I've been back to the Gwynns Falls Trail since my first experience of it, and can now give a much clearer, more convincing case for how terrific a trail it is. These photos were taken on two different rides, which accounts for the variance from overcast, cloudy sky to clear, sunny blue. The other contrasts displayed in this series of photos are what make this trail so very cool.
Beginning in the neighborhood of Dickeyville, at the top of Leakin Park, and heading down through Gwynns Falls Park, the Carroll-Camden Industrial Area, Westport, and ending at Middle Branch Park.
View the whole series here.
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Despite the fact that we've yet to reach the equinox, autumn has come and, as usual, I'm being drawn to weird and unusual reading material. I'll be into Poe and similar Victorian-era stuff by the time Halloween rolls around, but this year I've begun the season with more contemporary works.
I started out by re-reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and continued with his acclaimed young adult book, Coraline (though I still haven't gotten around to seeing the movie). Definitely a fun tale with a message of bravery for kids, Coraline's also an entertaining, quick read for adults. (Last year about this time, I read half of his most recent young adult work, The Graveyard Book, and definitely need to pick up another copy to finish it. Much more there to sink one's teeth into. No pun intended, for those familiar with the book.)
But while I accept that Gaiman seems to be acknowledged as the current reigning prince of weird literature, Clive Barker did it first and Gaiman is his heir-apparent. Probably most well-known as a horror-meister thanks to the popularity of the Hellraiser films (based on his short novel, The Hellbound Heart), Barker's actually an incredible writer of fantasy. The basic premise of most of his books (the same frequently utilized by Gaiman) is generally that of an ordinary, commonplace person thrust into a world beyond their imagining, who is compelled to travel a hero's journey and in the process finds him- or herself to be more than expected. Standard myth-stuff, but it's the characters and the landscapes Barker creates that make his works so
engrossing.  
In the realm of young adult fiction, the first two books of the Abarat series are as amazing as anything created by L. Frank Baum, but the Wicked Witch of the West has nothing on Barker's dark villains. And Dorothy's spunk pales beside that of Candy Quackenbush. These books are full of nightmare and beauty, and are only the beginning of what's apparently intended to be a five-part saga. On a much more adult level, works such as my favorite, Weaveworld, contain a sensuality (and sexuality) that the kid's books understandably can't approach. Descriptions of both people and places are vivid, and Barker's worlds are so fully, fantastically developed that they go beyond just drawing the reader in to making them want to enter the pages and inhabit these amazing realms. At the moment, I've just dived into Imajica for the second time. It's been several years since my first reading, and so far it's both surprising and familiar at once. The book's huge (I've got the original 800-something page paperback that was printed with a very tiny font), which is both a good and a bad thing. Bad in that it's a pain to carry around, yet good in that the pleasure of it lasts for days. It's definitely not one that can be read through in a weekend, no matter how much you're sucked into it. As such, it's long-term escapism.
I'm normally an empirically-minded pragmatist, and yet this story of forgotten magic and forgotten selves puts me into a mood to wonder what sorts of mysteries the real (or should that be "real"?) world has disremembered. Which makes it a nicely appropriate prelude to the coming season of autumn and Halloween. From Barker to Poe, one fantastic master to another.
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I have a new favorite place to ride. Selfish being that I am, the only reason I'm exposing it here is because I know my readership is so minuscule. And of those who do follow my babblings, most are not local, so the chances are slim that this wonderful gem of a place will become overrun due to my glowing review.
I first heard of the Gwynns Falls trail a few years ago but never took the time to look into it. While blowing some $$ recently at one of my favorite local bike shops, I noticed a stack of brochures for the trail that included a full map, so I grabbed one. A quick look showed that it passed through some areas of town that I thought might be more than a tad sketchy. So, while my curiosity was definitely aroused, I was also tentative about riding my snow-white, lycra-clad self through neighborhoods where I'd stick out like a sore thumb. So I did some googling, which led to two accounts of people being punched in the face or hit with rocks by miscreant youth in one specific area. Aside from that, though, the intarwebs turned up nothing but mentions of how nice the trail is. No one I found to ask about it went into much detail, but all said that it was an excellent ride.
