Night Biking

This is my first attempt to blog from my phone... So we'll see how long I can handle typing on this tiny keyboard. I'm sleepy, its long past my bedtime. To be honest I haven't been so consistant about bedtime lately, but whenever the sun goes down, I feel like I should be asleep.

I had a hard time leaving the bay area. I am scared of riding into the desert, and my hestitation held me back, along with my healing body. I finally set sail around 1pm a few days ago, intending to get the 2:30 ferry from Oakland to Vallejo. I missed that ferry by a narrow 6 minutes, having been detained at Verizon, arguing about a mistake on my phone bill.

I didn't want to go back to the Creature house after missing my ferry, because my leaving had felt clear... I needed to extract myself from those comforts, and I had received just the right support to get me moving. I had flown the coop and needed to stay flown. I got a cheesesteak by the water, and chatted with my pal Erin on text while I waited for the next ferry. I knew I would have to crash in SF, because the ferry wasn't until 4:40, but it seemed like the thing to do. Erin handed me the contact info of a few SF friends, and before the ferry arrived I had a couch to surf for the night. I hotfooted off the ferry when we hit shore. It was difficult to avoid listening to an exhausting conversation about ageism in the workplace for the greater part of the trip. (A young girl complaining that the old folks should get aged out because they can't lift boxes... Talking to an older guy who gently disagrees. I wanted to not-so-gently disagree).

My host, Erin's friend Kyleigh, was leaving on a date when I got to her house. She introduced me to her housemate, dropped me a key, and chatted a minute, then headed out on the town. I walked with her roomate down the street to grab a Jarrito (mexican soda, if you're not already addicted) and then headed off on my own for a bit.

I wandered into the tattoo shop, because I love tattoo shops... And I'm vaguely hoping someone will do this Einstein quote for me. No luck on the quote, but I caught a good show; newlyweds getting honeymoon tattoos... His was done yesterday, an old-school rose on his arm. She was getting this beautiful owl on her calf. I stuck around to chat until the piece was done. I had to see how it came out.

The shop was One Shot Tattoo... on 9th Avenue, and the artists name was Pashone. He is fixing up bikes on the side and has built this beautiful midday-blue powdercoated commuter bike with blue wire covers and old school shifters. This guy is a definate go-to, for art OR if you want a little custom built. I liked talking to him, and to the couple. The piece was fabulous when it was finished... great use of color. Subtle earthy fire tones with teals and light reds. So hot.
I grabbed a crepe on my way back to Kyleigh's, and then settled in for the night. I foolishly switched on the TV, and didn't turn it off until I had stayed up WAY too late. Damn late shows. They aren't even that good anymore.

Kyleigh and I grabbed coffee together in the morning, and then I shoved off, down to the ferry building. It was a hurry-up-and-wait kind of morning. I bought my ticket at around 11am for a 12:40 ferry, but I was cozy enough, passed time making phone calls and hopped on the boat with a hot cup of tea from Bluebottle.

The boat ride was uneventful. I even tried to nap, having slept so little, by my usual standards, the night before. The ferry docked in Vallejo, I stopped at the post office to mail my books to Bria in Portland, and I set off for my days ride.

Five o'clock rolled around and I was exhausted, and hadn't gotten very far. I ran into the bike shop in Rockville, and they suggested I ask Pastor Larry if I could camp on the church grounds.

I never found Pastor Larry, but instead came across two kids, living in a house on the church property. I don't quite understand it, but the church parking lot circles their house like a moat. Its pretty anyway, and at first I thought it must be the pastors house. I asked the boy, maybe in his early 20's, if he knew where the pastor was... and ended up with an invitation to camp on their lawn.

The couple were in methadone treatment, and had a child. There was another couple in a small house behind the main house. I never really managed to figure the whole situtation out. The boy said it was his mother's house, and he asked permission to have me stay, but I never met her. He also mentioned an aunt. The couple out back didn't look like family. I think maybe this woman takes renters, and draws in a lot of young, struggling couples, on account of her son's situation. I think I would probobly like her. Regardless, they were good people. When I tented up their daughter kept chatting at me through the window, looking into my tent.

"Why are you in there?"
"Oh, this is my bedroom!"
"Why are you in there its not daaark!"
"I'm sooo sleepy. But I'm not alseep yet, I'm writing and drawing."
"Oh. You know what time it is its Eastertime. I have red jello!"

