tea berry-blue

Oh, yeah, this thing is apparently still on.

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 01:48:45 GMT

I got a fan message on FF.net, which I don't use anymore. I replied and told them that they could read my new work on Ao3. This is the reply, with all identifying information redacted:

I'm glad you liked my review. I like to read fan fiction and write reviews. That's fine. I don't use Archive Of Our Own. I went there once to read some [fandom] fan fiction and they totally perverted [male character] and [male character]'s relationship into something sexual and [male characters] were not like that, so I don't go over there anymore. Write me soon.

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Grand Central Circus

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 21:38:31 GMT

I wrote a song about the NYC subway and circus animals.

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More ukulele

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 04:42:12 GMT

So, this is actually a song I wrote in 2008 but have never had a way to play. It's silly and sad at the same time and actually about an actual person.

I love this thing so much.

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The Wrong Instrument

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 21:55:15 GMT

In the third grade in my elementary school, every kid took recorder lessons. I remember these vaguely; they were fun but not particularly exciting to me.

In the fourth grade, you could elect to take a stringed instrument: bass, cello, viola, or violin. I took cello because I was told it was the closest to guitar. I enjoyed playing the cello, but I wasn't particularly good at it.

I remember my mother saying though that the wonderful thing about cello was that it always sounded beautiful even when I wasn't good at it.

In the fifth grade, I wanted to play saxophone. Oddly enough, this was the year before The Simpsons debuted and JUST before Bill Clinton decided to play the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show. The saxophone was about to gain notoriety, but I had no way of knowing that. I was one of five kids, and the only girl, who wanted to play saxophone.

I loved saxophone. I practiced all the time, and while I don't think I was ever stunning at it, I was pretty good.

I was good enough that, at the end of the year, when the seventh grade oboe players were graduating and there was no one else who wanted to play it, the band leader asked me to switch to oboe, because he was convinced I could learn it faster than the boys.

I really didn't want to, but I did.

I had a love-hate relationship with the oboe. It had been my favorite instrument when I was a kid, because of the duck in Peter & the Wolf, but it wasn't the instrument I wanted to play. It had a beautiful tone. I loved the delicacy it took to play it.

But, in all of this, I am starting to realize that I was never really taught music theory-- or at least, was not taught it in a way I could understand it. I was taught notes: how to read them, what the fingerings were, but not so much how to organize music in my head, not the mathematical part of it that makes music so ordered even when it seems chaotic.

When I was twelve, I picked up a metal fife, and started teaching myself to play that, too. Then I graduated to a wooden one.

At seventeen, I started teaching myself the harmonica. I never quite got the hang of playing specific music on it, but I was great at improvising on it.

We had a piano in our house. I never took lessons. But I would sit down and painstakingly plunk out notes to tunes. I could write music, and wrote quite a lot of music, but I didn't have the skill to perform it. And notation on a staff was always incredibly difficult for me, because dots on lines, when you're dyslexic, could be anything. I wrote my music out by the letter, my musical notation was a list of letters on a piece of paper, with lines underneath the notes that were meant to be held longer. The more lines, the longer you held it. It made sense to me.

I desperately, desperately wanted to be able to play music, but I just never felt like I was good enough. And not just oboe or another wind instrument: I wanted to be able to accompany myself. But I really believed it was something beyond my ability. Something I would never completely understand.

Over the past year, I've had several friends encourage me to try to find other ways to make music. On the computer. By using a voice-to-midi program. I toyed with this stuff a lot but didn't get super far with it.

Then, catfish23 put the idea of getting a ukulele into my head. She tried to get me one on Craigslist. That didn't pan out, and I thought, ah, well, I probably wouldn't bother with it, anyway.

About a month ago, I saw my friend Ellia's band play. Ellia plays the ukulele.

And I watched her play, and something just clicked. Three days later, I bought my ukulele.

Okay, I know, I know, I am talking about my ukulele about as much as most people talk about their children. But it's like I finally found the right instrument. It just felt...okay. Good. I picked it up and could play things. And understood, suddenly, the relationships between all the different chords, and the strings, and the frets.

I love this thing so much. And it's renewed my hope that I can keep learning all kinds of new things, even things I never expected I would be any good at.

I guess what I am trying to say is, keep looking for your right instrument. You might not have found it yet.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go play another song I wrote.

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The Sea Song

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:07:48 GMT

Three weeks today. I wrote another song!