With this weekend being a holiday one, my cycling options were limited. Everyone and their brother would likely be out on the rail-trails and at the parks where I like to ride, and I wasn't in the mood for crowds. That left either a rural road loop I've done a couple of times up above Frederick or, possibly... Gwynns Falls. Would the Labor Day hordes find their way onto this supposedly lightly trafficked trail and spoil my bid for solitude? Only one way to find out...
The trail begins at an exposed and barren commuter park'n'ride lot. How misleading. It quickly drops from the concrete wasteland into Leakin Park, a huge, amazingly natural urban park that was almost intersected by an interstate. I've been told that it was dramatically saved by MD Senator Barbara Mikulski and a crowd of protesters standing in front of a bulldozer, literally preventing it from tearing into the forest. If that's the case, I'm grateful and will continue voting for Mikulski each and every time she runs for re-election. (Now, if only she'd spearhead a crusade to clean up all the garbage along the creek...)
Within Leakin, the trail is a tangle of off-shoots leading to spots like the Carrie Murray Nature Center and the historic neighborhood of Dickeyville. The route I took by-passed these detours (leaving more for me to explore on future rides) and meandered along Gwynns Falls creek, transitioning from smooth pavement to old abandoned road to a crushed stone and dirt mix, and back to another stretch of abandoned roadway that finally, after 6.5 miles, spit me out into urban neighborhoods. This was the sketchy part, though the few people I encountered were perfectly pleasant. Another mile or so later, I was in the industrial area next to Raven's Stadium, passing old warehouses with fantastic architecture and bouncing over railroad tracks. From there, the trail heads either to Inner Harbor or down along the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River to Middle Branch and Cherry Hill parks. For my first run-through, I kept things short by heading in the direction of the Harbor via a brief jaunt through the re-gentrified section of Federal Hill.
After walking through the crowds on the Harbor promenade, I locked the bike up and headed into the food court. It didn't take long to snag a greasy soft pretzel and lemonade and return to the bike, where I sprawled in the grass and ate, watching the clouds and gulls floating over the Harbor... totally, surprisingly, at peace with the throngs of noisy tourists.
The ride back was as peaceful and solitary as the ride down, easier because it was simple to re-trace my way, yet also ever-so-slightly harder because I was heading back up, literally, to Leakin Park. I was amazed at how few people I encountered throughout the day, aside from the Inner Harbor crowds, and I can't wait for the chance to get back up there. Next time, Dickeyville and Cherry Hill Park. And photos, in order to document the awesomeness of the best damned trail I've found yet.
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Jim over at Unholy Rouleur has sucked me into Twitter-land. I still don't have an account and don't plan on posting any "twits" of my own, but I ended up first chuckling, then giggling, then practically guffawing out loud as I read back through this guy's posts (Be warned. To say the guy is irreverent is putting it lightly).
One more freaking intarwebs waste of time in my RSS feed. Dammit.
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Anyone who follows the Fat Cyclist blog most likely knows by now that Susan Nelson passed away last night. For those folks who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's the story as of 2007. And things went crazily downhill from there. For long periods, Susan would seem to be stable, and then they'd get horrendous news like this. By the time Elden posted this recent update, it was apparent that Susan's battle was drawing to an end. Even so, the news this morning was a surprise that left me in tears at my computer.
As I commented over at his sister Jodi's blog, Pistols & Popcorn, Elden's posts about Susan's battle have served so many times to help me regain perspective when I've lost focus due to stressful situations. I'm so very sorry for what they went through, for what he and the kids are going through now, yet at the same time I'm incredibly grateful that they had the courage to share it with all of Elden's readers. He and Susan will always be my heroes.
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One of my photos was selected for the most recent edition of the Schmap Baltimore Guide in their section on the Baltimore Museum of Art. I'd never heard of Schmap before but will certainly begin using it now. And I've definitely gotta get more of my photos up on Flickr. Recognition's a nifty thing.
