∞

So the birthday shot me into joyful space (yay!) and then I burned up all my social/conversational fuel on reentry. Still have not fully recovered and am walking around the house doing a lot of nodding and hiding.

Grateful that:

  1. Greg and I can communicate almost entirely through looks and hugs and movie quotes.
  2. Mastodon means I can check messages only when I have the energy (like at 1:30am).
  3. I live with introverts who aren’t offended by me eating meals at my desk while I paint postcards.
∞

An art store in Minnesota called Wet Paint is doing an annual summer postcard project where they make a window display of mailed-in postcards from folks all around the world, how fun is that? I wanted to paint something colorful and fun so I made a postcard today with rocks and stars.

If you wanna check it out and join in, you’ve got until August 12th: wetpaintart.wordpress.com/2024/05/2…

Handmade postcard of rainbow-colored rocks and yellow stars. The colors are bright and cheerful, made with watercolor pencils.
∞

Gorgeous evening! I can’t believe I get to live near this park, I had no idea when we moved here how much I’d use it, what a haven it’d become. Saw families with kids in cargo bikes, walkers, runners, chatty people at the boat ramp coming and going, and a woman on a recumbent trike grinning at me (we passed each other both directions) clearly having the time of her life, but my favorite: smiling guy with wild curly hair with a happy little dog in one of those dog backpacks.

A wide paved bike and pedestrian path going off into the distance, the sun setting in a blue sky streaked with feathery clouds. A blue bike parked on a paved trail next to a thin strip of woods that drops off to a river.

∞

The windows are open this morning and there’s a squirrel in a tree a few feet away, who is really pissed about something. Not the sound of a creature in mortal danger, but definitely the sound of a creature who has been on hold with their insurance company waaaaaay too long.

∞

Evening bike ride! May have inhaled some mosquitoes, not sure. A quiet bearded guy sat on a park bench by the river, lost in his thoughts. A teenaged boy was standing in the trail in the dark by the boat ramp; a girl a bit shorter than him saw my oncoming light and yanked him out of my path, shooting me a “GUYS, amirite” eye roll that made me laugh. Stood in the river next to a just-paddled-home kayaker waiting for her companion to pull up the truck. Wanted to see an owl; did not.

Looking down my purple linen dress to the river water I'm standing in. The image is blurry and swirly. The shadow of a tree hangs over the water. View down the Willamette River from someone standing in it, looking north. The water is dark and pretty, the sky is lit with the soft blue post-sunset light, and trees line the banks. Some buildings cast lights on the water up in the distance. A storage building I have an unexplainable fondness for, a plain white flat building with thick banks of windows. But tonight someone is IN the building so the lights are lit up yellow. Normally it's dark.

∞

No more day-numbered bike posts! Our friend Rey is visiting for my weekend birthday shindig and I didn’t want to leave our chatting. So I pondered, and realized I’m ready to be done counting days! I’ll still post pics of rides, but I realized I’m just a bicyclist now (HUZZAH!), not a person doing a challenge. I got what I wanted: I’m fully adjusted to daily bike rides, my bike feels like a part of me, I’ve got new muscles, and I LOVE riding again.

So like….I’m good. :)

∞

Day 35 of biking every day! Tired tonight, very quick ride. Forgot about a photo and then a car was being a little pushy so I moved up onto the empty sidewalk for a quick pic, then back into the road. The pub had outdoor trivia and the guy with the mic was calling out team names, and one was I Drink And I Know Shit, a nod to Tyrion. Two more names I could make out but both seemed to have “shit” in the title? Kind of an odd theme for an eatery but hey who am I to judge.

View over handlebars down a sidewalk lined with dry grass and a few trees. There's a green house on the right.
∞

Day 34 of biking every day! No photos tonight! I went out for a quiet ride, the first of my 50’s! :) I wanted it to just be me and the wind, and so it was. I recorded nothing. I can share that the air by the post office smelled of lavender - like good, real lavender, not a synthetic version. The pub had a band playing outside that I really liked, it reminded me a bit of the music in Amélie. On the corner were two women talking, one holding the leash of a beautiful white dog with one blue eye.

∞

Been doing LOTS of thinking about turning 50 tomorrow. I had a really hard night a few days ago, related to chronic illness stuff, and sometimes in these moments stuff just spills out. I told Greg that in all this recovery work, digging yourself out a very old mess, I kept hoping to find this inner PHYSIQUE, this rock solid iron-clad something, and instead it’s just “all this gentleness,” miles of it. It permeates everything. By this point I’m crying and Greg laughs and asks why that’s so disappointing and I said, “Because the world needs fighters,” and he looked me right in the eyes and said firmly, “The world needs gentleness too. The world needs goodness.” My 50th birthday present to myself is to declare that this <waves at self> is enough. I’m enough. I don’t mean I won’t keep evolving - I will. But after 49 years of feeling not enough for the world, I’m going to put down that old recording. I’m enough.

∞

DAY 33 of biking every day - I’m back to being in a flare so it feels even more miraculous that I do these little rides, but EVEN MORE miraculous is that I stopped by Drinks On The Porch happening across the street and we got Hazel to sit in my pannier for an entire 7 seconds (note the Chin Lick Of Contempt she’s giving Aunt Hollie), AND folks down the street put up the most epic Olympics skeleton display. Well done, people! Last cycling day in my forties! 🎉

A small brown dog sits in - well really ON - a pannier on the back of a blue beach cruiser. She is licking her face and looking extremely put out, which she has every right to be.Skeletons in a yard display, one large one and three small ones. The large one is wearing a toga and an Olympic medal and holding a torch. One small one is wearing a pink leotard, the second is wearing a basketball uniform and the third is wearing swim trunks and a swim cap, hanging by a wire strung from the roof, and is diving into a kidde pool. AMAZING.

