Past vs Present

Austin has a new library. It's fantastic.

I'm in Austin this week, visiting my sister and seeing some of the beloved people and places that have helped make me who I am. It's an ongoing joke/truism in Austin that things around here change in a hurry, and not always for a better in the eyes of the locals. And while you don't have to leave for a couple years to see it--just waiting around one's own neighborhood for a few months will do--coming back to visit every six months is a fast way to muddle all the mental maps I used to have.

New pedestrian plaza on UT campus

Capital Metro, for instance. A bus system I once knew as well as the inside of my own apartment. I knew that major changes were coming--there were signs up at every bus stop when I was last here in May, plus I keep up with the Twitter chatter around transportation in Austin. But last night Denise and I were driving home from "my" HEB (which has also been rearranged, by the way) and talking about buses that are rerouted and stops that we used to use that are now gone altogether. I had no sooner said aloud, "I need to look at the CapMetro map and see what's changed," than I saw a sign for the upcoming Austin Marathon, indicating that the route is going through East Austin, a place it never went in the years I was running, volunteering, or spectating. So I added, "And I guess I need to look at the marathon map, too."
 
Places adapt and change. Kids grow up. People move away. Businesses close up shop and others open, buildings are torn down and new ones spring up. This is true everywhere, not just Austin--I've seen it happen plenty in the short time I've been in Cincinnati. And while I have my own reasons for clinging desperately to a time that is gone, the truth is that I know full well those days are never coming back again. My first Austin bus route is gone forever, the local supermarket can't serve customers who don't exist, and I'll never go back to one of my former apartments, open the door, and find Chadwick on the other side waiting for me to come home. The world is moving on and I've already gone with it, whether I like it or not.

Ai Weiwei's "Forever Bicycles" is here on a long-term
loan. For that matter, it may be gone; I haven't been
round to look yet. It's new since I lived here and will also
be moving away again.

On the other hand, the Austin Half Marathon course has reverted to the one I ran for the first time and loved back in 2009, and while I'm not going to be here in two weeks' time to experience race day in
person, there's nothing to stop me from running some of those miles this week. Not for the sake of reliving the past, but rather to get all the joy I can out of the present.

And I hope that's what you're doing this week, too.

You Are Here

A couple months ago at work, I was expressing my difficulty in climbing stairs while carrying something that blocks my view of where I'm stepping. I asked, "What's the word for knowing where you are in space? Prio-something?" A coworker called back, "Proprioception!" I said, "Yes. That. I don't have it."

An exhibit in MOMA. I like it.

That's just a little story for you, and not really what this is about. No, this is about my ongoing struggle to build a map in my head. Places I go often--work, church, Kroger--I could find in my sleep, if necessary. Downtown has been a bit more tricky, even though I'm down there a lot. (Parts of downtown are tricky. I can find the Aronoff Center just from the excited twinge that comes over me when in range of live theatre.)

But when I try to visualize where things are in relation to other things in Cincinnati, I often realize I'm picturing a different city. Perhaps this is my brain rebelling against my forcing it to learn its way around a fifth city. How do people who move a lot do it?

There's research that suggests that people who walk and people who drive have similarly accurate mental maps of a place, while regular transit users lag behind them and folks who are exclusively passengers lag even farther still. And there's a cool study on how the brain changes and builds synapses on repeated exposure to the same route. The research mentions neither bikes nor how many cities you can pack into your brain before it explodes. Obviously that's a gap for academia to address.

I'd like to see more research on
Hemingway's experience of building a
mental map. I agree anecdotally, but I'm
all about gathering more data.

Here's one that's even more interesting: kids who live in walkable and bikeable neighborhoods have not only a better sense of place--as in, where things like the park or their school are--but they also feel better about the place they live. Kids who are driven more and rarely walk are they opposite--they have a harder time knowing where they are, and their neighborhood seems more scary. I wonder if being scared of their surroundings is entirely because they haven't gotten the chance to know them well, or if it's also from internalizing the fears of the adults around them. I'm not a kid and I absorb other people's feelings, so it's not hard to imagine that less emotionally developed people do it.

