R.D. Lang.)

Anyway, and this is in no way related to the last bit (we'll ok just a little...), I went on the SCUL ride last night. It was a particularly good ride, and when we got to our destination, we sat around in a campfire circle (sans fire) and told stories about weird stuff that happend to us while on bikes. It was like group bike therapy! "Hi, my name is Turtle, and I'm a bicyclist..." Heh. We also had a couple of derbies and I actually did quite well, if I say so myself. Both times I was one of the last four in the game (out of about ten pilots), and I made a couple of good defensive moves, along with one almost impressive save. Gimme another season and I'll be pretty decent, maybe. Oh, yeah, and I found out that my buddy Jef showed up for last week's SCUL ride and didn't tell me. Serves me right for not going!

Well, now its off to the great green north. I hope its not too cold. I've gotten used to the toasty weather we've been having here. Plus, I hate having to lug lots of big, bulky clothes all the way up with me. Though, I keep looking for excuses to wear this sweater I got that looks like a pack of lifesavers candy. I love it, because it looks like something Willow (from Buffy) would wear. Except that on me, it just looks like a big colorful blob. I always forget that I'm so much rounder in the middle than most people...

it's the sun!

I need to make an effort to update this a bit more frequently, don't I? Well, let's see, the update on my stepfather is that he's fine. It was a little rough going for a couple of days, but he had his surgery and is actually home, in Maine, already. If nothing else, this little scare made him (and my mom) acutely aware of how important it is to take care of oneself. He'd already cut out eating cow, but now he's got to be even more careful of the stuff he ingests. My mother dilligently made sure to finish off all of the potato chips, so that there weren't any in the house when he got home. :) And they are both really going to try to kick the cigarette demon again.

Stuff is going steadily along with MassBike, and I'm still quite excited to be a part of the organization in such a prominant position (one of two staffpeople). This weekend I go up to Maine to snoop on the Maine bike education program, and see what ideas I can steal from them. (Well, ok, they do know who I am and what I'm doing, so I guess I'm not such a great spy!) While I'm up there I get the bonus of hanging out with my mom (convenient, huh?).

The art thing is kind of on hold, with the weirdness of the week. I also have to wait a bit to find out if I can get a table for the big art fair. If I get it, I'll have to work my ass off to get ready for it. But I work pretty well under pressure. And making art is always fun, especially when I don't have to please upper management.

My computer game geek roommate Eric, who's also been unemployed, has finally gotten a job, so I'm losing my daytime partner in crime. We're not overly close, but he's a sweet guy, and has many talents that are particularly entertaining. If you ever meet him ask him to show you what he can do with his toungue...

what is that bright thing up in the sky?

My stepfather is in the hospital, and I can't decide what to worry about. He's never been in very good shape (drinking alcohol like a fish, eating meat, and smoking since age 14 will do that to a guy) so it's not surprising, but this is apparently very serious. I think that everyone is more worried about my mom, though. She's legally blind, lives in the middle of nowhere, Maine, and is completely broke right now. So she's a bit on the helpless side without my stepfather around. What's ironic is that he's actually down in my part of the world. For some reason no one ever seems to get operations done in the state of Maine. They are always shipped down here to a Boston area hospital. I'm going to try and go to see him today, but I'm one of those people who has a really hard time dealing with sick people, plus I'm not very close to him. So I'm trying to psych myself up for it. Fortunately, for everyone, my mom is going to come down tomorrow for the day.

As some of you may note, last night was Saturday, and I should have gone on the SCUL bike ride. I didn't, under the auspices of getting to sleep early enough that it didn't screw up my plans to venture off to the hospital today. Except that my upstairs neighbors had a party last night and my roommies and I ended up making an appearance. Until 3 am. I was there so late that someone who had actually gone on the SCUL ride showed up after the ride was over. (Turns out that it was a particularly unhappy ride, as some jerk in a car was trying to assault the gang.) But the party was fun. I learned a valuable party trick, too. Being a particularly shy type, I'm usually quite the wallflower at large gatherings. But last night, I showed up clutching a life sized penguin lawn ornament to my bosom, and it made me the hit of the party. I even got out ont he dancefloor and boogied my own, and the penguin's, booties off for a while. Oh, and I love my roommates. I can't say that enough these days.