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Addiction is a powerful thing. I don't think anyone could deny that, yet I do believe that most people don't realize that we're all, each and every one of us, susceptible to it. It's so very obvious in the form of compulsive, physical craving for drugs, alcohol, child porn, or even caffeine. But how often do we explore its less obvious forms?
My own strongest addictions take the forms of the intarwebs and driving fast. Like many other folks out there, I see the 'net for the time-suck that it is. And yet, there's just so much out there to explore, so many people from all over the world to converse with at almost any time of the day. With every new social networking site, every new message board or blog, I give more of myself and my time to it. Like a junkie I sit, jumping from tab to tab, refreshing pages, looking for that next fix, all the while knowing that I need to get my ass away from the computer to do housework, or sleep, or get ready for work, or just plain get outside.
Driving, on the other hand, has a tremendously narcotic effect, which I've described before. There's been many a day I've sat at my desk at work, or stuck in rush hour traffic, when I've found myself almost literally aching to be on some back road in West Va, swooping around curves and flying along straightaways. I had enough accidents in my younger years to fully realize the potential dangers of this craving, but I can't fight the excitement that arises when I picture my favorite roads under a sunny blue sky and I know I'll continue to indulge as often as I can.
I wish I could say that I'm addicted to physical movement, but what I have is really more of a deep appreciation that's easily overwhelmed by an apparently stronger appreciation of sloth. But I've always loved movement. Ballet class at 5 years old, a month on the middle-school track & field team, short-lived dance classes again in my teens, cycling, martial arts, vinyasa yoga... The flow of movement is both soothing and invigorating.
That deep appreciation that stops just shy of compulsion is what's behind an annual addiction to which I've succumbed: the reality/contest tv show, So You Think You Can Dance. Most people I know have gotten hooked on SYTYCD's elder sibling, American Idol, which I've never watched. But I happened to channel surf past SYTYCD a few seasons ago and stopped to check it out. One episode was all it took, and now I plan my weeknights in July and August around its air-times. And, yippee!, it'll now grow to a bi-annual addiction, as they're adding a second season later this year.
The show has all the elements of every other reality/contest show: Beautiful young hopefuls who put their heart and soul into claiming the title of "America's Top Dancer", and a suitably sympathetic, magnificently appareled emcee who shepherds them past a panel of sometimes annoying, yet always quirky judges. But it's also intentionally being used as a platform to introduce the viewing public to the art of dance. They've included expected styles such as jazz, hip-hop, and tango, but also surprises such as paso doble, Bollywood, and Russian folk dancing. And each season contains at least one performance that is flat-out, amazingly impressive, technically fantastic yet also emotionally moving. This week's episode included one of those sequences, the addiction dance...
Choreographed by Mia Michaels and performed by Kupono Awaeu and Kayla Radomski, this routine is a perfect example of just what makes dance an art. Purely through movement and expression, these two young dancers tell a story that so many of us can identify with, if we've looked deeply enough into our selves, or into the souls of those around us. From the first moment that Kayla runs to him and he wraps his arm around her, Kupono incredibly embodies the way that addiction controls us. She's drawn to him, and he in return man-handles her, plays the puppet master, tossing her around, taunting and stifling her, soothing then throttling her, all with a chillingly dispassionate expression on his face. And when she desperately tries to break free, to reach up and away from her craving, he grabs hold and shows her, with condescending ease, just how much stronger he is. Malevolent, one of the judges called Kupono's performance, and that's exactly what addiction is, in all its forms.
I'm addicted to this dance.
The video above is less than two minutes long, as it's only the dance. For a longer version in which Kupono explains his own experience with addiction and his reluctance to perform the routine, go here.
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What is it about madness that so fascinates? Is it a tentatively acknowledged fear that the grasp on sanity is tenuous? Or is it an attraction to the honesty of insanity, the letting go of our internal guard in exchange for freeing the deeply buried urges inside of us?