And one more before I go: many studies have found a connection between exercise and thinking/memory skills. So it is the right choice for your or your kids to walk rather than drive when the opportunity presents itself? Only you can answer that question, but even if you can never head out for school or errands car-free, at least try to build in a walk around the block a few times a week.

Your brain will thank you.

Z is for Zoo #AtoZChallenge

Last one! I hope you've enjoyed this little glimpse of Cincinnati with me. My favourite thing about this series has been all the locals who've read a post or two and then told me their personal histories with the things I wrote about. And the folks who, having read about one thing, asked if I'd been to another. And the ones who've filled in the gaps left after I read the info available on Wikipedia. Maybe the kindest thing I heard was from a coworker who said, "It's been fun rediscovering Cincinnati through your eyes." And that is, indeed, the most I could possibly have hoped for.

So! The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. You've probably heard of it. (And if you're not following the updates on Fiona the baby hippo, you're wrong.) As with many other posts in this series, I didn't go inside, but instead took a few pics of the entrance. And attracted the attention of a couple Zoo employees, who probably wondered what the heck I was doing. C'est la vie here in Su-Land.

The Zoo opened in 1875 and is the second-oldest zoo in the U.S. One of the original buildings still stands (it's the Reptile Building now), and is the oldest zoo building in the U.S. Admission on opening day was 25¢ for adults and 15¢ for children. I believe it's gone up a bit since then.

This historic entrance has an elevator inside, so colour me skeptical.
Also, at what point do you change your sign to read "Historic Entrance"
instead of just "entrance"? There have to be data on that.

The Zoo's first guidebook was printed in 1876 in German, because that's what a sizeable portion of the population at the time spoke, with the English guide coming in 1893. Clearly, the English-speaking folks weren't in too much of a hurry to print a guidebook.

Bike parking: approved.

Red Bike kiosk: thumbs up. Although riding one of these heavy bikes
back up the hill from here towards the University area cannot be pleasant.
Unless the rider has legs of steel, I suppose.  There are a couple more stations
further north than this one, but once you're at the Zoo you're closing in on
 the northern edge of the Red Bikes system.

Bike rack shaped like a snake: thumbs way up. I love it.
Not pictured: the Zoo is served by two local bus routes.
Public transit: also approved.

I'm not normally one to get excited by car parking, because why would I?, but this is pretty cool. The Zoo parking lot has solar panels on the covered parking roofs that provide 20% of the Zoo's energy annually. There was another sign describing it as a "demonstration project," but at that point the zoo dude was staring at me pretty intensely so I decided to skip that one and move on.

Sign describing the project + panels as seen from the pedestrian overpass.

I will probably save any actual visiting the Zoo for such a time as my sister comes to visit, because of the two of us, she's more of the Zoo one. (I'm the libraries and museums one.)

Plants at the entrance. As you can plainly see, this is the tulips' way of
telling me I should have come by a bit sooner.

And that, my friends, is the 2017 A to Z Challenge. Tomorrow I'll resume my usual nonsense. See you then.

J is for Joseph #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Joseph-Beth, actually, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, to be as precise and unsurprising as possible. A few weeks ago on a Friday night, I thought, "Why sit here when there's a bookstore I haven't been to yet?" and I jumped on a bus and went. Yes, really. That's the sort of thing I think to myself on a Friday night.

Y'all. It was love at first sight. I have a running list* of my favourite independent bookstores in the world, and Joseph-Beth has not joined the list so much as barrelled its way in, knocking books off of shelves as it went. (It's still behind BookPeople and the Strand, though. Those are sacred spaces in my heart.)

I'd been inside for about three minutes when I saw this, which I promptly posted on all my social accounts:

It's like they knew I was coming, y'all.
And as if this weren't enough, they had the
Hamilton cast album (the clean version, obvs)
playing, and two employees in my earshot
were having a lengthy discussion about it.
My people are clearly hanging out at Joseph-Beth.

