I am becoming less jaded in my old age

I've been listening to more radio in the car lately, both as an attempt to shake off Kurt Cobain and because I've had more car time in the past week than in the previous month. What I’ve been hearing is catchy but disturbing. I laughed when I caught the line, “I know she loves me- she loves everybody.” Listening more carefully though it’s a sad and creepy song. Yet it's nowhere near as bad as "a kiss with a fist is better than none." It’s sickening to hear, and even assuming it is supposed to be metaphorical, it’s suggesting that it’s better to be in a painful relationship than in none at all. Please, go find the girl who loves everybody instead.

bike plan again

As expected, the final presentation of the Albany Bicycle Master plan was disappointing. I'm not sure whether the organizers wanted to limit attendance or are just inept (and am not sure which bothers me more) but they didn't announce the meeting until last week and didn't release the plan until today, so no one could read it before the presentation. Not that it would have mattered anyway, I suppose, since they again refused to allow questions or comments from the audience. (I was tempted to stage an uprising but was unsure of my support.)

A few things will be implemented in the next year or so. They're entirely inadequate but I didn't think they were going to even pretend that this process was going anywhere. This spring: an education program. Woo-hoo. We'll see what this looks like, and hopefully it will be more focused on drivers not killing people than bicyclists being irritating to drivers. Also, CDTA is going to assist businesses and municipalities in bike rack installation and include bike racks along the bus rapid transit line between Albany and Schenectady.

The big exciting finale: sharrows along a few disconnected streets. Sharrows are pavement markings with pictures of bicycles and arrows, intending to inform drivers that bicycles are in fact allowed on the road. Maybe they're better than nothing, but they risk giving the impression that bicyclists aren't supposed to be on the roads without them. (Bike lanes can be problematic in this way too, but at least with them the cyclists are getting something out of it.) And white paint is apparently very expensive 'round these parts because they're only putting them in a few random places. (Well, presumably they're not random and are streets that are being worked on- Delaware Avenue is one- but the final effect will be disjointed. And given how hard the City finds it to keep even lane markings painted, I wonder how long they'll be maintained.) Perhaps we need to just go in and paint our own, like these folks?

There are going to be actual bike lanes on Clinton Avenue but only for a few blocks.

The reports is at (100-page pdf) and comments can be directed to AlbanyBikePlan@cdtcmpo.org.

Biking ten miles in the rain after dark was thankfully not a total waste of time. It is a nice night despite the drizzle and a fox crossed Delaware six feet in front of me.

it's better than wanting an unnecessary minivan

I’ve been thinking a lot about going car-free once our current car dies. If there were a local carshare program, we could definitely do it, and I think we might be able to pull it off anyway- the occasional taxi or rental car should be less expensive than the monthly cost of purchasing, maintaining, insuring, and fueling a car. Even if we can’t keep it up long-term I think it would be an interesting experiment to try for a few months.

I’m perhaps using this to justify my lust for cargo bikes. I’ve researched them sufficiently to have picked out what I would get; a Yuba Mundo which is decidedly less fancy than a lot of options but should be able to do pretty much anything I want it to for a reasonable price. (Comparatively reasonable, I mean; it’s still more than $1000.)* I was pretty much set to just get it when Dan pointed out that we can really do most of what we need with our current bike trailer and that it was rather unlike me to buy anything that we can reasonably make do without. I didn’t much appreciate being forced to admit that I just wanted it because I like it, but it’s true, so I’m letting it wait. Hopefully the new model coming out next month will only be available in hideous colors to reduce my temptation.


* Nerdy details about the final narrowing-down once I decided to focus on the less expensive options: I was torn between the Mundo and a Big Dummy, which is similar in a lot of ways but has fancier components plus the benefit of working with Xtracycle parts which are coming out with more nifty accessories each year. (The Kona Ute, also in this category, didn’t sound as sturdy.) But in addition to costing more than 50% more, I was worried about the shape of the frame making it more difficult for both Dan and I to ride it. The top bar of the Mundo is angled such that I think we’re both more likely to be able to ride it comfortably. (Its frame comes in just one size, while the Big Dummy comes in several, which means it’s not designed to accommodate riders of dramatically different heights. Most people don’t share bikes.) Finally, a very patient man at a Portland utility bike shop was kind enough to chat with me and he said he’d get the latest version of the Mundo even if price were no object. Then I was sold.