A couple of decades ago, perusing the crammed shelves of a used bookstore, I picked up a copy of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. The story of Joanne Greenberg's experiences (told through the character of Deborah) is stunningly eye-opening, with stark descriptions of the patients' characters and behavior, and of the treatments they received, off-set by the intelligently sharp wit Greenberg possessed even then. One passage that's always stuck with me takes place after several patients gang up on one of the ward attendants and Deborah is called upon to explain what took place:
"Well... Hobbs came down the hall and then there was the fight. It was a good fight, too; not too loud and not too soft. Lucy Martenson's fist intruded into Mr. Hobbs's thought processes, and his foot found some of Lee Miller. I had a foot out, too, but nobody used it."
... Deborah knew why it was Hobbs and not McPherson... Hobbs was a little brutal sometimes, but it was more than that. He was frightened of the craziness he saw around him because it was an extension of something inside himself. He wanted people to be crazier and more bizarre than they really were so that he could see the line which separated him, his inclinations and random thoughts, and his half-wishes, from the full-bloomed, exploded madness of the patients. McPherson, on the other hand, was a strong man, even a happy one. He wanted the patients to be like him, and the closer they got to being like him, the better he felt. He kept calling to the similarity between them, never demanding, but subtly, secretly calling, and when a scrap of it came forth, he welcomed it. The patients had merely continued to give each man what he really wanted. There was no injustice done, and Deborah had realized earlier in the day that Hobbs's broken wrist was only keeping him a while longer from winding up on some mental ward as a patient.
That's it, right there. Experiencing the insane is to walk the fine line between Hobbs and McPherson. When I found out that I lived only a handful of miles from the hospital at which Greenberg was treated, I was of course elated. The place was Chestnut Lodge, in the historic district of Rockville, MD, a huge Addams Family-ish building set on 20 or so acres of huge old white oaks (the chestnut trees after which it was named fell victim to blight many years ago). In its time, the Lodge was world-famous for its treatments. A few decades later, those same treatments would bring it notoriety, as the doctors there clung to ice-packing and electro-shock, along with psychoanalysis, while the rest of psychiatry turned towards chemical treatment.
For years I would drive by and peer at the building through the foliage, wondering what went on behind the windows on the upper floors. But I never went there. Even after the hospital closed and the building sat empty, I never stopped the car, never got out and wandered under those trees to see what the place looked and, more importantly, felt like up close.
As it sat empty, a developer bought it and the grounds and began to build luxury homes behind the main building. The Lodge itself was apparently to someday become million-dollar condos, which would bring an end to it being a hangout for the homeless and partying teens.
And now it's gone. At 3:00am this past Sunday morning, ninety-five firefighters responded to a call that the building was on fire. The condition in which it was left apparently made it ripe for burning, and it ended up nothing but a shell. When I finally had a chance to drive by this evening, demolition had already begun and all but the rear portion of the building had been reduced to piles of bricks. But I snagged some memories of what was left, and finally spent some time close enough to see through those mysterious windows, and to wonder, for one final time, about the people who had once passed through those rooms.
Click here for a few more.
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I just got home from a business trip in Las Vegas (The annual JCK and Couture jewelry trade shows, which are a BIG DEAL in the luxury jewel trade). Last year was the first time I took this trip and I tried my damnedest to blog about it, but it was so overwhelming I couldn't put it together coherently. When I began jotting notes on the first day of the trip, my intention was to put it together linearly, with day-by-day entries. But I quickly became disoriented by the dichotomies in my experiences, and by my reactions to those dichotomies. This year, I'm going to try again. Any linear time-frames have been thrown out the window and this has become just a jumble of thoughts and impressions from both trips. I wouldn't be surprised if you become as disoriented as I was. ( The whole crazy tale is under the cut... )
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This has become fascinating for me. Gross, occasionally painful, somewhat inconvenient, but also fascinating.
Hematoma, second morning after crash:
Hematoma, fourth morning after crash:
It's growing and changing like something out of a sci-fi movie, and I can't help but wonder if it's planning to take over my entire leg.