And I said:

Also at @JosephBethCincy. I am in love. (It's totally normal to be in love with a bookstore, right?) pic.twitter.com/eQqPzjurZM

— Su Wilcox (@cheekysu) February 4, 2017

And then they said:

@cheekysu Absolutely it is. We're in love with Flourish and Blotts. Totally normal.

— Joseph Beth Books (@JosephBethCincy) February 4, 2017

I should find out whether their social media person is my type. Anyway, you can understand why, when my sister-in-law and niece came to town last weekend, I offered a couple suggestions for what to do with our Friday night, and when the general consensus was "bookstore," we landed in Joseph-Beth. If they'd let me bring a pillow and blanket, I'd move in.

So, if you're planning to come visit me, know that you'll be seeing Joseph-Beth and I won't let you leave until you agree that it's one of the world's great book places.

*In approximate order of current love: BookPeople, Austin; Strand Books, New York; Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati; Bookmamas, Indianapolis; Caledonian Books, Glasgow; Politics and Prose, D.C.; Hester Books, Lubbock; Fountain Square Booksellers, Cincinnati; Books & Brews, Indianapolis.

Pass it On

I work for a company that serves a largely transit-dependent population, to the extent that many of my car-owning coworkers speak Bus as a second language out of necessity to communicate with our clients, and could almost pass for being fluent in it. 

Almost.

So a non-bus person says something about a pass that works on both of the local bus systems (because Northern Kentucky counts as "local" when it's only two miles away), I get excited and say, "Wow, really? That's the pass I should buy?" and the non-bus person gets nervous. Y'all, don't ask non-bus people bus questions. It gives them a fright.

Not even remotely a TANK bus. This particular route
hasn't even existed in Austin since 2011. It was great
while it lasted, though.

Of course, in this instance it turned out that the information was correct, much to my delight, and I've now been on the Northern Kentucky buses a few times (their transit authority is called TANK, which is at least an improvement on Cincinnati's SORTA). And having seen the roads that lead from here to the shopping center I was aiming for, I also know the answer to my question, "Can I ride my bike there?" Answer: Not if I want to continue being alive. (Mind you, it was only one road. There may be a better option. OTOH, Kentucky has terrible laws about bikes and I don't want to ride there that badly.)

I have some bitter complaints about the TANK system, naturally, because what's a bus ride without a side of bitterness? Those, however, I'll save for another time. For now: my range of active transportation options just got a lot wider, all because a non-bus person mentioned the correct pass.

I'll take it.

Shuttling Between

Once upon a time, I rode a Greyhound bus from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Indianapolis, Indiana, and then a few days later back to Lubbock, Texas. Believe me when I tell you: I never, ever want to do that again.

So... this is not a bus station. But this pic is from a trip to
Dallas last year, and at the end of the trip I took the train
back downtown to get back on my Megabus home.
That's what this photo is from.

However, I do willingly hop on cross-country buses for short segments between Midwest cities, including the Greyhound from time to time. It seems the presence of low-cost carriers (near me, we have Megabus and Barons Bus) have pushed Greyhound to up its game from back when they were the only outfit in town. I don't know how other folks make the choice between the two, but I choose Megabus when I have a couple weeks' advance notice and they have reserved seats available. Megabus is great for saving some cash, but is less great when passengers spread out over two seats and insist that their seatmate is just in the bathroom. To avoid a Forrest Gump scene: if I can't get a designated seat, I don't ride. So in those instances, or if I have to do a last-minute thing, I choose Greyhound. 

And I will add, while on the subject, that my last couple of Greyhound trips have been fantastic. Agents in the bus stations and drivers on the buses are all wonderful. However, that won't stop me from choosing Megabus when it can save me some cash. (I have no opinion on Barons Bus yet. Maybe soon.) The benefit of any of them, of course, is that I can read or sleep or whatever instead of driving.

