Tuesday, July 19, 2005

The Stupendous Flaming Awesomeness

Let us recap the past 16 months of my personal transportation history, a history brought about by a bonehead crash into a telephone pole. Since that ignominious demise of my car, the following have been my stalwart and faithful steeds on the road to car-free adventure.

Bus

Bike

Bi-pedalism


Oh, how well I have (mostly) loved these three and the things I have learned from them. Such as, I am a logistical fiend when it comes to concocting genius bus connections to get me from point A to B. That riding my bike in the morning is like an intravenous shot of pure Paxil. That walking around town always reveals a new discovery in a landscape I assumed to be totally familiar and known.


Then there were the other, less enlightening, things I learned. That lugging groceries on the bus or bike, while feasible, also kind of sucks. That a single girl walking public streets is a target for enormous amounts of harassment from men, for, unbeknownst to me, using a sidewalk as a woman is apparently the universal signal that one is a prostitute. That we're having a fucking hot summer and pedaling home at 5 p.m. will cause you to sweat so much that you are soaked and woozy when you get home and must immediately nap for two hours.


While not having a car in a city and state designed around them telescopes your life in marvelous ways -- this is my neighborhood, my neighbors, my fiercely-felt place -- it can also make you decide to stay home instead of, say, going to the gym.


Ah, kids, but there is a new game in town:


Do not stare directly at the magnificent flaming yellow glare! Bow your head in deference to the wee, but mighty, yellow beastie!

Ahem.


So this is my new ride. Apparently, I'm a tad slow at making decisions, as 16 friggen' months ago the idea of buying a scooter skittered across the tectonic plates of my lumbering mind, but I decided to, well, think on it a spell.


I checked out the above scoot (which is a used 2004 Vento) two months ago, and couldn't decide whether or not to buy it because I was blinded by an all-consuming horror, nay, a shuddering disgust, that I voiced far and wide, for the offensive and terrible yellowness of this scoot. Yellow, I declared, could never be cute and I, apparently, was all about being cute. Yellow was aggression and testosterone. Yellow was a guy at a motorcross rally, suited up in teflon gear, racing around a track with a bunch of other angry guys and then capping off the performance by jumping through a giant hoop of fire.


Well, once I figured out that cute cost $2000 more, the yellow began to well, mellow and work its magic.


But I need to do a bit of … refurbishing. I can either girl it up (think stickers of bees, butterflies) or go all ironic and self-referential (think tongues of fire! Flames of destruction! Skulls and roses!). Maybe VJ can help. I have a feeling we're going to form a scooter gang and tour the world, bringing Gatorade and gummi bears to runners on all continents. Scooters as angels of mercy for bonking athletes everywhere!

OR


I'm feeling nostalgic already for the bike and the bus. When I started riding the bus I promised myself I would start keeping notes on my people watching. I'd call these notes "Bus Stories" and eventually alchemize these small anecdotes into journalistic gold. I'd spin a story about the human condition, about class and race, poverty and wealth, youth and the elderly, the sick and the well. I wrote down none of it! None of the overheard conversations, none of the descriptions of people's faces or mannerisms, none of the million tiny heartbreaking or uplifting things that make me feel human and connected.


I also feel a bit like I'm betraying the activist cyclist community, the mass transit proponents, the progressive urban planning wonks, the alternative fuel policy freaks, etc… Which is totally my crowd of people. Sorry guys!


I must say that riding the scoot makes me feel quite tough. Like, I'm certain now that I'm going to start expressing all kinds of hitherto unrealized masculine behavior and will suddenly take up skydiving or spearfishing or sumo wrestling.


Here are my Top Three scooter fantasies to date.

  1. My friend Rainey and I are being chased by a white van full of bad guys. We race through the downtown streets, my brain feverishly considering escape routes. We pull up to a curb and I push Rainey off. "Run!" I yell, pointing her towards the small office of the downtown bicycle patrol. I haul the scooter up the curb and race towards the door as the white van screeches up behind me, with guys waiving guns. We burst into the police doors and a tense standoff ensues. (this fantasy sort of peters out at this point. Maybe a desperate romance with a police officer with well-developed calves, as we barricade ourselves under a metal office desk, talking strategy all the while staring deeply into one another's eyes?)