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Well, I had a fun ride today.
Drove out to Sharpsburg and got on the towpath across the river from Shepherdstown, headed downstream towards Harper's Ferry. It was gorgeous out, so I had no specific plan or mileage in mind, just figured I'd ride as far as I felt like then turn around to head back, and enjoy the beauty of the sky, river, and trees along the way.
So I'm cruising along, when I glance down and see a wasp on my thigh. I brush it off without looking, then glance down again and see it's still there. I brush again, looking to see if I got it and... I don't know if I hit a rock or leaned my weight the wrong way or what, but the next thing I know I'm sprawled face down in the gravel and dirt, with my bike under me. Hopped up, grabbed the bike to check it out, and noticed blood running down my arm. Twisted my elbow as close to my face as I could only to find a nice little hole gouged in my arm. There's also almost 6 inches of bright red road (towpath?) rash down my shin and the leather on the palms of my gloves is shredded. And I can feel a goose egg growing on the inside of my thigh from where it must've smacked into the nose of my saddle.
Fortunately, I was just upstream from the Huckleberry Hill campsite, so I start walking the bike towards it and see 4 people standing near the porta-john. They were standing around a snake that was in the middle of the towpath, probably wishing they'd all go away. I had to walk around and through the group to get to the porta-john for some toilet paper (since none of them would move), holding my hand up in front of me to prevent the blood from running down my arm, and not one of them seemed to notice. I come out of the porta-john wiping gore off my wrist, and still not one of them says anything to me.
So I grabbed my bike and headed down to the picnic table, where I had to lie down for a bit for the adrenaline to wear off and my ears to stop ringing (I had hit my chin on the ground). After a while I sat up, pulled out my first aid stuff (thank goodness I come prepared), and began trying to clean myself up. Then I had to get my chain untangled from the bottom bracket and fix the shifter that'd been knocked cockeyed. During the time that I was sitting there, 3 more pairs of people passed by and two of the people who had been looking at the snake passed again heading back. Again, not one of those 10 people said "How are you?", "Are you ok?", or even "Gee, you look goofy."
The 9 mile ride back to the car was easier than expected, and it was so very beautiful out this morning that I was actually still able to enjoy it. If it weren't for the fact that my elbow continues to ooze blood as I type this, the crash would kind of be no big deal.
And there's a big drop of blood right in the middle of the top tube of my bike. I think that I'm not going to clean it off. It will serve as a reminder to me that, in this world of oblivious idiots, I can take care of myself.
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...Mag Glycinate and Endurabolic. I've been on the magnesium supplement since last year, after telling my chiropractor about the heart arrhythmia I'd experienced on a few strenuous rides. He recently recommended the Endurabolic supplement after I mentioned the sluggish, weak feeling I'd also had on many occasions last summer.
My last two rides have been challenging. Last weekend, some friends convinced me to take on the Peach Tree Loop, site of my first scary experience two years ago with whatever heart issue I may or may not have. Sure, I caved in and walked the bike part-way up three of the steepest hills this time around and made my riding partners take a couple breaks more than they otherwise would have, but I survived, dammit, and felt good afterward.
Today I had planned on a 45 mile ride along the Western Md Rail-Trail in preparation for an organized ride I'm doing on in eastern Md in just over a week. Nice and flat, just like the upcoming Wild Goose Chase ride at which I hope to do the 43 mile route. Last year's Wild Goose wasn't as fun as it could've been, but if this year's weather allows I hope to take greater advantage of the flat roads and gorgeous scenery that comprise it. So, today was a practice run. Except that today began with wind gusts up to 20mph. Heading northwest towards Hancock took me straight into those gusts. I tucked down in the drops and plowed into it at a somewhat comfortable cadence, but it wore me out quicker than I would've liked so I turned back at mile 12.5 and made the most of the tailwind on the return ride. Of course, by the time I got back to the car the wind had become merely a breeze and I could've gone on for a few more miles...