This is on my mind right now because I went to Greenfield last weekend to visit my living grandmother and visit the grave of my not-living grandmother, but I wanted to be back in Cincinnati on time for church on Sunday. No bus option worked for me getting back without causing massive inconvenience to my family, so I took a Zipcar instead. I had the flexibility to get back on time, but unfortunately it costs four times as much as the Megabus on a busy day. It is as Terry Pratchett wisely noted in Unseen Academicals, "The less the money, the slower the travel," although when I consider that I'll have to work four times as long to have a little bit of flexible time--for most visits, it's not going to be worth that tradeoff.

Obviously, I want transit in the U.S. to keep getting better, faster, and more convenient, without sacrificing affordable prices. An Amtrak that came through Cincinnati not in the middle of the night, and that maybe would take fewer than 14 hours to get me to D.C. (plus another five hours to NYC, for goodness' sake), would be a dream. What would it take to get that?

Commute Blues

Being as I run in active transportation advocacy circles, I often hear some variation of, "Happy people live near where they work." It's a statement that's easy to agree with.

I'm sure some people manage to have massively massive commutes and still be happy. Some folks use it as a time to listen to audiobooks, or chat with carpool mates, or get work done (PLEASE don't do that if you're the one driving! Seriously, there are a lot of words for that and none of them are good ones). But just judging from the bitter complaint one hears around the office, or around social media, most of us don't really like enduring traffic just to get to work and back.

It doesn't even have to be one of these. Although,
obviously, I'd be pretty delighted if the Cincinnati
buses looked like this.

Because the office of my most recent temp job was on the edge of town, beyond the reach of public transportation, I settled for a compromise: I took a bus about 75% of the way and then called an Uber from there, so I was getting my public transport time (I know, I know, most people don't find buses as relaxing as I do) while supporting the local system, and keeping my Uber bills to a minimum.

Some of my Uber drivers have had a hard time with this.

I know, they want to be friendly and chat, and I mostly appreciate that, unless I'm really absorbed in a book I'm reading. But some of them were just so gobsmacked that I would split my commute between two modes when I could obviously just get a car and get myself to work. One driver went so far as to ask what my monthly Uber bill was, a question I of course did not answer.

All this to sing the next verse of my usual song: car ownership should not be required to be a full participant in society. There's no reason anyone should be horrified that I don't have a car. And yet, that's the system we've built--driving everywhere is the norm, cost and health outcomes and 30K+ deaths per year be darned. There are plenty of reasons to have a transportation options, not the least of which is easing the strain on a family's budget at a time when plenty of families are struggling to stretch their budgets just a bit farther. There are plenty of people who don't like public transportation (or bikes, or walking), and that's fine, but it's also no reason why options can't be available to everyone else. No one wants to stop you from driving yourself, if that's what you want. But no one should be forcing me into a car, either.

Come on, cities. It's time to give options a chance.

Reading Challenges Update: October

Here's what happened with my reading challenges in October. I went a bit crazy with reading this month, because: I moved into my own space, so no more guilt about neglecting the relatives while I read; I'm spending a lot of time on public transportation again, which is prime reading time; and I won't be doing much reading in November, because of NaNoWriMo, so I decided to get as close to complete on all these challenges as I could.

A lot of what I've been reading are Kindle freebies I've collected over the years, and many of those are sadly forgettable. I try to be as kind as possible in my reviews while still being honest, but some books are clearly being published when they're not yet ready for outside readers, and that's a shame.

Updates:

• After joining my new local library and seeing the wealth of reading material available in Cincinnati (41 library locations. 41!! Where has this city been all my life?), I went back and forth on bumping I Love Libraries challenge to the next (and highest) level, which initially seemed like a bad idea since NaNoWriMo is upon us. I finally went with bumping it up, on the grounds that December is long enough for a few books. 
• I'm calling Read it Again, Sam complete, since my entire personal library is still sitting in storage (prayers, crossed fingers, and other things that this will be remedied shortly) and is unavailable for re-reading, so moving to the next level is probably a bad idea.
• I moved Mount TBR up to the next level, and I'm almost done with it, so unless something crazy happens this is the level I'll finish the year on.
• And finally, after November is over, I'll make a decision on raising my Goodreads challenge. My usual practice has been to raise it by one book every time I read a book for the first 20 or so days of December, if I'm getting close to completion. My plan for October was to get within 10 books left for December, and I overshot that a bit.

