Personal

Damn, I hate when toasters boast that they will fit any bread.
Any width.  Even “homemade” bread.  An English muffin.  Sometimes a bagel.
Even with those weird little S&M cages that grip bread like a lover, they are still actually designed for that boring, regular, white bread.  My French bread gets stuck and burns and makes a mess.  Real bagels turn to bricks.  The darkness selector is meaningless.
(I hope I’m still talking about toasters.)

[Larger.]

Bikes locked together at the Ecofestival a few weeks ago.  Mine is on the right.

Photo Friday: Difficult Shot.

I love Yehuda Moon.  If you do not, you might have a problem.  Yes, if you do not like Yehuda Moon, you might suck.  Or, you might not like bikes.  In that case, you might suck.  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this.

I follow religiously every morning.  Yesterday, this almost made me cry.  Getting sad over the death of a cartoon character might make me suck, but remember that watching “The Simpsons” is — as one family member has pointed out — like a church or mass or some such act of devotion for my brother and for me, doubly so when we are together to watch it.

I mean, I think it’s only logical.  “The Simpsons” is probably the greatest thing to be invented since bikes, even better than Dunkin Donuts or pain medication.  Watching it whenever you can just makes sense.  It proves that, despite my walking into things and spending my adult life in school, I am not a complete idiot.

You should love the Yehuda Moon comic and “The Simpsons” — prove your worth, I say.  (And buy me a shirt while you’re at it.)  I mean it.

My youngest brother and I have the same birthmark on our shoulders: three moles in a diagonal line, perfectly spaced.  Same arm.  Same size.  Same direction.  Yesterday, I was watching “The Simpsons” with him at my parents house after having pizza with our grandmother.  During a commercial, he said, “John, you know that feeling like you crushing your fingernail?”

“Yes!  My @#$%ing finger has been hurting all day.  Is it your index finger?”

“My right one.”

My left finger was hurting yesterday, like it got crushed in something.  And, while I am clumsy, I know I didn’t crush it in anything.  Both our fingers hurt, for no reason.  His left, my right.  So I have to call our middle brother this weekend to see if both of his hurt, in an act of brotherly symmetry.  How creepy and…connecting that would be.

Frikkin cosmic.

Geez, there’s a lot going on. Sorry for the absence.  There’s a lot to tell, from the Ecofestival, to teaching cycling to job hunting adventures and family visits.  More to come.  But here is what I rode to teach cycling with.  The blue box is full of bike tools.  This load [larger] was heavy enough that I almost dropped my bike down some stairs and did drop my cool new frame pump.  We had a little group ride across The Avenue Friday night.  If you heard bike bells going nuts and saw a line of bikes, I was second from the end, with two red lights and a big butt.

A strange submission for Photo Friday: Electricity, yes. But the kind of spark that can ignite something that lasts for thirty years, well, what better word than electric?! My parents will mark their 30th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. We celebrated in a big fashion three weeks ago with a surprise party thrown by my brothers, my sister-in-law, my wife and myself. A party that could not be mentioned here because, well, my mom reads my blog (Hi, Mom!). Thirty years is a long time. I did not exist then, and now look how much more awesome everything is because of, you know, me. The Mrs. and I have been together for 10 1/2 years, married for 4 1/2. It feels like forever, though, and I can’t imagine thirty.

Here’s to hoping they will celebrate with a bike ride together. Nothing beats the stress from everything that’s happened in our family in the last three weeks like some nice cycling. My father has some sweet new fenders I get to install for him today at his house. And a rack that I hope fits. My mother’s trike has custom fenders and a huge basket. Can you say PICNIC?

I feel like I should have something more to say about the thirty year mark. But I’m not even that old yet and can’t really understand it. Awe is about all I can muster.

I was in Memphis two years ago on Earth Day, during a blogging hiatus. Scored this awesome pin at the Hardrock Cafe’ because I am sometimes a terrible tourist, and I love to hit those joints. A lot has happened since that Earth Day — in my own environmental endeavors and the world’s. Too much to write about.

I mean, the whole “green” thing was hot last year. It’s hotter this year. Like a lot of people, I was worried that it was just a fad. That the fixie crowd would ditch their bikes, that organic food would dwindle again, that hybrids would get fewer and uglier. But it seems like it’s either a long-living fad or becoming the norm.

My initial concern is that I’m losing some cool factor. Recycling and buying recycled goods are getting mainstream enough that I’m not that awesome for wearing a recycled steel necklace and junk. Lots of people in Baltimore brave the traffic and the hills to cycle now. But this is something I’m happy about. I mean, “the more, the merrier” applies here as much as it possibly can. With my windows open on University Parkway, I constantly hear freehubs and old freewheels clicking by. I want to cheer everyone on, but there are too many. So I stick to yelling at joggers who ignore the empty sidwalk to run in bike lanes.