What was different on both of these rides was that, as hard as my legs and cardiovascular system were working, I felt good. I may have been tired and even a little sore, but there was none of the weakness that's been such a plague for so many months. Right now, instead of feeling that I can't do anything but collapse in a chair and vegetate, I feel fatigued yet strong.
Dr. Joe, I love ya.
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Hi, my name is Kali and I'm an addict. Yesterday, I blew off an incredibly lovely, albeit windy, spring afternoon by succumbing to the lure of the intarwebs. I said I would just sit down and quickly check my e-mail. Two message boards, Facebook, a bunch of blogs, and several RSS feeds later, it was less than an hour before sunset and I also had housework to do. I may be (hopefully) keeping my brain sharp with all of this stuff, but the body's getting soft and that just won't do.
It's time to impose some limits. I won't be going away entirely, as there are too many people around the web that I've connected with and I want to maintain those connections. But I also need to find a better balance between time on-line and time doing all the other stuff that rounds out one's life. So, to anyone to whom I currently owe a reply-- please be patient, it's going to take me even longer than usual to get back to you.
As for you, intarwebs... It's not goodbye, it's just au revoir.
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This is apparently the only way I could get ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ahumblepen 's answers, so here...
( Everyone have fun. )
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Today's weather was the most schizophrenic I've seen in a long time. From dense, milky fog in the morning, to thicker stratus clouds and drizzle, to blue sky and fluffy mixed cumulus and cumulonimbus, to being pelted with rain under a sky mixing all of the above. At one point, though, I managed to hurriedly park the car along route 340, then dash across heavy traffic and run out onto the bridge just in time to catch this before the clouds shifted and it faded away:
Click image for larger view
Look Alive
The hardest thing is rendering a
moment moving too fast to endure
But you abide and smile wide 'cause
I want to remember this for sure
Give me guns and politics and
I'll just make a mess of it, y'know
Give me art as sustenance and the
wiser, wider part of me will show
A picture says with sight
what we can't say with words
But you've been walking eyes-to-feet in dark sunglasses
A picture will survive
So smile and look alive
The camera lens is opening, a wider angle is yours
Every empty one of us have methods
to quell the madness of this place
But yours have bled and are running south
like dollar-store mascara down your face
You can take that wait and on that bus and
I'll just get the best of us, y'know
Give me love not suicide
and the wiser, wider part of me will show
A picture says with sight
what we can't say with words
But you've been walking eyes-to-feet in dark sunglasses
A picture will survive
So smile and look alive
The camera lens is opening, a wider angle is yours
Look alive
Smile, smile and look alive
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Got out on the bike yesterday for the first time in five months. I left the computer at home, and my intention was to just ride easy with no care for mileage, cadence, or speed. It started out well enough, easy as I'd intended, turning the pedals at a smooth, loping pace. But then it became... not quite hard, but... effortful. I can blame part of it on a slight wind that kicked up periodically (always a cross-wind, never a tail-wind, of course), but the rest? So many of last year's rides were like this, easy one moment, the next a concerted effort to keep the cranks turning smoothly at the same rhythm. I've begun a series of doctor's appointments to check out everything from my asthma to the heart flutters I experienced last summer and fall. There's got to be something at the root of this fatigue, whether it's my heart, my lungs, diet, poor sleep, the beginnings of inherited fybromyalgia, I want to find the deficiency and correct it. So this morning I woke up feeling sluggish and out of it, not to mention sore in the saddle area. Not getting on the bike today, how about a nice, easy hike instead? Almost thought I was too tired even for that, but I finally forced the car in the direction of one of the many local trails and headed out. By that point I felt absolutely no desire to exert myself, but wanted badly to be out in the woods under the vibrant blue sky. After wandering probably less than a mile, I found a good spot and plopped my fatigued ass down by the creek, where my mind turned to a series of thoughts that've been fermenting in the vat of my brain over the last few weeks.
Between my own gradually increasing physical limitations (fuck it, let's call a spade a spade-- middle-age is slowing me down) and recent synchronistic reminders of Ego (it's a big subject, so it gets a capital 'E'), a bit of Baudelaire struck me that I may as well share...