Links are to and images are from Goodreads, where all my reviews are written.

I Love Libraries Challenge (44/50 books)
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, Anne Lamott
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, Anne Lamott & Sam Lamott
Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, Richard Florida
Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, Donald Sull & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey
The Porcupine of Truth, Bill Konigsberg
The Captive Heart, Dale Cramer

Read It Again, Sam CHALLENGE COMPLETED (4/4 books)
The Instant Genius, Tanya Slover


Woman Challenge CHALLENGE COMPLETED (54/20 books)
Stirring Up Trouble, Juli Alexander
Armed and Outrageous, Madison Johns
Aundy, Shanna Hatfield
Knitting: The Complete Beginners Guide to Knitting and Crochet Patterns, Martha Watkins
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, Anne Lamott
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, Anne Lamott & Sam Lamott
Hexes and X's, Zoey Kane
Angel Wings, Suzanne Stengl
Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Easy Home Organization Tips and Storage Solutions for Clutter-Free Living, Judith Turnbridge
It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life, Joanne Tombrakos
A Kiss For Midwinter, Courtney Milan
Frugal Gourmet Ideas: Secrets to Saving Thousands in the Kitchen, Charmaine Gerber
Leashed (Going to the Dogs #1), Zoe Dawson
Tomato Container Gardening: 7 Easy Steps To Healthy Harvests from Small Spaces, Mary Verdant
The Instant Genius, Tanya Slover
Simple Living - 30 days to less stuff and more life, Lorilee Lippincott
On Raven's Wings, Isobel Lucas
Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, Donald Sull & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott
Trouble's Brewing, Juli Alexander


Mount TBR Challenge (45/48 books so far)
Stirring Up Trouble, Juli Alexander
Armed and Outrageous, Madison Johns
Texas Homecoming, Maggie Shayne (This is a DNF that I've now removed from my TBR list. I'm so glad those count for this challenge--I've managed to cull a few books that just weren't for me that way.)
Everblue, Brenda Pandos (Ditto the above. Also, this is why I probably shouldn't just grab every free Kindle book that comes my way. Some are gems, most I end up not finishing.)
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Aundy, Shanna Hatfield
Knitting: The Complete Beginners Guide to Knitting and Crochet Patterns, Martha Watkins
Brailling For Wile, Jamie Zerndt
Don't Fight With the Garden Hose and Other Lessons I've Learned Along the Way, Tom Harvey
Streetlights Like Fireworks, David Pandolfe
Hell's Super, Mark Cain
Goal Setting: A 7 Step Guide to Reach Your Goals and Have One Hell of a Time, Matt Harris
Ready Aim Fire!: A Practical Guide to Setting And Achieving Goals, Jim M. Woods & Erik J. Fisher
Haunted Presidents: Ghosts in the Lives of the Chief Executives, Charles A. Stansfield Jr.
Hexes and X's, Zoey Kane
Where Is God When It Hurts?, Philip Yancey
Angel Wings, Suzanne Stengl
Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Easy Home Organization Tips and Storage Solutions for Clutter-Free Living, Judith Turnbridge
It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life, Joanne Tombrakos
A Kiss For Midwinter, Courtney Milan
The Parrot Talks In Chocolate, Everett Peacock
Frugal Gourmet Ideas: Secrets to Saving Thousands in the Kitchen, Charmaine Gerber
Attack Your Day!: Before It Attacks You, Mark Woods & Trapper Woods
The Cat Manual, Michael Ray Taylor
The Myth of the Garage: And Other Minor Surprises, Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Leashed (Going to the Dogs #1), Zoe Dawson
Tomato Container Gardening: 7 Easy Steps To Healthy Harvests from Small Spaces, Mary Verdant
It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick, Greg Gibson
Simple Living - 30 days to less stuff and more life, Lorilee Lippincott
On Raven's Wings, Isobel Lucas
Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett
Trouble's Brewing, Juli Alexander