My other concern is that we’re all going to half-ass any green efforts. Ooooh, there are some recycled Coke bottles in my shirt. BFD — what are your jeans made of? Too much of the green craze revolves around buying shit, which is largely how we started messing up the planet so much anyway — material showing-off. [My TV is on because I wanted to hear a weather report and not get too into NPR to do what I need to do this morning. Ed Norton just said that plastic bags are the stupidest things we are doing. Hey, dude. Yeah, you. Heard of cars?] I know; I do that, too. I’m just saying. Driving a big SUV pretty much cancels out most of what else you do for the planet, doesn’t it? I mean, seriously, look at how much of your carbon footprint your car is, even hybrids, which are made of the same junk as any other car before you even buy them.

Off my high-horse now because everyone I know has a car. So at least I retain some of my awesomeness, being the only (aside from my wife, of course) intentionally car-free person I currently hang out with or am related to. [Though Mr. D has gone mad car-light with The Mule and pedals around town constantly.] And I don’t pretend that environmental issues are the only reason I went car-free, either. A large part of that decision was my own neuroses.

I don’t mean to insult anyone, and I totally get some bummed rides all the time. Don’t send me hatemail because you love your car. I realize that my bike was made overseas, that my pedals, lock and tools are covered in vinyl, that the metal and plastic on The Duke didn’t grow on trees. I know my own shortcomings, too, like non-recycled, imported notebooks, my fleeting weakness for French bubbly water, my Tevas, my fondness for cheap pens in spite of my collection of Goodkinds, my failure to remember travel mugs, etc. Very verily etc.

But I’m not the only one with a long way to go.

I am very tired of searching for the perfect messenger bag.  Been looking for like twelve years.  No luck.  Probably because I have a thing for canvas, and most are made from nylon and other petro-fabrics.  I am also stressed.  So I think I’m gonna try my hand at making some, first for my wife in case I poop out after one.  She wants a simple, black canvas affair so that she can get some awesome patches.  If it does work out well, hell, I’m gonna make some nice panniers.  And, hey, I get to score one of these awesome toys.

What a wacky week! After Grandmom’s accident and her ensuing time at my parents’ house in Hampden and the surprise anniversary party for my parents two weeks ago and one of my brothers leaving for Warrant Officer Candidate school in the Bama, there is too much to tell. I can’t tell some, won’t tell a lot, and, you know, it’s not like blogs are always as…candid as they used to be, huh? Like I never was anyway.

My grandfather was buried Friday morning. Countless people that I care about came to the viewings and the funeral. It sounds stupid to say that you don’t know how lucky you can be until something bad happens and all that. But there you go. My family and myself — we have some very good friends, and we are very lucky in that department.

I didn’t get a chance to say “Goodbye” to my grandfather at the viewings Thursday, so I went up to the open coffin to do that Friday when we got there early. Most of the people there were family from his dead beast-bitch of a wife (sorry, Pop). As I was standing in front of the coffin with my wife, some fried-haired bitch of a woman came up and stood behind me. The room was practically empty. But she needed me to move. Right then. That’s the way things were with that damned family. People who were not a part of it but wanted a place in the will pushing the real family away. I don’t think that hag even knew who I was. She had a cross pendant dangling in her low-slung cleavage, too. I thought that was some kind of symbolic image, but I’m not really all that sure how exactly. I spent the rest of the events trying to catch her eye and give her a dirty look, but she’s not the eye-contact kind of person.

Pig’s family was and is just a bunch of tacky gimmees, nasty people with no tact, no manners, no decency. And, now, churchy types who don’t even know what religion they are even though they supposedly go to church a lot. Seriously.

Worse was the pastor. He was the same idiot who professed a deep understanding of people at Pig’s funeral in 2006 but then said oh-so-many untrue things about her and her life. I saw him at the hospital a few weeks ago. He made a point of telling Pop how busy he was but how he wanted to see him. My grandfather donated a travel-Eucharist set ($900 we were told by someone who really seemed interested in how much money Pop had) for folks who wanted to receive Communion but can’t make it to church, a nice thing to do, really. Did Pastor Dick bring it with him to Pop at the hospital? No. I guess he was too busy. Anyway, there Rev. Asshole was, making us all pray, holding hands. He held mine. Too tightly. For ten minutes. When I saw him leaving the potty Thursday, he didn’t say anything to me. He walked to his car at technically, Catholics.

