I quote-tweeted Cory Doctorow’s Mastodon post linking to his Comrade Trump post. I quoted this part:
Ebikes are insanely great technology. Cheap, rugged and reliable, they’re basically bicycles that abolish hills. Once you’ve gotten accustomed to an ebike – maybe you’ve invested in a folding helmet and a raincoat – you’ll never go back. The advantages of an ebike commute over a car commute are legion, but my favorite little pleasure is the ability to easily make a stop at a nice coffee shop halfway between home and work, rather than being stuck buying shitty chain coffee near the office.
Followed by a single word: sigh
Only that word because of post length limits, but anyone following along the last few months would hopefully pick up that it was in reference to:
I haven’t had time to mourn what will be the functional death of what was one of most central aspects of my existence, and the thing that kept me sane amidst [waves hands around]. But I don’t imagine I will be riding a bike in remotely the same way I did.
Bicycling was a central aspect of my life from early high school through college. There was a long period where it took a significant back seat, but I returned to it over a decade ago. It provided exercise, time outside, a kind of built-in meditation, and a way to appreciate my surroundings in a way that most of means of travel cannot. Then I crashed for the first time in many decades, and am unsure if I will ever get to ride in remotely the same way again.
Cory reposted my quote post of his post 😵💫 and a bunch of people fav’d or reposted it. Because of the ebike pull-quote. Not because of what is now in my rear-view.
As we headed out of town towards Oklahoma, I saw parts of the city I hadn’t seen in four months. Every road was under construction from Dallas to the Red River. But most surprising was how, from my observing spot in the passenger seat, positional awareness was all based on past bike rides. We’d been on the road for 20-30 minutes already when I pointed out the window and said, “Milo, do you remember when we rode to there? The trail goes around that corner and ends, that’s where we turned around. You bonked on the way back. [A few seconds pass, and the highway intersects with the trail’s end.] Right there! [I point more excitedly.]”
[His mother pointed out that he’s ridden further on his bicycle than most adults.]
This happens almost every car journey. I see a landmark and think, “We’re only here? Riding here is fun. This has been awful and has felt like forever.”
Today my old riding buddy took his son and Milo mountain biking. Milo had so much fun and talked and talked about it after he got home. I’m so grateful for my friend’s time and willingness to take the boys out. I’m so sad to have missed it. [I was at another volleyball tournament, only a 45 minute drive away this time.]
small cypress: on middle schoolers
I really like teaching middle school. They’re really annoying, and never stop talking, and sometimes a little smelly, but it’s fun chaos.
You just have to forgive endlessly and take nothing personally and put your foot down. The big thing is just having unconditional positive regard for them because they are hormonal and miserable and most of them really are trying! And they know when you don’t like them!
So many people who teach MS just quietly kind of hate them and they can tell
I really like teaching middle school. They’re really annoying, and never stop talking, and sometimes a little smelly, but it’s fun chaos.
You just have to forgive endlessly and take nothing personally and put your foot down. The big thing is just having unconditional positive regard for them because they are hormonal and miserable and most of them really are trying! And they know when you don’t like them!
And I am in Baltimore City. They’re not just going to tell a new white teacher they don’t have a relationship with about CPS coming to their house last night, or that they miss so much school in 5th grade to watch the baby, or that yeah it’s on sight with so-and-so because they whisper to them in the halls about their dad being shot last year.
I replied on Mastodon that they were doing the Lord’s Work.
small cypress: ellicott city, md, usa
pleasant walking, lots of cute shit, many plaques, will visit again
I long for old, small, northeastern towns.
The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI
I hate Substack but this one is good. Includes data from a number of studies and Ireland’s recent experiment with permanent basic income for artists which I had heard about but about which was slightly misinformed.
The Marginalian: Walt Whitman, Shortly After His Paralytic Stroke, on What Makes Life Worth Living
I easily tire, am very clumsy, cannot walk far; but my spirits are first-rate. I go around in public almost every day — now and then take long trips, by railroad or boat, hundreds of miles — live largely in the open air — am sunburnt and stout, (weigh 190) — keep up my activity and interest in life, people, progress, and the questions of the day…the principal object of my life seems to have been accomplish’d — I have the most devoted and ardent of friends, and affectionate relatives — and of enemies I really make no account.
The trick is, I find, to tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains?
I think great leaders are people who have been in the tumbler long enough that it shows. There is a smoothness to them that only comes from years of being shaped by difficulty inside real community. They are not rough and jagged. They are not brittle. They hold up well. You can see it in how they handle pressure, how they respond when they are wrong, how they stay present when things get uncomfortable.
In letter after letter, all book-ended the same way, are my great-grandmother’s entire correspondence to my grandfather during his time in the U.S. Army - from 1942 to 1945.
The letters make up a vivid, nearly daily diary of Mattie’s life back on the homefront. It is the portrait of a family, a community, a place, and a time; all in extensive detail and a casual tone.
I knew that I wanted to share these letters with my dad, to experience discovering them together. So, in each episode of Mattie on the Homefront, we read the letters aloud to each other, moving week-by-week through time and learning about our family.
Listening to strangers read old letters doesn’t sound compelling but it really is.
🎙️ The Harbingers – just a fun fiction podcast.