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RATTLE

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 05:37:57 GMT

I JUST STUMBLED MY WAY THROUGH PLAYING A SONG I WROTE ON UKE.

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Montclaire!

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 03:07:41 GMT

This is for deathrockboy. All for deathrockboy.

If you don't know who Will is, Will and I met in a Smashing Pumpkins chatroom on AOL along with leviadams back in 1995-1996. We have been internet friends pretty much ever since, apart from a brief period during college when we were out of touch.

He is one of my two favorite people I have never met. The other one would be alephz.

Anyway, Will writes songs.

He wrote this one, which I am butchering with my minimal ukulele skills here:

Here is the proper version of it which is much more awesome:

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Progress: 12 days!

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 05:33:23 GMT

I have learned 3 songs well enough that I can play them by memory, not counting 'Happy Birthday," and I have lost track of how many chords I know. There are three songs I can almost play by memory, and three more songs I can play passably with the chords in front of me.

I have decided to learn a bunch of catchy pop songs that were not intended for ukulele. It's pretty fun. RESULTS:

Also, my fingers hurt.

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Okay, I think I am at the point where I should do this.

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 01:09:16 GMT

UKULELE SONG REQUESTS GO.

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Growing up

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:13:25 GMT

So, yesterday was my 35th birthday. It feels like it should have been a monumental celebration-- I had a really insane birthday when I turned 30, with lots of people from all over the world coming to New York to celebrate with me, and it lasted several days. This one was much smaller and quieter-- I had a small picnic with a few friends who are not big party types on Sunday, a bigger party at Ward III as has become tradition on Monday, and then yesterday Connie took me on a small lunch adventure to see the Central Park Zoo clock chime at 1:30, and then to a wooden gazebo, and then we got gelato. Then I went and played ukulele by myself for an hour at the park near the Intrepid, and then I met my dad and Angel for a really nice fancy dinner at a fancy restaurant in Hell's Kitchen.

I went home and packed some boxes, called my mom, and played ukulele some more.

My ukulele's name is Elaine. I'm not sure where that came from, I just started referring to it as Elaine. I don't remember who I was talking to, but I was having a conversation about All The Elaines in King Arthur, and I think it might partly have come from that, and partly from the bit where Elaine Romain is one of my favorite roleplaying characters I've ever written. (Elaine, for those who do not know, is a 16-year-old half-Yoruba, half-French, Sea-Witch-in-Training who is calculating, manipulative, stormy, and has an insanely erratic sense of self-preservation.) But I think the ukulele just kind of named itself.

I am so excited about the ukulele, I can't even start to explain. I mean, I'm obviously going to. I played cello when I was a super little kid, and then I switched to saxophone and oboe, and then taught myself fife on the side, but really all the instruments I play are wind instruments and therefore not really good for, well, accompanying oneself. And I want to be able to play my own songs for people, because I write songs pretty much all the time. I think in songs; songs show up in my dreams, there's a constant stream of music in my head.

I guess maybe I've never had the courage or conviction to learn before? I don't know. I because convinced as a teenager that I was already too old to learn to play a guitar or the piano, because I heard the kids who were talking about their piano lessons and how "twelve was really late to start." And I just kept getting older, of course, and then I was really too old to start. But that's nonsense.

Brendan, my boss, once said to me that adults are told that they need to learn certain skills as children, or that children can absorb and learn faster than adults, but that that's not so, that it's just that progress feels slower to an adult, because they have a more refined idea of what "good" is. But you can practice and learn just as well at 35 as you can at 10.

I got this ukulele and was convinced I would maybe learn a few chords and it would sit in a corner and be another testament to my failure to play a musical instrument, but that I had to try. Had to try, you know.

And I'm learning it faster than I ever expected. I know a full complement of major chords, and some of the minor chords. I can read tabs well enough to pick up a song and at least fumble my way through it. I know how to pluck one song and I know the chords for two others by heart. I'm learning three more. I am working through figuring out the chords to a couple of the songs I've written, but I also have come to accept that that might take a while. I am working on a ridiculous project which you will all hear fairly soon.

I think two weeks into having a cello, I could play one note over and over. Maybe two.

I am so excited to see where I am in a month.

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Birthday Things

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 20:04:29 GMT

Tomorrow is my birthday. Last year on my birthday, I wrote this.

It's funny because I didn't remember what I said last year until I went to look, and looking now, I could write the same thing again. I did remember writing it, and that I wanted to say something about my birthday this year.