He was mad that the funeral was at the parlor, rather than his hillbilly church. It was Pop’s wishes to not go to the church. Going from the parlor to the church to the grave for Pig was a circus, and he didn’t want to repeat it. So Fr. Jerkass took it out on us all with a long sermon about bullshit he didn’t understand. Apparently, Pig and Pop were “people magnets” because of their faith. I know better. Pig was a magnet because she put on a pity play and took people captive feeling sorry for her pathetic ass. Pop, well, because he was too nice to people he barely knew. By the end of the ceremony, I had twisted, torn and sweat on my double-programs until they were in two pieces. That this man spoke for any God and any faith made me want to cut the brakes in his land yacht (because you need an SUV with all the options to make housecalls, yes) and watch him fall into some kind of hellfire somewhere and probably get my 72 as a reward.

I took great pleasure in telling these hillbillies that I live in THE CITY. And I am not the only one who enjoyed their discomfort when some black members of my family and friends arrived. Stupid crackers.

I am probably a horrible person for writing all of this. I don’t think they have the internet, though, so I doubt they’ll ever find this. Plus, you know, I cover my tracks pretty well.  And it’s all true anyway.  I didn’t do any of this stuff.

After the ceremony at the grave, the priest was making his “I’m sorry” rounds on his quick escape to his huge SUV. (He was first to leave.) I turned my back to him in the hot sun and in my black suit when he headed in our direction.

I just — literally just — got a call from my mother.  “Pop died.”  My father’s father, who has been in general ill health for years, more so after his wife died two years ago, passed away.  We don’t have details yet, not eve if it was just now, early this morning, last night, etc.

Wow.

I don’t know how I feel.  My mother’s father died before my parents met.  My father’s mother died when he was a boy.  My mother’s mother is alive and funny, though in bad shape currently.  So I’ve never really had a grandparent die before.  Plus, if you remember when J died in January 2006, you know the situation is…complicated.

We expect some family battles.  Likely a legal battle or two.

Anyway, Pop was, mentally, pretty sharp when I saw him last.  We always talked about food a lot and traveling, since we both liked to eat, to cook, to go places.  I realized, one of the times I saw him a few weeks ago in the hospital, that the way I move my hands is similar to his motions.  We both grasp things like we are afraid to squeeze or crush them.  Aside from being warm, the family trait among him, my father and I is that we have very strong hands for not being particularly muscular men.  And, until I cut mine last week, occasionally long fingernails.

If you don’t hear from me much this week, you know why.

I declare to myself today: The next person to make fun of me for not having a job or to make a remark about my long education. Yes. This person.

I am kicking them in the junk.

Why is it Okay to make fun of me for not having a job just because the Mrs. has one, and the bills get paid? What? Oh? It’s not. Yeah. It’s rude at best. Mean on average. It’s not as if I like not having a job.

And the education: making fun of. “All that education and…” Can you mask your jealousy and/or insecurity a little thinner? Yes, I went to a lot of school. Yes, I have a lot of non-practical knowledge. Yes, I read a lot. Yes, I think about things a lot. You know, this might be more of a good thing than a bad thing. I would be a jerk to make fun of people who didn’t go to college. But I don’t have a chip on my shoulder wherein I have negative thoughts about people without stupid letters behind their names. So I would have to fake it to make it up. Maybe I have anti-higher-ed tendencies at times*, but those come from experience, not insecurity and/or jealousy.

Of course, there’s the defense when someone calls me “college boy” that they are just kidding. Joking. That I’m too sensitive and can’t take a joke. Like insensitive people’s required standard of sensitivity means anything to me.

Well, fine. My kick in your crotch is a joke, too. Don’t be so fucking sensitive.

[* I am told.]

Nietzsche was semi-quoted on “Law and Order: SVU” this year, and I was like, “Nietzsche? Oh, yeah, I remember him. Wrote a dissertation that was largely about him, or, at least, dealing with him.” I mean, Nietzsche is hugely quotable and all.  And I did spend months doing nothing but studying him, hate, and power.

I keep forgetting that I have a dissertation to edit and send to my committee and have since the end of last summer. Honestly, I’ve been putting it off because, once I send it, I’m unemployed. Now, I tell myself, I am a student. Even though, of course, in practice and in my own mind, my student days are effectively over. Still, it will be nice to get this out of my life and over-with. And for everyone to have the “option” of calling me Doctor.  It might have been nice if I had realized that I implied I was still a full-time student on every job application I have sent minus one.  Damn it.

I have a stack of Moleskine Cahiers with Nietzsche notes in them from last year.  Most of them have some of my favorite quotations on them, like these do.  Those notebooks worked well, especially since I spent last fall in a semi-nomadic fashion, much like Herr Nietzsche himself.  Not that I had any great thoughts long the way.

