I've been holding off writing a new blog because I keep waiting for a new thing to become come to completion, while another new thing is birthed.
I am re-listening to Obama's speech right now (and still, again, when he said "Ann Nixon Cooper is 102 years old" I could have sworn he said "Anderson Cooper" the journalist). While I predicted something like this back when Bush was first sworn in for presidency in 2000, it is still hard to believe. Driving through the suburbs of PA, OH, and WV over the past few months on my way to bike races and campgrounds, I thought perhaps we were just doomed. I hope now, that he is as good a president as we all think he can be. I was watching the election with some anarchist friends, and one of them said, "I don't vote, I'm an anarchist." And I thought about Bush Jr. before he was a president. We burned effigies of him in Boston Common -- I remember building a great one in an alley across from Finagle a Bagel with John Haugh and Ben Weiser, we must have been about 17 or so, maybe 16 -- before the execution of a teenage boy. The fire department came and kept putting them out, and we'd light them again, and they put them out. I skated home and by the time it was dark out, it was raining. A Krishna friend picked me up and we drove home to the sound of chanting and the smell of dead flowers and I watched the clock tick past the time they were to execute the kid who was younger than I was. Bush never saw those effigies, though, and he wasn't moved by them, wasn't compelled to change or rethink that maybe the whole world IS watching, and maybe they don't like what they see. The news only reported a bunch of pyros almost set the Commons on fire, and that was about it. Anarchists or not, I think there was an activism to voting in this election, a way to say to the people who have been running our country corporately or politically or ideally (with their own ideals), that no, we don't want that anymore. We want the exact opposite, in fact. And there are a whole fucking lot of us.
Also, I sold the Olmo. Harold the bike, named upon his death to me. I sold him to Matty Smith in New Mexico for $1,000 (well, shipping was $50 so really $950 I guess). I loved that bike. But as all things change, it was finally time to pass on that part of my life, a generation of myself into the hands of another. I bought a Bianchi "San Jose" for $350 with the money: a single-speed cyclo-cross bike. The gear is still high, but it has brakes, can hold a water bottle and fenders, and I can ride it in the dirt. I love this new bike and think we will have a lot of fun together over the years. Jose reminds me to enjoy the ride, pedal hard but don't wear myself out because what is more important than me? It reminds me to get up on that curb and ride through that field, commute through the woods and coast, baby, coast.
In the meantime, Soupie's been having a real hard time riding lately. He can tell you about it in his blog, it isn't my story to tell. But it is in that we cannot ride together so much anymore. There is a horrifying potential for no more late-night rides to the north side to look at the city from afar, no more rides through Bloomfield and Greenfield in the wee hours of the morning for a great view and a cup of coffee. No more day trips far out of the city, 75 miles in the dead of winter just for the hell of it, just to feel our legs move and that gruff whir under our bodies. He's finally started stretching, and I suggested adjusting his pedal clips on his shoes. Hopefully with the combination of the two, he will be back in action in a week or so.
So I have been riding by myself. I went for my first solo mountain bike ride ever, just a few days ago. It felt great, actually, riding by myself. Riding my speed, the trails I want to ride. I even did a lot of things I don't have the courage to ride with other people. I fell a few times, but it was rewarding. I met up with Alan, one of Evan's older co-workers, after I'd been in the park for about two hours. I rode with him and his friend for another hour or so. We re-road Nature Trail, my favorite, and I endoed at the bottom of the big descent at the bottom. My right leg it swollen to all hell. A section of the trail i usually perilously walk down with my bike, I had ridden it for the first time earlier in the day with success. I was starting to chicken out again with people watching, but knew I could do it. I'd done it before. I do more dangerous things on my roadbike, and out there in the woods there are no cars to run me over afterwards. So I tried again and wiped out at the end. It was getting late, so I ended my ride and headed home to the dog and iced my leg until it was time to pick up Evan and go to the South Hills to take care of some paperwork regarding a new car (more on that in a second).
On top of that, the Camry broke down. Fine for me, as an individual. I love riding my bike, I can ride it everywhere I need to go. I work almost 15 miles away and commute the 5 big hills by bike most days unless I am running real late. But now we also have the dog and can't leave him alone fall day while we ride our bikes over an hour into the suburbs and hang out for another few hours and then ride the hour home. We need to take him to the vet, or to Evan's mom's house, and the car helps pick up his giant bags of dog food and our groceries. We could probably even get away with not having a car for this reason, especially since we have the baby trailer and could get a bob trailer for a lot less money than a car is. But we also love road trips. The reason I loved my bike so much as a kid was that I could hop on that little black demon and ride to the playground at school, or to a friend's house, or to that killer icecream stand in Weymouth. I liked my bike and my skateboard and my rollerblades because I could just GO. I didn't need to wait for a ride, or ask and hope for a ride, or worry about parking or anything like that. I went where I wanted to go, when I wanted to go there. Now, we are older. Sometimes we want to go places further away and sneaking on a Greyhound is a lot more expensive than it used to be.
Really, the world just isn't the same anymore. One day, a person wake up and thinks, Hey, I'm old. Or was it, Hey, I'm not so pissed anymore. A number of things. When we fall in love, a part of us dies to create space for this new thing that suddenly seems more important. Only years will determine what had the right to house itself in me all along. The anger I dismissed, or the affection I let in. Hopefully, it's the latter, even though it means settling. Not for something less-than, but a settling in, like a sore back into a comfortable chair. There's that part of me that still relentlessly wants to keep walking, but that comfortable chair, just like the San Jose, says, it's ok, sit for a while, relax.
So we got a 2004 Scion xB. Traded in the 1994 Camry for $1200, and now Soupie and I will have this car together, paying it off little by little, knowing we can use it to help us carry our loads, and we can count on it to start when we are too tired to ride, or too impatient to walk. It gets 35 miles per gallon on the highway, and 31 mpg in the city. It can go 100mph (at least) without feeling vulnerable. We are happy with it.
While I lament, seemingly endlessly, my old life of galavanting and wrecklessness and chaos, I am exhuberant about this life every time I go to class and talk about writing. My poems are critiqued and I feel like a human or more. I can't be a teen forever, but I can be a poet and resist in a way that still fits me.
I don't want new material things. I don't want gadgets, or new clothes, new fashions, technology, hype. I don't want to spend my money on all that garbage. I don't want to spend my money on hairstray and makeup either, whether punk or not punk, and I don't want to go through the hassle of stealing because getting caught is such a drag and I've been done with that crap for years now, practically a decade. I don't want to wear uncomfortable shoes or anything else that makes life hard for me. I want to wear cargo shorts and a hoody and ride my bike around in the woods. I want to nap with my dog and eat pizza with Soupie and go to a show every so often with all my friends together, dancing.
Dillenger 4 came through recently. I missed their show with NOFX, but the next night there was a cover show for them and they showed up and played a set and it was one of the best nights I've had in Pittsburgh. Certainly the most fun I've had at a show since leaving Boston. I missed that feeling in me, and was ecstatic that it could be sprouted in me here in this city where I've formed a home.