( Beneath the cut... )
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There've been words bouncing around in my head for the past few weeks trying to become a couple of blog posts, but so far they're not coalescing into anything coherent. So, in the meantime, you get some spring fever babblings...
I was reminded today that the first day of spring signals the new year in the Persian world. I haven't researched why the middle of winter was chosen to begin the calendar year pretty much everywhere else, but the Zoroastrian idea makes so much more sense symbolically. Spring is when everything comes back to life and begins, for crying out loud. Winter has its moments of snowy prettiness but, really, the Greeks nailed it when they designated it the season of death. Why would anyone choose to begin a new year when everything around is in stasis?
The sticky little leaves are forming here in the mid-Atlantic region and elsewhere, and will soon open to their new beginnings. If you've got 'em where you are, go, get out there and appreciate them.
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So, there was another lunatic on the subway this evening. On the way home from work, I boarded a half-empty train and found a spot standing in the aisle facing out towards the windows. As the train flew through the dark tunnel, the reflection in the window revealed a grizzled, disheveled gentleman sprawled across the row of seats behind me, with his belongings sprawled across the row of seats ahead of him. Before the train had gotten very far, he began sputtering and grumbling. I continued watching in the reflection as a fellow commuter noticed, shifted, and moved to the other end of the car. Despite his apparent weirdness, the lunatic had the presence of mind at the next stop to gather himself and his belongings into one row of seats and offer the row he emptied to some new passengers.
As the train continued, the volume of his mutterings increased until it became clear to us all that he had a serious issue with air travel. "Don't fly the goddamned airplanes up in the sky! I don't unnerstand you people, why you wanna fly? God said keep your feet on da ground! I'm tryin' to save you, like Jesus Christ, I try to save you!" All of this tumbling out of his almost toothless mouth in the most gravelly voice I've ever heard. He'd occasionally become more excited, at one point standing and leaning over between the two people in the row in front of him. One of the two, commendably, remained calm and quietly urged the lunatic to take a break, telling him that we understood, it was ok, he should sit down. It worked. He gradually calmed a bit, telling us again in a lower voice that he loved us and just wanted to save us.
As always in these situations, my attention shifted between the lunatic and the reactions of the people around him. On a few of the faces nearby, I sensed alarm, annoyance, stifled giggles. Most, though, stoically gave no indication that they noticed anything at all out of the ordinary.
On and on the guy went, standing and waving his arms, sitting back down and grumbling, then standing again to exhort us all to stay outta the goddamned airplanes up in the sky. I wanted so badly to turn around and ask him what he thought of cars. What held me back? Sure, a part of me was apprehensive of further setting him off, uncertain of how close he might be to whatever line kept him from physically accosting any of us. But I think a bigger part of me feared something else. What if he didn't understand the question? What if he flat out ignored me? I honestly think I was afraid of being rebuffed by a lunatic.
After a while, he again quieted down and sprawled back in his seat, letting out periodic low cackles. I glanced up from scribbling at one point and happened to catch his eye. A moment later I heard him mutter "What's she writin' over there? She writin' a book?" A young couple a few rows up captured his attention then and he began babbling about how nice it is to have a girlfriend. Next minute, though, we heard over and over about how the girlfriend had been kidnapped, and that "They gonna kill da white girl on tv." But he was an equal opportunity lunatic, because very soon "They gonna kill da white man, too..."
Thirty-five minutes after I boarded, when the train reached the end of the line and we all got off, he stayed sprawled and rambling in his seat. I can picture him now, riding into the night, warning his fellow subway passengers of the dangers of "the goddamned airplanes." Hopefully, at some point, his mind will let his body rest.
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David Bowie sings that line in Young Americans, which is a pretty intense tune in its own right. I was recently reminded of the one song that always has that effect on me, and it just so happens to be another of his. I go through long periods during which I forget about this song, then I'll hear it somewhere, on the radio, over a store intercom and... it'll hit me. An emotional reaction that I feel all the way down in my toes. I have no idea what it is that does it-- the lyrics are profoundly meaningful, the vocals are beautiful and evocative, and both are perfectly complimented by the softenings and swellings of the music. But dozens of other songs contain those same elements. Bowie somehow combines them all in a way that never fails to put a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. The statement at the end of the video is apt, Bowie does indeed rox.