Goodreads Challenge (96/100 books so far)
Stirring Up Trouble, Juli Alexander
Armed and Outrageous, Madison Johns
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Aundy, Shanna Hatfield
Knitting: The Complete Beginners Guide to Knitting and Crochet Patterns, Martha Watkins
All My Friends Are Still Dead, Avery Monsen, Jory John
Brailling For Wile, Jamie Zerndt
Don't Fight With the Garden Hose and Other Lessons I've Learned Along the Way, Tom Harvey
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, Anne Lamott
Streetlights Like Fireworks, David Pandolfe
Hell's Super, Mark Cain
Goal Setting: A 7 Step Guide to Reach Your Goals and Have One Hell of a Time, Matt Harris
Ready Aim Fire!: A Practical Guide to Setting And Achieving Goals, Jim M. Woods & Erik J. Fisher
Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, Anne Lamott & Sam Lamott
Haunted Presidents: Ghosts in the Lives of the Chief Executives, Charles A. Stansfield Jr.
Hexes and X's, Zoey Kane
Where Is God When It Hurts?, Philip Yancey
Angel Wings, Suzanne Stengl
Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Easy Home Organization Tips and Storage Solutions for Clutter-Free Living, Judith Turnbridge
It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life, Joanne Tombrakos
A Kiss For Midwinter, Courtney Milan
The Parrot Talks In Chocolate, Everett Peacock
Frugal Gourmet Ideas: Secrets to Saving Thousands in the Kitchen, Charmaine Gerber
Attack Your Day!: Before It Attacks You, Mark Woods & Trapper Woods
The Cat Manual, Michael Ray Taylor
The Myth of the Garage: And Other Minor Surprises, Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Leashed (Going to the Dogs #1), Zoe Dawson
Tomato Container Gardening: 7 Easy Steps To Healthy Harvests from Small Spaces, Mary Verdant
It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick, Greg Gibson
Simple Living - 30 days to less stuff and more life, Lorilee Lippincott
On Raven's Wings, Isobel Lucas
Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years, Tom Standage
Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett
Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, Richard Florida
Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, Donald Sull & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott
Trouble's Brewing, Juli Alexander
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey
The Porcupine of Truth, Bill Konigsberg
The Captive Heart, Dale Cramer


What are you reading this month?

Underwhelmed

Right now, here in Su-Land, we're considering options of where to live from a wide array that includes:

• Close to work, but not walkable or bikeable to anything else
• Walkable but not near a useful bus line
• Walkable and bus-able, but expensive
• Cheap but with no other redeeming qualities
• Practically perfect in all ways except no car-free ways to get to work
• A compromise that makes everywhere equally difficult to get to

You can understand why this has my brain shooting steam into the atmosphere and my eyes spinning round in my head. The lack of truly good options is underwhelming.

Like this. On all the streets. NOW.
Source: Joe Zlomek on freeimages.com.

And I'm hardly the only person with this problem. Everyone has to balance transportation vs convenience vs amenities when choosing where to live. And it may be that the trade-off I choose is that I get a car because my commute is otherwise impossible, a choice that many lower-income folks don't get to make, which makes me one of the privileged ones.

Not for the first time (or the last), I wish that US cities would try just a bit harder to make active transportation a practical reality for more people. Not just people who live downtown, or in a university district, or in gentrifying neighbourhoods (it's a common refrain in Austin that low-income and non-white neighbourhoods only get sidewalks when white people move in), but everywhere. I'll even wait on bike lanes if we can just get a sidewalk network built out. Come on, y'all, get with the program.

And in the meantime, I'm seeing how the puzzle pieces fit together best for me.

#NaNoWriMo Prep: You Can Do This!

NaNoWriMo is almost here! I can't even remember if November was worth being excited about before I started doing NaNo. This is year #7 for me, my first in a new region (Cincinnati), and I have a fresh idea just waiting for me to do something terrible to it. In the meantime, here's my collected tips for getting the most out of your November.

