Activism update: September 2024

The Banned Homes Bicycle Tour couldn’t have gone better. But something about getting on a bicycle for the first time in, I couldn’t remember, but grappling with the reality that I couldn’t ride it anywhere without Rob putting the bicycle rack on his car and driving us somewhere first, just upset me real bad. Finally, in the weeks between the test ride and the real ride, I remembered when I’d last been on a bicycle. Or at least the only time I can remember riding one regularly. It was when I was living in Arlington, VA. My room in the two-bedroom townhouse had a ladder that led to a little living area and storage closet. I bought a used bicycle. I think it was a child’s. I’d ride it to a nearby house where a few of my friends lived, and others would come and hang out. We fashioned a gravity bong out of a cooler. When the two-liter bottle would fill with particularly thick smoke we’d murmur “Milky” approvingly. That house is where I last saw my adorable elephant-shaped glass pipe where the mouthpiece was the trunk. The streets between my townhouse and their single-family were so wide and empty, and the sidewalks so abundant, that I felt safe riding back-and-forth, even when a little drunk and very high.