Changes ( Lyrics under the cut )
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Spring fever has begun creeping up on me yet again, with its usual symptoms of restlessness and agitation. I'm digging through cds and pulling out old music for a change of pace, having flashbacks in my mind's eye to summer bike rides and the scenery that accompanied them, and itching to hit the road for far away places. The winter's chilly grip is loosening, leaving me with a need to sweat. A hike in the woods or flowing yoga routine just won't cut it, I need to get out on my bike and really make my body work.
More compellingly, I want to get out on my bike, the first I've had that feeling in months. Knowing that the weather's oh-so-gradually warming up means it's time to get the bike cleaned and ready. I won't spring-clean my apartment, but I will give the bike a thorough going-over-- removing the chain and lovingly wiping down each link, polishing up the frame with a bottle of aptly-named Bike Lust, cleaning and adjusting the components to the best of my ability. This year, inspired by #4 of the How to Ride a Bike Forever manifesto, I've decided to remove the computer from the bike. I'll be doing this with a high level of trepidation. Despite riding statistic-less for the majority of my life, I quickly became addicted to entering those numbers on a log. None of them were particularly impressive by "serious" cyclist standards, but my left-brain was tickled pink by logging, reviewing, comparing, and analyzing. But I feel strongly that it's time to get back to right-brain riding for at least a while, so left-brain's just gonna have to handle its numbers withdrawal as best it can. Besides, getting all those wires out of the way will make cleaning the bike just that much easier.
On the subject of the increasingly run-down looking apartment that I hate to clean, it's becoming a major source of dukkha. After re-painting half of the place a few years ago and then having the bathroom somewhat professionally remodeled, I'd been planning to begin tackling other things in increments-- new dishwasher and refrigerator, then new flooring in the kitchen and sunroom, finally finishing the re-painting job... But $12,000 of veterinarian bills over the course of 2008 completely side-tracked those ambitions. Meanwhile, the list has continued to grow even as the money has shrunk. While I was in Vegas on a 10-day business trip last summer, the cats tore down a chunk of wallpaper in the kitchen, which means that room's just that much closer to needing a complete remodel. A crack in some small component of the furnace is being monitored at bi-annual maintenance checks, in the hopes that it won't necessitate a whole unit replacement for a few more years. And, more recently, I came home to find that some numb-skull left my storm door unlatched while distributing menus for a pizza place that I'll never call. The wind apparently then caught the door and blew it back against the wall of the building, yanking the retracting door closures out of the door frame and breaking the wood of the frame. I should be glad it didn't shatter the glass of the door, but as I picked screws, bolts, and other assorted parts off the ground, all I wanted to do was punch the un-thinking doofus in the face (for which I'll certainly spend another lifetime in samsara, if the whole Hindu/Buddhist reincarnation thing really holds water).
The houses we lived in when I was growing up always had the same hodge-podge, borderline decrepit feeling my place is beginning to take on. My father is a fairly competent, energetic handy-man, but he's also easily distracted, never fully completing any of the projects he begins. I'm in some sort of handy-person limbo, myself. I can swap out a door-knob or hang a curtain rod lickety-split, but was flummoxed in my attempts to remove and replace a worn-out kitchen faucet. And my only excuse for not getting back to re-painting the rest of the apartment is pure laziness. Painting's fun for about two hours, and then I can't take it anymore and want to just go play. I'm to the point that I feel like I need to begin sketching or writing poetry, just so I can absent-mindedly look around the place and shrug, using the excuse that I'm too busy being creative to worry about mundane things like the appearance of my home. It would be better than this feeling that I'm too broke and/or lazy to do anything about it.
Fuck it all, I'm outta here. It's flipping cold outside, but the woods are calling.
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