Rule #1: You can do this. You can.
Whatever your life circumstance--full-time job, kids at home, triple major undergrad, high school student--lots of people just like you have done NaNoWriMo successfully before. That doesn't mean you won't face challenges, or even that NaNo is definitely the right thing for you to do this year. But if you want to NaNo, don't write yourself off without first considering strategies for facing your challenges head-on. (More specific advice for students below.)

Rule #2: If your social media accounts aren't helping you, they're off-limits.
Unless you have a supportive community who gets what NaNo is all about and shares inspiration instead of filling your timeline with whatever nonsense is in season, you don't have time to fritter away on social media. For me, it's best to keep Twitter and turn off everything else. Blogging may fall into this category, depending on if it helps you or not. Make your choices early and stick to your guns!

Rule #3: Commuting time is writing time.
Carpool or take the bus. It's valuable writing time. Bonus: you'll save gas and create less pollution. Plus, you can transcribe bizarre conversations directly into your novel. It's a win-win-win-win. Change the names of your carpool buddies in your novel before you get it published, though.

Rule #4: Minutes matter!
Sitting in the pickup/dropoff line? Five minutes between classes? Waiting for a work meeting to start? Have a little Word War with yourself and see how many words you can get in those few minutes. If you've never been able to write in short spurts before, NaNoWriMo is a great time to flex those dormant writing muscles and see what they can do for you. To make this work best, be sure you're syncing your novel across all your devices.

Rule #5 (for students only): Do your homework first.
Even better: you still have a whole bunch of October left to get ahead in as many classes as possible. But once November hits, you still should finish classwork before NaNo-ing. You're spending too much time, money, and effort on your education to slack off just because it's NaNoWriMo. Think of writing time as your reward.

Rule #6: Convenience foods are okay.
Obviously, you don't want to hit the drive-thru every day or you'll be both rounder and poorer once NaNo is over. But having some freezer meals, microwaveable foods, and ready-to-eat fruit and veg on hand will make your life a touch easier, especially if your kids can handle preparing those things on their own.

And most importantly...
Rule #7: You must always be doing something.
This one is also more geared for students, especially if you're early in your educational career and your time management skills aren't quite there yet. NaNo is a great time to give those a kick-start. The critical thing to remember in November is this: if you're awake, you're doing something. Keep your novel and any reading for class handy so you can grab one or the other when you have a couple free minutes. Make to-do lists so you don't forget things. Take time for your relationships, don't neglect your self-care, keep up with your life stuff so you don't get fired--but whatever you do, keep moving.

Don't be intimidated! NaNoWriMo is lots of fun and has launched bunches of great ideas for thousands of writers around the world, so don't be afraid to jump in. And while you're at it, let's be buddies.

Rolling Along, SORTA

Wednesday is (in theory) my usual transportation day here at Cheekyness, but my days are so messed up that it can't possibly matter. So, here we are.

Isn't the flower-ish logo totally adorable? Cutesy name,
cutesy logo--SORTA has it all! Source.

When I started researching Cincinnati, one of the first things I learned is that the local transit authority goes by the acronym SORTA, which inspires a lot more giggles than confidence. (SORTA = Southwestern Ohio Regional Transit Authority) Researching apartments reasonably near transit lines turned those giggles to apprehension in a hurry--this city has a bunch of bus lines that only run a few times per weekday, meaning lots of locations are unserved or underserved on evenings and weekends, which unfortunately happens to be the time that I usually like to go to a bookstore, or a theatre, or church. Or possibly to work, depending on what happens in the next couple of weeks.

That is a surmountable obstacle, probably, or at least a bridge I can figure out how to cross three or four miles down the road. In the meantime, I tried one of those limited service bus lines today, and dang, if it didn't get me home in less than half the usual time. I don't know how that bus wasn't more packed. If I had to choose, I'd choose service at more times over faster services at fewer times, but since it's not up to me, I plan to enjoy that limited express bus as often as possible.

Fares are also tricky here. Well, kinda. Lots of transit services have fares based on how far you're going, rather than a flat fare, but I've lived in flat-fare-land for the last 16 years and am having to readjust my mind to living in a place where more miles = more money. I bought a 30-day pass on the app covering both of the zones I travel through, so it's not really that complicated for me, but I do sit back in amazement at other people who do this every day without giving it a second thought. The last time I lived in a place with this kind of fare system, I gave it a second or third thought every day.