You've probably never noticed this, but fathers are treated differently than mothers.

Facebook post from a guy I knew in college: “[Name] is beat from picking apples and carrying children all day.” His mother posted: “Dads like you are rare!” I was tempted to write something snarky about how fathers who spend time with their children aren’t rare in my world, where most of my friends wouldn’t consider having kids with someone who wasn’t willing to be a co-parent, and that men shouldn’t be given pats on the back for doing what ought to be expected. I managed to refrain (it’s his mother, after all, and I can give her the benefit of the doubt and pretend that she just wanted to tell her son that she’s proud of him and wasn’t thinking about her word choice) but it was difficult. When I see women posting similar things they get comments like “isn’t fall fun?” or “but aren’t kids worth it!”

It’s most noticeable to me when Facebook-ers are expecting children. Women can’t post anything without people mentioning the baby. “I had an avocado for lunch” will get comments about how they should eat more, or the unsaturated fats are so good for their fetus, or they’d better be careful so they don’t gain too much weight, or to enjoy it while they still got to eat with two hands. Men’s impending parenthood is generally ignored. A friend of mine who posted about his baby for two trimesters was kind of ignored; he’d put up a status like “Finished sewing curtains for the baby’s room!” and people would comment about his art, his house, anything but fatherhood. It’s so frustrating to see people who quite clearly are not choosing a stereotypical gender-based division of labor to remain externally defined by it. What could a pregnant woman possibly be thinking about other than gestating, after all, and her husband must certainly be more interested in other things, right?

(Incidentally, the research potential of Facebook comments is pretty much untapped; if I were in grad school I’d be figuring out how to use Facebook data for my dissertation.)

90% of you still have at least one kidney! Congratulations!

Social marketing can work. And pointing out that most of your peers are engaging in healthy or prosocial behavior can be effective, so, for example, a 16-year-old virgin doesn’t think she’s the only one left. But the University at Albany attempts to do this in a rather confusing way.

Every semester the counseling center hangs up posters around campus: click here to see them. The one on my floor says: “79% of UAlbany students drink alcohol twice a week, less often, or not at all.” This is presumably supposed to make students who don’t drink frequently feel better about themselves. My reading? More than a FIFTH of the student population is drinking three or more times a week. WOW. Really, twice a week on average is quite a bit, assuming that it’s typical student-type drinking rather than a beer with dinner. Wouldn’t the statistic have been a little more encouraging to non-drinkers if it only included those who drank less than once a week? Or was that number too embarrassingly low to publish?

Another? “80% of UAlbany students have not engaged in unprotected sexual activity as a result of alcohol use.” I’m not entirely sure what this is trying to convey. That those in this 80% shouldn’t feel like prudes? Seems a little bit backwards. Maybe it would be more effective to point out that an entire FIFTH of the population apparently has, which (a) you may want to make an effort to avoid, and (b) means that whoever you’re sleeping with may well be in this category and perhaps more likely to be diseased. (Also: 77% have not physically injured themselves and 88% have not gotten into a fight due to alcohol. Reverse those odds, and wow.)

There are more. “58% of UAlbany students consume four or less alcoholic drinks at bars.” Disregarding the grammar, it’s hard to even know what this means (other than that 42% consume 4+). Is this only among students who are old enough to drink at bars, or can just about anyone get served around here? Or are all the people lacking fake IDs included in that 58%? “89% of UAlbany students believe that alcohol shouldn’t interfere with academics.” The rest think it SHOULD?

I’m not sure whether the survey results were so disturbing that there was no good way to present the data positively, or if the campaign’s designers just weren’t thinking. I find it pretty hard to believe that these posters are going to do what they hope.

Empire Group

must stop reading Modern Love

I hate the insistence that every bad experience has a “purpose” of some kind. SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN. I understand the benefits of looking on the bright side; saying “well, it sucks that I lost my job, but if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have had time to replace the plumbing.” But accept it for what it is, optimism or rationalization, not something that was “meant to be.” Believing that some force out there not only chose this to happen to you, but chose it in order to IMPROVE you, is arrogant and self-centered and negates the experiences of the people out there who have bad thing happen to them with no reprieve. Like the ones who just die of cancer, in pain, with grieving families. What, had they done something wrong, so they didn’t just get cancer in order to find a new boyfriend? “People don’t die of disease; they die when their life is complete?” Gawd.