But I could write the same thing again. And oddly, I think this year has had higher highs and lower lows, more adventures and firsts, more flights and more falls. I think this has been, in a lot of ways, one of the most significant years of my life. I did more, learned more, went more places, met more people, made more friends, and fell in love with New York City all over again.

I rode a bike in Manhattan for the first time. I learned to play the ukelele (in the last WEEK). I focused on music a lot more than I have in ages. I stayed out late, I got up early, I actively chose to be brave and adventurous and say yes to things I might not have said yes to in the past.

So many of you helped me have those adventures. Thank you so much. I would not be me without every single one of you.

I made a list of things I want for my birthday which you can see here. A lot of them are just things I want to see more of in the world and cost no money.

I love you all. Thank you so much for this year.

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Ukulele one week results

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 04:41:10 GMT

So, I got my ukulele exactly a week ago.

This is what I accomplished in the week:

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Take a Penny, Leave a Penny!

Fri, 02 Aug 2013 16:54:12 GMT

Close to three years ago,

( Error: Irreparable invalid markup in entry. Raw contents behind the cut. )

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I don't pay all that much attention to LJ rankings

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 16:48:51 GMT

But this made my heart smile a little:

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Birthday Wish List

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 21:04:43 GMT

So I figured I should do this. If anyone wants to get/give me a thing for my birthday, here are the things I would NOT like and the things I WOULD like.

Please don't:
--tchotchkes or knick knacks of any kind.
--stickers, stationery.
--Stuffed animals.
--Clothing.
--Books, unless it is something incredibly special and personal to you or to me.
--Any things that take up space without having a function. Because of moving, I am just dumping a ton of things that are space-eaters. I don't want to dump things people give me.

Please DO:
--Introduce me to a friend of yours whom you think I would like.
--Introduce me to music or a movie you think I would like.
--Take me on a date for food or drinks or a fun activity.
--Take me to a favorite place of yours where I have never been.
--Plan an adventure with me.
--Surprise me. I really really like surprises of the visceral and/or experiential kind.
--Send me a letter, by post or by email. I can give you both addresses if you'd like to do this.
--Tell somebody you love them, especially if it's someone who might not know it.
--Tell somebody you're in love with them, especially if it's someone who might not know it.
--Apologize to someone you've hurt, whom you regret hurting, but have never been able to bring yourself to apologize to.
--Take steps to mend a friendship you're sad you've lost, or to get in touch with someone important to you whom you've lost touch with.
--Take steps to engage in that new hobby or activity you've been meaning to try for months or years.
--Practice something you want to get good/better at.
--Do a kind thing for a stranger.
--Do something you're scared of but have always wanted to do. Do the scary thing, the brave thing.

There are a couple of thing-things I want but they are expensive thing-things and should wait until moving, anyway. If you want to get me a thing-thing, earrings are always a good bet.

Love you all!

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Eurydice Drowns

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 16:40:32 GMT

Sometimes I like to change the lyrics to famous songs. Especially when a song doesn't have much variation in the verses, and I think the music is darker than the lyrics imply.

( Come with me, my love )

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Don't fret over the ukelele.

Mon, 29 Jul 2013 14:57:00 GMT

Let's see what I'm up to!

Last week, I went our for a drink with Bianca, then to my psych appointment, then to Ward III with Leslie, Max's girlfriend, and that was awesome. Tuesday, I went to the distillery and hung out on the fire escape with the boys for most of the night. Wednesday, I actually took the train up to Bronxville, got coffee with spiralstairs, and then Kate cooked AWESOME dinner for me with rice and beans and kale and nom. Thursday, I got my hair cut (I just accidentally wrote "I got my hair cute") and then went to see my college friend Ellia's variety show/concert/unveiling of her new video. That was pretty awesome because I haven't seen Ellia SINCE college. Friday, I hung out with Darryl and Dre and we drew things and talked about music's relationship to comics and the idea of media that is made up of relationships between two different types of information. Then I went over to Angel's and we watched Orange is the New Black. Saturday, Angel and I spent the whole day having adventures. Then I went over to Rose-Regina's house for her birthday. I got there very late but I had fun hanging out with Lena and Rose and Rose's friends I'd never met before. Lots of cool cyclist types and we had some debates about Citibike and things and that was pretty awesome because I only have a couple of cyclists in my life.

I need to trade my bike in for one more suitable to NYC.