And on and on until I finally closed my tent flap and got to sleep. I had a restless night, with an event at the church bringing in loud converation, and a general restlessness I've been battling ever since the wind kicked all my ghosts up... Back on the beach, so many days ago.
I woke ready to ride, anyway, and grabbed what was meant to be a light breakfast at the cafe next door before heading off. Hungry, but not wanting to overspend, I went for a small order. The cook however, after hearing about my trip, brought out an extra egg and a pile of bacon and told me to eat up. He didn't have to tell me twice. I left fortified and having enjoyed the small town comfort... I'm a sucker for it, the local diner where everyone knows everyone. I looked up at the stretch of blue sky, extracted myself from conversation, and said goodbye to Rockville by 10am.

What an amazing ride. It's flat and the road is lined with every imaginable tree. There are fields of wild lupine flowers, blue as the sky, orange poppies and wild turkeys. There are quail crossing the road in a state of chaos, with their little mohawks. There are bees and butterflies getting tanged in my spokes, and the gentlest wind. Its a perfect ride, and a perfect day.

I'm headed into Davis, the bicycling capital of America, and the closer I get, the more bikers I come across. There are race teams out practicing, and college kids out for an afternoon ride. The stretch of road is dotted with orchards that eventually give way to larger orchards, endless stertches of monoculture, in perfect little rows. Pretty, but ominous somehow, with no undergrowth and no real place in the larger ecosystem.

Outside of Davis I jump onto the bike path, which starts to lean towards crowded... Then I hit the city. I have never seen so many people on bikes in one town in my life. I tear up a little. Old ladies on bikes! Kids on bikes! I can't imagine why anyone would want to drive. Its a thriving culture of eco-friendly transport and I'm lost in the middle of it. There are even bike roundabouts to manage bike traffic. These are the most well designed and well used bike paths I have ever seen. Even better than Portland... Sorry Portland, but its true. It gives us something to aspire to.

I had posted an ad on craigslist in the women for women section before I fell asleep in Rockville... I wrote that I was pretty much looking for community, maybe a date or a weekend love affair, before I headed off into deep solitude. I got two responses. One was in Sacremento, and just wanted to be friends, offering a couch to crash on, because she thought I sounded interesting. The other told me to check out a community on the UC Davis Campus called The Domes. Davis came first, so off to The Domes I went... And oh lord was I glad I did.

Within moments I was lying in a hammock, eating a snack, and waiting for my new friend BrettAnn to finish cutting the lawn with a lawn scythe, so we could go paint the ceiling of her "dome". There were chickens roaming around, and a bike co-op (The Bike Church) set up on the grass. An hour later I was in my underwear, touching up a primer job, listening to Damien Rice and singing to myself. We moved on to the bright toy blue top coat, and then packed in in to go catch the UC Davis feminist film festival.

BrettAnn covinced them to charge me student admission, and we wandered in, grabbed seats and caught a great set of films. My favorite was a short animation called The Collection... No words, just a small girl wandering to find book-eating worms consuming endless volumes as the city crumbled in unison. She collected letters and started rebuilding the written word, and the city regrew in kind. Its beautiful... the artwork, the style, the sound.

There were the usual suspects, a film about trans-identity, which included a highly genderqueer character. There was a documentary about rape as torture, focusing on a case from Mexico that is now in the world courts... Really hard stuff to hear.
Also... A decent documentary about the hypersexualization that is now being sold to kids at a frighteningly young age, and what it is doing to their development. There were some interviews with schoolteachers, who all remarked that things had really gotten worse in the past five years. There were a lot of arrows slung at the Bratz campaign, and at American Apparel. The best was the ending, where a bunch of four year olds drew clothes on a girl in an American Apparel ad and mailed their art to the corporate offices.

We had digested enough, leaning into oversaturation, so after one more animated short we rode back to the domes. Oh, but that last short was so sweet... Very much in the vein of "But I'm a Cheerleader", but with a tiny young tomboy sent off to conform at an evil summer camp on the advice of a bad teacher. The girl gets her soul sucked out by a machine because she isn't falling in line and comes back a zombie. When her father cries over missing his football tossing partner, she is reawakened like a princess in a fairytale. It was so silly and trite but perfect and precious and it made me cry a little. :)

I was riding BrettAnn's extra bike, a funny old hybrid, way too big for me... so that I didn't have to load off all of my gear. It felt so good to ride at night again. I howled at the sky and BrettAnn howled too. We rode through a tunnel and I pretended it was a portal. I felt like I was back in college, playing games and shouting into the sky. I hollered Caw-Caw-Cacophany! at the sorority girls in the path. I laughed and breezed... So nice to ride with no weight and the cool night air.