I have a life

An epiphany came to me the other day, and I know what I'm going to do with my life, at least for a while. Art, dammit. I was watching a tv show about an elderly gentlemen who paints art on pretty much everything he can get his hands on. Old furniture, clothes, vehicles, essentially anything that has been discarded by someone in our disposable society. And he teaches kids to do it too.

So my idea is to set up a non-profit project to involve the community (primarily kids, but really anyone who wants to) in recycling trash into functional art. There was an organization in Boston a few years back that did this with "troubled youths" as a form of rehabilitation. (I haven't heard of them in a long time. Wonder what happened...) Anyway, my project would be more broad-reaching. As a first step, I'm working on establishing myself in the community as a recycled artist, with a line of "Renewd Art" that I'm going to hawk in a couple of places. Expect a media blitz, including the new and improved Random Turtle Productions website, within a month or two!

All this, of course, will have to fit into my schedule of being a big time bike advocate. Some day, I'm sure I'll fit all of my favorite roles, bicycling, teaching, and art, together in some really weird and random-turtle-like way. But, at the rate I find inspiration, this may be another ten years or so :)

Oh, and I can't forget to mention that we had our first SCUL ride of the season. Yay! I almost didn't make it, but managed to muster up some previously unavailable burst of energy, and had a grand old time. I managed to ride one of the fleet bikes that actually lowered my score, because it was supposedly really easy to handle (a point I would beg to differ on, as the extreme lowness of the pedals made it impossible to pedal through even mild turns, and the hugeness of the handlebars made quick maneuvering a lost cause). I really, really need to make my own turtle-sized chopper to ride... This mission was also the first time I ever got a chance to compete in a derby (a combination of tag and capture the flag, on chopped bikes, of course), and my greatest fears of suckage were, indeed, realized. Speed is pretty much something turtles are not known for. And, with my turning ability compromised, I had next to nothing to work with. With my own bike, I hope to at least have half a chance.

One final random note. About 10 years ago, I came up with a particular noise using a cheap drum machine. It was basically made by maxing out the volume of both the machine and the recording device (a cheap boom box). I thought it was brilliant, and I made a very long quasi musical piece with just this sound. Come to find out that other people have coopted my sound! Not only have I heard it in some of the more creative and experimental stuff on college radio, but I even heard it in one of U2's pop hits. I want royalties, dammit!

greed

I'm not all that familliar with all of the history of Israel and Palistine, but I've been trying to pay attention to stuff lately. What has shocked me is how incredibly primative and childish poeple are behaving in Israel. "It's mine!" "No it's mine!" "But my God said I could have it!" It's like national policy being decided by 6 year olds. (Not that the US government is really any better.) Don't they have preschool in Isreal? Somebody never taught these kids the concept of sharing.

I was watching the Bill Moyers show "Now", which seems to be one of the very few news programs on television that actually is run by poeple who aren't morons. There was a US couple on, who had moved into one of the settlements in the debated area of land. This husband and wife moved into what is essentially a war zone and then had FIVE children! One of their kids even had a bullet go through his head. Yet they still refuse to leave, because "the Bible proves that we are entitled to this land". This woman is so greedy that she is willing to sacrifice the lives of her children. It would be one thing if she was born there, or had lived there before the 1960's. But no, she moved from her own country, the US, into an occupied territory halfway across the world, in an attempt to kick somebody else out!

Thne the show interviewed some of the Isreali soldiers who were refusing to murder their neighbors in an offensive attack. Turns out that the Israeli government is arresting these guys and putting them in jail! In other words the government is saying "Kill people, don't think about it, and just do what you're told or we will punish you." Shades of Nazi Germany right in the epicenter of Judiasm...

It all just boggles the mind.

On a lighter note, it looks like aliens have taken over the White House. Someone who looked just like King George came out into public today and, for all intents and purposes, made sense! This former shell of an idiot actually suggested that killing people is wrong, adn that war needs to stop. Good heavens!

brave new turtle world

I just paid my credit card off, applied for unemployment, and had my first day of (part time) work at MassBike. Yay!