Yesterday, I went to Flushing and had dim sum with my friend Carly, and then we hung out at the Apple store while she got her music transferred so she could turn her macbook in to get fixed. And then I went over to her place and played with her dog, and from there, I headed to an afterparty for Jonny's burlesque show, and ran into my friend Dara, who I haven't seen in a while because she's been in Utah being in Les Mis. We ditched the party, went to Rum House...and all the other performers from the burlesque followed, so we hung out with them there, and that was pretty excellent. I went home, thinking I was going home fairly early, but the subway was ridiculous and I didn't get home till one.

Oops.

ANYWAY. I've been writing a ton of song lyrics lately-- the most recent song is about the Essex Street subway station transforming into a circus. (It has the lines, "lions don't lie; they're carnivorous" and "rats on the tracks dance like acrobats.") And I want to be able to do more with them than just post the words.

I play a bunch of instruments, probably not well because I haven't kept up with any of them, but I used to play saxophone, oboe, fife, and cello. And cellos are expensive and large, and the other three require your mouth to play so they're not really conducive to singing.

I tried to learn the mandolin, but the mandolin has so many strings that every time I sit down to learn it, it takes me like an hour just to tune it and I never get around to playing it.

So I was at Ellia's show, and Ellia plays the ukelele. And it seemed like a perfect thing to try: it's small, good for basic rhythms, and has a kind of quirky sound that would go well with the kinds of songs I write.

NOW I HAVE A UKELELE.

I already managed to successfully tune it very quickly, and I made myself flash cards to learn the frets. I'm going to work on learning a couple of basic chords and hopefully a very simple song by the end of the week.

I don't know how long it will take till I can play along with my songs, but the promise of being able to is kind of exciting.

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But she's always a woman to me.

Sat, 27 Jul 2013 06:33:20 GMT

So, tonight, nervousystem, Dre and I had a conversation about transforming song lyrics into comics, because Dre was drawing some art based on a Phish song and I used to draw a lot of song comics when I was a teenager. Anyway, Darryl, I think, mentioned that lyrics, interpreted literally, would make for some very weird stuff. A little while later, Billy Joel's "Always A Woman" came on, so I decided to re-interpret it as if the subject of the song had superpowers that actually, literally allowed her to do the things that the song talks about metaphorically.

Also, I barely ever draw things that aren't ridiculously cartoony anymore. I need to get back into practice!

( & the most she will do... )

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You Deserve The World

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:13:03 GMT

The concept has come up in a lot of discussions, in a lot of ways, for me, lately, that people are deserving or undeserving of certain things based on some kind of imaginary rubric that judges our worth as people.

I can speak about this from the perspective of being raised in a Catholic household, and I don't want to make assumptions about other people's religions, even the ones I know a lot about but haven't experienced in the same way, but it's something I understand is an active philosophy in many religions.

There's this heavenly ledger, right? If your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, you get eternal salvation. Or, you know, you might have committed a bad deed so irredeemable that you will get punished for the rest of eternity no matter what. But mostly, you have to strive to be good, and your good deeds measure the worth of your soul.

We get rewarded for how good we are. We get punished for how bad we are.

But I've got to say, outside of nursery school, that's pretty much a big bag of BS.

The good things that happen in a life are not rewards for being a good person, or a worthy person by some other measure. The bad things that happen in life are not punishments.

Good things happen. Bad things happen. There isn't even a divine balance. Good things don't happen in equal proportion to bad.

So those things you don't have in your life: success, money, love, family, a pony, a freezer full of ice cream...that's not punishment, not for anything you've failed to do in this life, not for anything you've failed to do in a past life.

Sometimes kindness pays off. Sometimes generosity pays off. Sometimes love pays off. Sometimes hard work, persistence, practice, skill, bravery, defiance-- name a quality, and sometimes it pays off. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it never does. And that does not mean there is something wrong with you. It just means your timing was bad, or your efforts were misdirected, or someone else got there first, or or or or.

Sometimes you fail because you've made a mistake. But not always. Sometimes you just fail. It doesn't mean you did badly, and it doesn't mean you're a bad person.

Sometimes you succeed because you worked your butt off and pushed yourself to be the best you can be. But not always. Sometimes you just succeed. It doesn't mean you did well, and it doesn't mean you're a good person.

(Although I say this with the caveat that I strongly believe most people, the vast majority of most people, are good people. The point is that success and goodness are not connected.)