  2. I pull up in front of my ex-boyfriend's office as he's leaving with a crowd of people for lunch. While a great guy, he once expressly forbid me to get a scooter. I watch with satisfaction as he faints in shock, falling right at my feet. Heh.

  3. I fall in with a group of motorcycle outlaws. We tour the country, discovering the rock and roll underbelly of America. I get tattoos and wear leather.


==========

The weirdest thing happened last week. I got an email from Haejin in Houston, who is training for the 2006 Houston marathon and who has a running website with the exact same name as mine.


Then we figured out that we graduated two years apart from the same small university, though we apparently didn't know each other.


For the record, we named our sites "Escape Velocity" for different reasons. Her title references the physics principle, and as she says, "escapevelocity is about escaping binding forces. expectations, assumptions and misconceptions that pull you down and leave you stranded. it's about prying yourself away from these forces....whether they be societal norms, attitudes or certain people....and having the strength to go against the dominant flow. it's about not being a part of the herd.....being yourself, yes, but also being genuine and truthful. refusing to be cemented in place by imposed definitions of you that just don't fit."


I got my title from a chapter in the creativity workbook "The Artist's Way". The author calls escape velocity the point of "blast-off" to a more magical, creative life, and says "Always remember: the first rule of magic is self-containment. You must hold your intention within yourself, stoking it with power. Only then will you be able to manifest what you desire… In order to achieve escape velocity, we must learn to keep our own counsel, to move silently among doubters, to voice our plans only among our allies, and to name our allies accurately."


I think both our escape velocities are pretty darn cool. So go check her out because all that coincidence must mean something.

8 Comments:

At 5:12 PM, Blogger brent said...

a scooter!!! cooolio. i like it. what color is the helmet? how fast does it go? can you drive on the street?

 
At 5:12 AM, Blogger neca said...

1) I vote for the chick with the crown sticker. (Don't I get a vate??)

2) Those things on your feet are LPCs (Leather Personnel carriers). At least, that's how we jokingly referred to them in the Army. :-)

3) Hey - it's Tour de France yellow! Love it! Can I fall in with your & VJ's scooter gang? I have a leather jacket AND a tattoo!

 
At 6:55 AM, Blogger Lara said...

I hope you are shopping for a Penelope Pitstop-style outfit as we speak!

 
At 8:40 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm thinking more Isadora DUncan with the long flowing scarf (except be careful because isn't that how she died??)

The scooter RULZ. And I especially like the fantasy that invloves a man in uniform with highly developed calf muscles. mmm.... (drifting off)

 
At 9:34 AM, Blogger vj said...

I love it! I love it! I love it!

I love that bright yellow -- it's very maillot jaune! A guy in my scooter club has a scoot that color!

The thing I love about scooters, or whatever, is the sort of fantasy life that surrounds them. I'm totally into the ironic flame/tattoo/ride free or die thing on a scooter. Though bees would also be totally excellent! And the long flowing scarf is a great idea, as, just like bicycle riding, you want to do anything to be more visible to the enemy, ie, cars.

You should be able to get lots of bright yellow & black gear if you want to match your scoot too (I saw a guy yesterday with a purple & gold motorcycle and he had matching body armor. Too much!)

Do I need to make you a yellow scooter scarf?

Oh, and Megan, you might like this zine: The Constant Rider (http://www.constantrider.com/)

 
At 8:00 AM, Blogger KJ said...

Go VIA but yeah scooter! I love it and the color-very nouveau. I would love to get one but it's not conducive to transporting toddlers to childcare :(

 
At 12:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very nice. I love the yellow and black color scheme. I just got a scooter three weeks ago, a black Honda Elite 80, which is not one of the cute kinds but it is really turning out to be practical. I haven't even considered stickers yet ...

VJ referred me to you.

-Fran

 
At 9:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are you going to bike in the MS 150 in October?

 

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