Twin Trees

So I thought I’d written up and posted about our trip to Twin Trees back in July, but it turns out I was only half done. And now I don’t remember what else happened. But here’s what I have:

Day 1: I pack furiously, but confronted with a refrigerator full of a CSA share, I am too overwhelmed to consider planning meals. I leave behind the cheese I’d bought for the trip but Dan remembers to bring socks and underwear this time.
The ride is blessedly uneventful. When we arrive, C immediately claims his favorite chair in the living room and reads a book. A wails, as we’re still unloading the car, “C has something to do and I don’t!” I suggest she climb on rocks, and to my surprise, she thought that was a fantastic suggestion.

We unpack and eat ice cream and send the kids to bed. (C in the Chalet, and I wonder if the fact that he not only accepts, but enjoys, sleeping in a building by himself at his age is something I should worry about.) Dan equates contra dancing with speed dating and we listen to the rain on the roof.

Day 2 dawns bright and sunny; we wonder where we are. Friends call and worry that their child may be too ill to visit. We assure them that vomiting only adds to the ambiance and ask them to pick up our cheese*. Dark clouds have rolled in by the time they arrive. “It’s funny,” they say, “it was sunny right up until we turned onto Thirteenth Lake Road.” How did my ancestors find such a miserable microclimate?

Hooper mine, lemon balm pesto, wine, campfire, s’mores (with vegan marshmallows!), hearts. Dan and I marvel at the functional toaster, and it occurs to us that we, too, could have one that toasts both sides of the bread simultaneously and stops when done.

Day 3: A bickers with her friend all morning (“everyone in the whole world is hurting my feelings!”) but shrieks, “You can’t leave so soon!” when his family departs. We go to Raquette Lake, where it’s windy and cloudy but not actually raining. The kids explore the cemetery when we return. We wonder, not for the first time, why my relatives LIKE to have a view of the road. I read a recipe that calls for a quart of breadcrumbs, which are used as bait to trap the pigeons used as the meal’s protein source.

Day 4: C wants to spend the day in his pajamas and we agree that he doesn’t have to go anywhere that requires clothing. So we spend the mostly sunny day reading; A colors and misuses game pieces and both kids play outside. Dan can’t take another day without e-mail and goes to North Creek for a fix. (I am extremely jealous.) He then demonstrates an effective way of removing dried CSA popcorn from the cob that he learned from a childhood of tic-tacking houses with field corn. I propose that people who hit deer with their cars be required to take partial responsibility for their actions by learning to gut and cook the meat.

Day 5: I think we went to the swimming hole at Ski-Bowl, which has the same lifeguard as last year. Sweet job- there are rarely any swimmers there, the pond is only about 5 feet deep, and he has his friends come over to hang out all day.

Day 6: Our next set of friends gets in around midnight and we stay up way too late chatting.

Day 7: A guest cooks us potatoes and peanuts for our third breakfast before we head out to Hooper Mine again. A climbs to the promontory without assistance. We stop at Thirteenth Lake on the way home and A freaks out when “black plumpy things” attach themselves to her. “The problem is that she doesn’t move around enough so the leeches have a chance to grab on,” Dan opines, as he swims out to a rock. All the children wail because they can’t reach the rock too.

Dan liked last year’s improvised lentil/ turnip/ feta meal so much that he makes it again, on purpose this time. Brian arrives as our other friends leave, bearing a six-pack of beer and a bag of cookies. He knows how to please us.

Day 8: Brian takes his bike to check out the “bike center” at Garnet Hill Lodge but is foiled by typical Adirondack service. So he rides to North Creek and back instead. The grandparents pick up C for a couple nights at Raquette Lake.

I tell Dan that I don’t want to go out to dinner if it means driving as far as Indian Lake (20 minutes). He tricks me into getting in the car to drive to the trailhead for Vanderwhacker Mountain an HOUR away, the last five miles of which on a rocky dirt road that does unmentionable things to our car. It’s muddy and buggy and steep and starts to rain when we’re less than halfway up. Brian and I insist on descending, traumatizing A who’d been promised a fire tower, but as it starts raining harder and harder even Dan admits we were right. We arrive at the car soaking wet and covered in mud, and of course have to creep back along the now-wet road designed for high-clearance 4WD vehicles. We have been officially Vanderwhacked.