Sometimes you succeed in spite of making a big mistake. Sometimes you fail in spite of doing everything perfectly.

And that's okay. It's, well, not okay okay, because it sucks when you repeatedly stumble when trying to achieve something you sorely want, and it's not always the best lesson to succeed in spite of laziness or lack of ethics, but it's okay because there is no heavenly ledger. There's no value judgment being projected on you, no cosmic force deciding that you can't have nice things because of that one time you pulled your sister's hair as a child.

This isn't to say that nothing is your fault. Sometimes you fail because you did something terribly wrong. You lost a friend because you hurt them. You were humiliated because you did something cruel. You didn't get a job because you were a jerk in the interview. Many, many things are direct consequences of our actions. And it's important to recognize that, too, and own our faults and our mistakes.

But don't own faults that aren't real, and don't own virtues that aren't real. Don't judge yourself harshly for things that are outside of your control, or so bogged down in so many variables that you just can't exercise the kind of control you might in another circumstance.

Just be good. Be good to each other. Be good to yourself. Do the best you can. Try your best. If you try your best and you fail, it doesn't mean your best wasn't good enough, or that you are not a good enough person. It means you failed. And that's sad, and it feels terrible, but that doesn't mean you are terrible. You know you're not terrible, because you were being good.

Or at least, you should know that. That is why I am telling you that right now.

Failure doesn't mean you're bad. Failure doesn't even mean you did badly. Not getting what you want doesn't mean you're not good enough.

You are good enough. That just doesn't mean there's a cosmic ledger tallying points in your favor. So, if you can, when you can, tally your own points. Tell yourself you're good enough.

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I want you to know

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 20:28:30 GMT

I am proud of you.

I know some things in your life are tough, and sometimes you don't think you're as good at things as you think you could be. Sometimes you don't handle things as well as you think you could. Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes the things you want seem too far off in the distance, or seem unachievable. Too expensive, too far away, too many hurdles between you and them.

Sometimes you don't feel beautiful. Sometimes you don't feel lovable. Sometimes you don't feel like you try hard enough or do well enough.

Sometimes, no matter how many awesome things you have achieved, the little failures make you feel like you're just not ding anything right.

You are doing things right. You are loved. You are perfect and beautiful and amazing and every day, you create miracles. Maybe they're not always the miracles you want, but they are magic nonetheless.

You are probably sitting at your computer or scanning your phone and thinking this could not possibly be about you, but it is. The people I'm thinking about as I write this, some of you know you are dear to me, but some of you don't at all. Some of you should know you are more valued than you are.

You are amazing. I am proud of you.

Love.

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Readercon 24!

Mon, 15 Jul 2013 16:11:20 GMT

I went to Readercon this year by very last minute plans, which involved rosefox saying "If you come to Readercon, I will find you crash space!"

( So I did, and they did, and it was excellent. )

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Well, I

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:57:47 GMT

Went out to get lunch and came back with a tattoo.

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Little update

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:31:00 GMT

1) lilycobalt and I put in an application on an apartment yesterday. It's for a 2-bedroom place a block from Prospect Park. It's huge and beautiful and has a dishwasher. Much further commute to work for me, but much shorter commute to Ward III and a very short walk to Ample Hills and Citibike stations. I guess I know where my priorities are? I'm a little ehh about the commute but very excited about the rest of it. I'll miss my giant one-bedroom in Queens but I won't miss huge long train trips late at night from Brooklyn. I'm also going to be very close to rosefox and nonethefewer

2) I'm really sick. I'm not...dysfunctional, per se, but my lungs are full of this thick green stuff. I've been told it's viral and the best thing to do is just wait it out and rest, but it's gross and I'm essentially drowning a tiny bit all the time. Going to see specialists next week, yay?

3) emo_snal is going to be here at the end of the week into next week and I am going to hug him so hard.

4) My cousin Kyle is getting married on Saturday so I will be out of town for the wedding.

5) I'm in love with Citibike. I built swivel mounts that fit onto the bike frames for water pistols and bubble guns. I rode a Citibike home at midnight last night, when I found out that the R train wasn't running uptown. Drunk. On nearly-empty Manhattan streets, up from Tribeca to Union Square where I got on a 6 and then a 7. It was amazing and full of lights and magic.

I have all these ideas about creating community around citibike. Also, I made these icons right here: https://sites.google.com/site/citibikestats/timeline I did not do the coding. Just the icons. I made some bigger bikes, too.