Please do keep any “Nietzsche hated women” and “Nietzsche was an anti-Semite” comments to yourself, lest you reveal that you do not, in fact, understand Nietzsche at all. Or, at least, have not bothered to read any of his books.  And if you feel the need to do it, don’t troll.  Come back and answer for yourself.  Nietzsche would.

[My wife's Blinktastic bike, which she commutes on. It, sorry, she has a cool name, too.]

I am teaching a group of little dudes about cycling, a sort of course/class. Safety, maintenance, the difference between all them there tubes rolling around on a bike, etc. The kids are between the ages of 11 and 16 and are definitely into video games and the like. Two of them have ridden a bike like twice. And, frankly, they don’t go outside to play like I did when I was their age. I was afraid that they might not be all that interested when my surrogate uncle suggested the endeavor.

Last night, I explained in general, how a bike works, where there are bearings, how everything on a bike has a purpose, how they can learn to ride around sans car and driver’s license, how they can be self-sufficient and free on a bike. Most of all, that riding a bike is fun, not just something for hippies, raceheads, the Dutch and people who don’t want cars.

I think they dug the idea.

They actually asked questions, thought using a chain tool/breaker (which we did because a chain needed to be replaced on someone’s bike) was cool, wanted to know more about things like fenders. Of course, I haven’t showed them how to grease wheel hubs yet, what tire Slime smells like (ick!) or taken them into traffic where they have never ever been in the position of driver. That can be scary for anyone. But I think they have it in them. If the project continues, I think the cycling community might gain a few young members. Enthusiastic ones! If you see ten people with blinking red lights (my rule) riding around North Baltimore city this spring, that’s us.

At the risk of sounding like some nut, one of the latest CarMax commercials really bugs me. You know the ones where there’s some allegedly outdated mode of transportation, someone wants to buy one, and then the dealer (HorseMax or BicycleMax) have some policy similar to CarMax. “Why didn’t someone think of this before?” the customer wonders aloud. There is one with chariots, which, Okay, I think we’d all call an outdated mode of transportation. But then these commercials claim the same thing about horses and camels, which is certainly saying something to people who live in lands where these beasts really are a means of transportation. I suppose you could argue that the commercials are meant for an American audience, and no one here rides camels to work, so no harm, no fowl. But no one in this country ever needed a camel dealer for transportation. That does not work. They are totally saying that cars are the highest and most modern form of transportation. Not just any car. A used car from CarMax.

Which is why the one about bikes makes me mad. It has some big-toothed Victorian wankers talking about comfort, French cheese, bringing a bike back if you don’t like it, etc. The implication is that bikes are an outdated means of getting around, one that, with the rest of the commercials, I think counts as more of a statement. That those of us on bikes that are actually more modern than the Planet Killers a lot of people drive are somehow old-fashioned. That we are ugly ladies who want a pillow under our butts and a creepy mustached guy riding around with us.

Watch the video here.

I don’t know. They are in the business of selling cars, so maybe they are threatened by the fact that more bikes are sold yearly than cars. Maybe they deliberately targeted cycling. Maybe what’s next is like the anti-global warming morons who try to sell us jacked-up science. Maybe Ford and GM will start funding studies about cycling as unhealthy, dangerous, etc.

Or maybe they’ll want in on the action and start making bikes, which would be pretty nice. Those companies have a lot of money they could invest in infrastructure. GM got rid of streetcars and got buses into major cities. Maybe they could get bikes there, too. Not to mention the sweet designs they might be able to come up with. A Mustang bike?!

0% Financing on all new 2008 bikes! Taxes and registration extra.

Professional driver. Closed course.10,000 mpg (EPA estimated)

Model shown with optional equipment.

Last year, it was snowy and cold.  After a flick, we celebrated with a couple we love.  The hubbies declared their Irish-ness over pint after pint of Irish brew.  This year, it is sunny and beautiful, though a bit nippy.  I ran my errands on my bike today, weighing down my backpack enough to compress my chest, which kept making me giggle.  I need to use my rack next time, though.

I went to a St. Patrick’s Day Tea at The Crown and Thistle this weekend with my parents and aunt.  I was wearing a very green sweater and my red beard.  A quiet lady who worked there put her hand on my shoulder as she was walking by our table and told me, “You look like one of our real Irishmen today.”  I took that as a compliment.  I wore several pieces of green yesterday to a family party.  More today.  I’m drinking Irish tea and listening to Celtic music and enjoying the sun.  I am not much in the mood for drinking, though I think my heritage requires at least a pint or two of Guinness tonight, with the cabbage I am eating for dinner.

I delivered a head of cabbage to my parents’ house in Hampden on my bike rack today, wearing green.  I’m like a leprechaun today, I swear.