Tired and hungry, we stop in Olmstedville for pizza at the dubiously-named Lucky Leprechaun. The waitress is polite and the place is clean, which is remarkable ‘round these parts, so things are looking up. The food takes forever, but when it finally comes I’m impressed that my first slice of pizza is tasty. Then I have a second and realize I was just starving initially. There is a single bathroom that eight people, including the four in our party, all desperately need to use simultaneously. I give up before it’s my turn, determining that it’d be more expedient to just drive home, where I declare that sea shanties don’t make anyone gay.

Days 9: Who knows? Presumably we were recovering from being Vanderwhacked.

Day 10: We manage to pack and clean up early so we’d have time to get home and settle in before I needed to go to work on Monday. But we are foiled on our way out of North River, when A has a sudden bout of (understandable) motion sickness and vomits all over the car. We spend an extra half hour cleaning up in the Hudson. Our car ride is more peaceful than usual, as C is still with his grandparents and A can obsessively listen to the same book on tape as she did on the way up, and I get the first load of laundry in as soon as we get home.

Back in September!


* I later find local cheese from happy cows for sale at Hudson River Trading, so I won’t have to fret so about left-behind-cheese in the future.

this is an awful lot of pears

I expect them all to ripen while Dan is away, leaving me with a lot of work to do this week.

driving home from pear-picking

D (as torrential downpour begins): Sorry; I need to stop telling the story for a while so I can focus on driving.

(pause)

A: No matter how many zeros you get, you still have nothing.
C: Of course. But if you put just one other number in front of all the zeros, you could have a huge number! Even one that goes on forever!
A: Like pi goes on forever.*

(At this point I get distracted; we’re crossing the Dolly Parton Thaddeus Kosciuszko Bridge and the rain is stopping; I ponder the surprising effect the Mohawk River has on weather patterns. When I tune back in, C is counting by twenty-billions.)

C: 420 billion, 440 billion…
S: Why are you doing that?
D: Because he’s showing off to A. Leave him alone.
S: But why twenty-billions?
C: Because it’s so fun! 580 billion, 600 billion…

When he reaches 900 billion, he starts interjecting the a cappella equivalent of guitar riffs between counts. And there is quite a grand finale at one trillion.

(pause)

D: Um, did you want to hear the rest of the story now?


* Poor child; I can’t remember the last time we had to calm her angst about pi, but it seems that while she’s much braver about facing it, she’ll never forget.

maybe I shouldn't try to learn everything from books

I nicked a tire on my bike last week and replaced the tube by following the instructions on the box. I still wanted to patch the old one though- Dan has done enough tube patching to feel that it’s not worth the effort, but I figured it was worth a try, especially since the tube was only a month old and we need one for our spare bike. I couldn’t find any rubber cement, so I asked a friend who was coming over to bring some along if she had any.

Instead she brought a patch kit; even better. And it had instructions- hurray! They say “How to use” with a little picture of a skull and crossbones on one side and a fire on the other.

“1. The side of Aluminum foil is adhesive and care should be taken so that a finger.”
Huh. Well, maybe this makes sense in context.

“2. Pick a corner of the paper and remove the paper softly from the aluminum foil.”
Okay, I don’t see any “paper,” but maybe that’s what the orange stuff behind the black stuff is.

“3. When the rubber solution coated on the tube s about dry put this patch on it with paper as it is.”
That implies there’s a rubber solution coated on the tube. Well, I can do that. I do wonder how I’ll know when it “s about dry.”

“4. Snap the paper by folding the patch on the center.
5.Remove the paper from the snapped parts.”
These suggest the paper goes on top, which is logical. I suspect that if it’s actually paper it won’t snap exactly, but whatever.

“6. Place the repaired part of the tube on a stand and pat it with a small hammer several times.”
“Pat” it with a hammer? Huh. Pressing it together or clamping it seems to make more sense than gently slamming it. But anyway.