6) I'm getting another tattoo. Sometime soon. Just have to figure out where I want to get it.

7) My lungs are full of goo and it's making it hard to remember what else I wanted to say. Love you all! <3

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Asthma

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 10:43:18 GMT

I went to bed a little after 12:30 last night. I was home sick from work, and I usually go to bed at 1, but I wanted to get a little extra sleep.

Every time I start to doze off, my coughing wakes me up. If I stand up and walk around, I stop coughing quite so much, but that doesn't help with sleeping, for obvious reasons, as I am not a practiced somnambulist.

I am exhausted. My eyes hurt. I am dehydrated like crazy and can't drink enough to put that back into balance. I think I need to go get some water with electrolytes.

I'm making myself soup because I don't know what else to do. I'm already taking allergy meds, nasal steroids, cough syrup (which usually knocks me out cold), naproxen sodium, my inhaler, and chloroseptic. I got up at about 5 and took a quick shower, hoping the vapor would help. I've got vapor rub on my chest.

The more I cough, and the more tired I get, the weaker I get, and the worse the coughing gets.

None of the usual tricks are working. I'm not really sure what else to try. All I know is that I really, really want to sleep, want to stop coughing, have been to two doctors who have basically said I'm doing everything right and there's not really anything else to do.

I just emailed my boss and told him I probably shouldn't come to work today, but part of me is like, ugh, I can't sleep, I might as well be productive. I might try to do some work now, but I really don't want to fuck up my sleep schedule.

Hate, hate hate. I've been up till three or four coughing before, but I've never had it this bad.

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Bike Story

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 19:05:34 GMT

I have been getting really, really into Citibiking. I got my key a week ago this past Friday, and I have ridden Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday (I was sick Wednesday), and today (I rode my own bike over the weekend). It's pretty much amazing and my new favorite thing! You can just...get a bike, any time you want.

I've modified my habits in such a way to make this easier: changed from a purse to a backpack, carry my helmet with me everywhere, and so on. There are so many places in the city where it's quicker to bike than to wait for a subway.

The best part is that it's increasing my confidence as a cyclist and my confidence in my body in general. I have done things that I didn't think I could do. Cycle from Chelsea over the Brooklyn Bridge? Check. Cycle from QUEENS to the Brooklyn Bridge? Heck yes. I did the latter on my own bike and learned a lot from that. Especially that my bike is not really the right size for me and is probably a large part of why I haven't been especially enthused about distance biking before. I've ridden in places I would never have ridden before because getting my bike TO those places to start riding was too difficult.

Anyway, apart from it making me think a lot about how we carry ourselves (literally and figuratively) and how we transport ourselves, I had this thought today. This is copy/pasted from an email I sent to a friend who is also heavily into Citibike:

At lunch today I Citibiked down to a Thai place about ten blocks from my office. I docked my bike (#1015), went to the drugstore to drop off the prescription for my new (red!) inhaler because my lungs have decided to rebel like Bostonians being taxed for tea, walked across the street to the Thai place, ordered myself some tofu and noodles, got my food, picked up my prescription, and went back to the bike station-- which was completely empty, except for one broken bike. (I'm also digging the developing language of "backward seat means broken bike" I'm seeing around the city) I went around the corner and about two blocks to the next station, pulled out a bike...and saw it was #1015 again!

And then I was thinking about what I said on Friday night about bike reviews, which was very much something that would be half in jest, and then I was thinking about stories about objects that travel from person to person, like The Red Violin or The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, and the idea of tracking a single object from place to place and documenting the stories of things that happen to it or to the people in possession of it. I mean, if I hadn't glanced at the numbers, I would never have realized I was on the same bike again.

So then I got back to the office, ate some noodles, and looked at the data on my account, to see if I could find out what bike I'd ridden for previous trips, and saw that the data that Citibike provides doesn't seem to include bike numbers, just trip numbers. We've got stories of docks and trips, but not the bikes themselves, which is vastly more interesting to me, like tagged animals in the wild.

So I'm thinking about that this afternoon, and that I'm going to keep track of my bike numbers from now on, and document trips by bike number somehow. Still percolating. Wondering how to make it a bigger thing than just me. Because I want to know the stories of the people who've been on the bikes I'm riding, whether they rode that bike to get their hair cut or to buy a new set of headphones or to go on a blind date, if an old white lady was terrified of them or a tourist asked where they could get one.

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