∞

“I’m as lively a sailor as the next man but continue my practice of bicycling year around on the principle of modernity and the hope of scandal…”.

Wild Life by Molly Glass

∞

Day 32 of biking every day! Me neighbor was outside and she yelled, “Day 32!” Awww! ☺️ Then she had to come over because her dog Hazel (who I accidentally named as a puppy when I said she looked like a wee hazelnut) needed to get hugs from Auntie Hollie. I love dogs. And neighbors! Then I delivered a sweet book I don’t need anymore to a Little Free Library, and then found a door - I’m a little obsessed with photographing doors (they feel a bit symbolic these days).

A tiny brown fluffball of a doggo giving hilarious side eye while sticking her tongue out. She has a purple leash and is standing in front of the brown pant legs of her human mom.A copy of A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities by Mary G and JR Zuckerberg. A set of double brown doors that go into the kitchen of a favorite local restaurant. There are windows above the door and a big vent hood pokes out of one. The wall surrounding them is deep red, and the to the right it shifts to a sky blue for that half of the building.

∞

Day 31 of biking every day! It isn’t super hot but nonetheless I’m starting to dream of autumn. Said hello to neighbors in their garden, wandered downtown. Passed my favorite pub, in the parking lot were five young women all in the same jeans and navy t-shirts standing around talking, and it reminded me so much of the Han Solo meme I laughed. Loved the message on the window of the pediatric speech therapy clinic. Only two more cycling days left in my forties.

Doorway of an empty, pale green building with two wooden double doors. The warmth of the wood against the cool green makes the building seem friendly (to me). The window of a pediatric speech and language clinic on which is printed the charming phrase: Teaching tiny humans to talk back. The Han Solo Season meme, five or so young white women standing together at a music festival, all of them wearing jeans, long sleeved white shirts and navy down vests, all with long brown hair and tall leather boots.

∞

Day 30 of biking every day! I almost didn’t go tonight, been so wiped out and then we had birthday game night to celebrate Greg and our friend Ben’s birthdays. Two cakes! Double the fun! And it WAS fun, but oh man. 😂 By the end of our RPG I was almost asleep at the table. And that’s when I realized I hadn’t biked yet! OOPS. I shuffled down to the bike and did a slow circle around downtown. I still love that rush of air that hits me when I pedal away from the house.

View through four tall windows into a local pub, where a guy stands behind the bar. The image is a bit blurry, but the light is warm and golden.
∞

Day 29 of biking every day! Almost forgot tonight! Ran errands today and tonight was watching a movie with Jupiter (Monolith 👎), and we got done and I suddenly realized: BIKE! Very dark, was only out for a few minutes, but saw: a crowd of young people trying to figure out how to jump start a car, a lone guy sitting outside a pub at a table, happily chowing down, his cargo bike next to him, a cute couple making moony eyes at each other, and two people chatting on a porch.

The bike way symbol painted by the city on a street. The street is dark, cars are parked alongside, the symbol is lit up by my bike light.
∞

We just got back from the grocery store and I’m trying to open up a new jar of something, and the lid is on TIGHT. Jupiter and I are in the middle of a conversation and I interrupt them…

Me: <hands them jar> Give this to your father

Jupes: <judges me as only a 19-year-old can after I just lost all feminist credentials>

Me:

Jupes: <tries to open jar>

Jupes: <cannot open jar>

Me: <trying not to laugh>

Jupes: <wry look> DAAAAD!!

∞

Day 28 of biking every day! Due to chronic illness issues, in the last three nights I’ve slept a combined total of 16 hours, so I’m severely wiped. I didn’t go far tonight, but farther than I meant to. Once I get on the bike and feel that breeze, it’s hard to come home even when I recognize I’m too sleep-deprived to be dallying about in traffic.

I don’t even know why I liked this building, I just did. And here’s a bonus fish!

A long white building with long rectangular windows. It looks like any small urban storage building. Empty parking lot in front, blue sky behind and a golden sun trying to set off to the right. A mural of a three-eyed fish like in The Simpsons, colored in blue, green, and pink, with the words KEEP IT CLEAN STREET TO STREAM. My blue bike is off to the right.

∞

There’s a couple that walks around the neighborhood all the time, I joke they’re Younger Hollie and Greg (she’s a tall, chubby brunette who laughs loudly, he’s a quiet, obviously nerdy brown guy), and they just paused in front of our house. She jerked and startled, and for a moment I thought with horror she’d just been stung by a bee. But then they started laughing, and SKIPPING - through the garden sprinkler that was hitting the sidewalk! 😂 So sweet!

∞

Someone moved his box so he’s holding my favorite shirt hostage.

An orange cat laying on a blue button-up shirt on a kitchen table.
∞

Day 27 of biking every day! Gorgeous night, everything lit up from the sunset. It was so neat to see this familiar route look so different, like a watercolor painter with a giant brush and pink palette had just come through and glazed everything they could find. Me and the bike are such good friends now, our movement together feels so natural, like being a joyful kid, when your bike is practically an extension of yourself.

View under the I5 bridge as it goes over the Willamette. The pillars are bathed in pink light.A normally dry, golden meadow of grass and wildflowers lit up pink, the sun a small orange ball floating just above the horizon, about to sink. View over my handlebars through the pedestrian bridge guardrail, looking at the river and the distant I5 bridge. Someone spray painted in green on the sidewalk under the bridge: WE ARE ALL EXPERIENCING THIS LIFE FOR THE FIRST TIME