It felt like I should start by putting the rubber cement on the tube, since I’d be waiting ‘til it “s about dry” and all. So I get out the cute little tube enclosed, open it, and squeeze. Nothing happens. Hmm. I start flattening it from the bottom. Still nothing. Aha! The cap is still sealed! I poke a hole in the foil carefully, expecting rubber cement to start oozing out too quickly due to all the squeezing. But it doesn’t. The brand new, unopened tube appears to be completely empty. And I give up.

I'm no longer sure how I feel about the Internet. Or the funny papers.

C (laughing): I looked up a chemical and it talked about its atomic number, so then I had to look up what atomic number meant, and it said it was the number of protons in the nucleus. But then I had to look up what nucleus meant!
My father: What chemical were you looking up?
C: Chlorine. It said it was hay-lo-genic.
My father: Yes, it’s a halogen. Why were you looking up chlorine?
C: Because when I looked up IED the article talked about chlorine.
S: What’s an IED?
C: Improvised Explosive Device.
S: Er, why were you looking up IED?
C: It was in one of the comics.

and women don't like beer, either

This article discusses how bicycling is a white, upper/ middle class pursuit and wonders why. It irked me. First, it doesn't actually have any data at all to back up bicycling as "white." It sounds like someone asked a few (probably white) people if they think most cyclists are white and they all said yes, which isn't exactly an accurate sampling method. Second, it jumps to assumptions about cycling as transportation after considering cycling as a sport. It's likely true that a smaller percentage of non-white people take up bicycling as a hobby for the same reasons they're probably less likely to take up any sport that demands expensive equipment and travel; like skiing, it just doesn't make sense for most of us to do it, and if all your friends aren't doing it there's no good reason to take it up. But I suspect that a lot MORE poor people, who are disproportionately non-white, use bicycles for transportation because they can't afford cars.

Maybe things are different in Toronto; it has much better public transportation than my area, so maybe the poor have better options than bicycles. But about half the cyclists I see once I cross into Albany are black. I'm not riding anywhere that a sane recreational rider would choose to go; the people I see are just trying to get around, just as I am. Unfortunately, they're apparently invisible to the powers that be.

I'm still not entirely comfortable with it

I forgot my first name last week. I was signing a work e-mail and it didn’t seem quite right, and I sounded it out and it didn’t seem like it ought to be pronounced like that, really it’s an awfully odd combination of letters and sounds, and is that really right? The first “a” really should be more of a schwa sound, shouldn’t it? My, I need more sleep. And, apparently, a less complicated name.

not part of his job description

A: C, will you make a prince puppet for me to go with my princess?
C: No, why would I want to do that?
A: To make me happy.
C: Er, no, I'm busy.

late blight moves fast

When I got back from vacation on Sunday the garden looked all right; neglected after ten days, certainly, and my broccoli seedlings had been devoured, but overall everything was healthy. By Tuesday, two of the tomato plants had late blight on 75% of their leaves. Today all the rest of the plants had it too. I pruned them back to only a few stems, but don’t have high hopes of saving the plants unless we get a week of sun starting now. I haven’t even gotten to harvest any tomatoes yet- the Early Girls set fruit more than a month ago but nothing has ripened. Sad year, and I’m glad I’m not a farmer.

clothes are useful when it's cold

“Now that I've got long lovely red hair and wear skirts and push-up bras and shit, life is better.... Part of attracting boys is wearing the "I'm attracted to boys" uniform, and, well, I know it's weak but I'd rather have the boys than be a Gender Revolutionary.”

I don’t think I could begin to separate the way I present myself from the way I want other people to see me. I make choices based on comfort, time, and personal aesthetics, but what I choose to wear is fundamentally determined by the message I want to send out into the world. I have no idea how I’d dress if it didn’t affect other people. At home I go naked a lot and wear more dresses. (The dresses I own are very comfortable for many tasks but not for bicycling or anything that requires pockets, so are fairly impractical for leaving my neighborhood.) Would aesthetics matter if no one else noticed, or would comfort be the only consideration? I have met a few people who appear in most circumstances to think very little about what they project to the outside world (though I know this can be misleading; I had a good friend in college who spent hours to look as if she’d just rolled out of bed and thrown on a flannel shirt). I’m a bit jealous. Some of them (men) are judged less on their appearance, but all of them have decided that they don’t need to get the benefits I do from looking a certain way, and I’m a bit in awe of that. I’ve chosen to give up some of the things I’d get if I wore makeup and dressed more “nicely” by Delmar standards; in return I feel more true to myself. How much more self-actualized are the folks who’ve given up more?

thanks for showing me your swiss army knife

What to do with the boxes, my friend wonders, the old photos and graduation tassels and ticket stubs, the stuffed animals from my high school boyfriend. So many things to keep.