The work at MassBike is very likely to lead to some great stuff, and I'm really excited about the possiblities. Finally, I'm back doing what I want to be doing. With big thanks to Tim, who's working extra hard to make a place for me in the organization. I also spent most of Tuesday letting many of the bike organizations in the Boston area know what the other organizations are up to. When you really get immersed in the non-profit and activist world you realize just how many organizations there are out there. I even found out that my computer game geek roommate is on the board of directors for some computer game non-profit. And my dad and stepmother are on a committee for a folk dancing organization. I'd wager that there is an organization promoting just about every hobby or interest you can think of. For example, I know for a fact that there is at least one organization who's goal is to convince people that eating bugs is a great idea. If there isn't a group for your own favorite activity, then you should start one. Just imagine the friends you could make if you were the president of the ardvark appreciation society?

there's nothing phobic about it

Several people have gotten the idea that I'm a bit psychologically unbalanced because I tend to prefer staying home as much as possible. I admit it, I'm a hermit and I am a tad wary of trekking out into the big bad world out there. But this is no unfounded phobia. The world is a dangerous place. Case in point: this evening I was out doing a little trash hunting (my aunt said she'd seen a wine rack down the street and I wanted to check it out) and just a couple of blocks away form my house I was assaulted by some jerk in an SUV. I was whacked on the back of the head with a can of soda, which one of the village idiots whipped at me from the comfort of his truck. I tried to chase the freak down, to get the plate number, but he blew through a red light, turned off his lights, and made a break for it. (Maybe he'd been playing a bit too much Playstation lately?) I wasn't hurt, as I was wearing my helmet, but this just confirms my theory that the world is so filled with purposefully malicious bastards, ignorant bozos, and the just plain accident prone, that the act of going outside is very likely to be fraught with peril. No wonder people are afraid to go out without an armored vehicle, aka a car, just to buy a snack.

And the police are of no help either. When I went into the Somerville (MA) police station to report the crime, the woman behind the plexy glass looked at me like I was a crazy person and actually had the audacity to ask "Why?" Er... I filled out the form, even though it was likely to be tossed. And as I was leaving, she actually said to me, "Be careful out there". When the cops say that, you know it's bad.

history's mysteries

So, around last Solstice, I started getting a subscription to American Heritage magazine. I figured that it was a gift from someone in my family. The thing is, no one fesssed up to getting it for me. I tried reading a few articles in the first issue I received, but they were the same old blather that mainstream media always publishes. The issue I first got was the special "war" issue (ooooh!), and not only were ALL of the articles written by men, but they were ALL pro-war. Obviously, not something I cared to read (don't I get enough of this kind of thing EVERYWHERE?). One writer seemed to have a tad more balance than the rest, but then he completely blew it by saying that trying to understand the motives behind the 9/11 hijackings was pointless, because, get this, Osama Bin Laden is just plain evil. Yeah, ok. I expect to hear such rhetoric from the local jocks or even in a blog, but in a so called respectable historic magazine? That's just bad. Regardless, I still have no clue as to who sent me this subscription. I even called the magazine's customer service, but they had no record of who ordered it. I have my suspicions, but no proof. Anyone want to claim responsibility? Hmmmmmm?

the fools of april

Bush has resigned, Isreal has pulled out if it's occupation, and Enron execs have vowed to compensate all of it's employees for the money they lost.

No wait, it's just a joke. Happy fool's day! (I heard King Goerge is having quite the celebration today.)

I wish I was more of a prankster. I used to really get into April Fool's Day, but I think that I just take myself too seriously when I try to pull a prank. Or something. A few years ago, when I was dating this guy I'd met on a web message board, I sent a mutual friend a joke e-mail using my boyfriend's e-mail account. I pretended to be my boyfriend and confessed to our friend that I had beaten him up and asked for advice. I thought it was hysterically funny, because I'm such a huge proponent of nonviolence. However, I discovered that our friend didn't know me as well as I had thought, and took the e-mail completely seriously. The people in that circle of friends never quite trusted me again (though a really messy breakup didn't help matters, either).

Maybe I should just go back to the classic pranks like short-sheeting the bed, and putting salt in the sugar bowl. I did these kinds of things to my parents as a kid, and they seemed to go over pretty well and didn't make anyone think that I was a husband beater. Putting weird things in people's shoes, like plastic bugs or rocks or even marshmallows, is a good one too.