A couple of years ago my mother dropped off a humidor of old letters to me, I say. I glanced at a few, shuddered to remember how lonely I was as a teenager, and recycled the rest unread so I wouldn’t have to think about that anymore. Dan tried to dissuade me but I have no regrets. If the love letters could have sorted themselves out, I might have saved them, but smiling about the gushiness of my gay boyfriend from ’91 wasn’t worth going through the rest.

She considers. I don’t think I have any love letters, just the teddy bears and hand-me-down bongs.

I’m shocked, and surprised that I’m shocked. She dated athletes, nice boys all, but perhaps less likely than the tortured artists I coveted to write her poetry. Plus I had summer-camp boyfriends back when long distance calls were expensive, and I started using e-mail obsessively as soon as college began; we were writing to each other anyway so paeans of joy were no great stretch. Even the perpetually stoned potter left haikus about my feet on my whiteboard freshman year. (The limericks, well, they don’t count.)

But I hadn’t known that I considered such words to be a standard part of even a fleeting relationship. I don’t remember anyone before Dan giving me tangible gifts. My friend has a collection of jewelry and toys from birthdays and Christmases; she’d have been hurt if a boyfriend had failed to provide her with such. I got sonnets, and just now realized how much I took them for granted. To all my exes out there: thank you for skipping the heart-shaped magnets.

bike plan meeting

Last week’s Albany Bike Master Plan public meeting was a bit of a let-down. It was not well-publicized (indeed, the only reason I knew about it was from an e-mail sent out a month in advance by the organizers to those who’d signed in at the last meeting) and had a much lower turnout than the one in February. That wasn’t too disappointing, though, since they weren’t presenting any new information. The facilitator tried to avoid taking questions publicly, asking us to instead talk to the staff individually. This didn’t stop some irritated people from the audience from voicing their legitimate frustration with the fact that several major roads in Albany were in the process of being reworked without any provisions for bicyclists.

There were two workstations where they asked for input- one on prioritizing different goals, and one to comment on the maps of desired bike routes drawn up from feedback obtained at the winter meeting. There wasn’t a whole lot to say about the latter other than “sure, great, but is any of this actually going to be done?”

I left not really knowing what the point of the whole thing was. It certainly wasn’t to tell us anything, so presumably it was to give the agency our input. But given that the only attendees were a small self-selected group of politically-minded folks who have very strong feelings about cycling, this meeting was not a good place to gather information if they’re actually interested in hearing from a reasonable cross-section of Albany bicyclists. After we were dismissed to the workstations I asked the woman running the study how they were reaching out to other demographics. (Most visibly absent was significant representation of non-whites, when more than half the people I see biking in Albany are black. A lot of people bike because they can’t afford cars, and they weren’t at this meeting) She said something vague about having a meeting in the South End but was quite defensive, even though I broached the subject politely.

I fear that the city is just going through the motions. Someone out there wants to pretend they’re listening to concerns of bicyclists, so they’re making a “plan” and holding public meetings, but they are not making any effort to reach out to most current bicyclists (much less potential ones) and are unlikely to actually implement any of the things we ask for. Well, maybe they’ll put up a few bike racks; that’s cheap and easy and doesn’t piss off drivers. But nothing that will substantively improve the safety and ease of bicycling in the city.

Committing suicide after a failed marriage is courageous?

I haven't read this book; the review alone are pissing me off. There's nothing new about romanticizing dramatic love affairs that end badly. I hate that so few people seem to see how passion can coexist with stability, that happily living with someone day in and day out is in fact love, and that chasing excitement may be a fine option for some but opting out of that doesn't mean settling.

I agree that just because an affair doesn't last forever doesn't mean it wasn't important or worthwhile. But I don't think being subsumed by someone who treats you badly shows self-confidence, either, as Nehring seems to suggest.