And lastly (for now), the app. I knew it was kind of a new thing, because one day it magically appeared on the website where there had been no mention of it before, but even if I hadn't known the reaction of the drivers would be enough to tip me off. First of all, the type on the app is WAY too small, so that every one of them has to squint to see what they're looking at. Secondly, they mostly act surprised that I have a mobile pass but then they remember me later, so I guess that's a plus. And thirdly, a couple of them have asked me how I like the app pass. So yeah, definitely a learning curve happening here. If Cincinnati Metro were to ask me, I'd tell them that the next update needs much bigger print, so the drivers and I can all read it.

And that's my first week with Cincinnati Metro. Don't worry; I'm sure there will be plenty more to share as this city and I get used to each other.

The Educational Bus

Since I'm sitting here in no-public-transportation land (a dismal place to be, y'all), I'll indulge in some nostalgia and fond shouting out to one form of transportation I didn't use a lot in Austin: the UT shuttle system.

In the last couple years, CapMetro has made some changes to the shuttle system, notably cancelling one low-performing route and beginning to upgrade their fleet to buses that carry fareboxes, as well as having the same look and branding of the rest of the bus system fleet. Up until recently, the shuttles had all-door boarding and no payment was required (technically, non-students were supposed to pay, but that's hard to do when there's no farebox). Now, students have to swipe their student IDs and the general public has to pay to ride, just like on every other bus. While I'm sure this cuts down on lost fares, it also slows down boarding. Time will tell if that's a good trade-off.

The orange-and-white UT buses are on their way out.
Source: UT Parking & Transportation page.

Anyway, on to singing praises. Generally speaking, the shuttles are good for two things: 1) Going to campus, and 2) Going from campus to another place served by the shuttle service. Plus it's a limited-stop service, so while it's always crowded, it is also usually faster than the comparable local bus service.

A few months ago, I had to go across town in the morning, changing buses downtown, for a total trip time that was somewhere between "I could be halfway to Dallas by now" and "Are you freaking kidding me?" Then I remembered the UT shuttles. I rode one to campus, changed buses, then had a bus all to myself (since I was going opposite the direction students were going) for the second half of the trip. All in less than half the time door-to-door than a regular local bus would have taken.

I'm not necessarily encouraging that the people of Austin go out and invade the student shuttles in droves--although perhaps if they did, CapMetro would have a bit more incentive to make the regular buses as frequent and convenient as the shuttles. And that would be an even better thing that a few specifically useful routes: for every route in the CapMetro system to be as useful, frequent, and easy to ride as the UT shuttles.

Now, if my hometown would just get on board with the public transportation thing.

Ten Things

You've probably seen this on Facebook: "Like this and I'll give you a number!" with a list of X things you may not have known about the person. Well, if I'm going to do that sort of thing, I like to bring it to the blog instead. So, ten things about me that I may not have shared before:

Source.

1. I have a pair of tennis balls in my living room. They're for rolling my feet over after I run or other times when they feel less-than-great. These tennis balls have never seen a racquet.

2. I started watching tennis during the MLB strike in 94-95. Until that year, I couldn't get enough of baseball. Now, I can't even remember why I liked it so much.

3. I see people reading books on the bus or the train that are either on my to-read list or my have-read list and I'm desperate to start talking to them about it. Sometimes I manage to refrain.

4. I have a vase full of dried flowers on my dining room table. My sister thinks this is morbid.

5. Chadwick and I decided when we got married that The Lord of the Rings complete boxed set would be the first DVDs we would buy, once all three movies were out (we got married right after Fellowship of the Ring came out in theatres). It's been 12 years and we own a couple of DVDs because other people have bought them for us. We have still never bought any ourselves.

6. On our second viewing of Fellowship of the Ring in the theatre, Chad and I sat in front of three teenage girls. At the end, one of them said, "I liked the blonde. What was his name? Nicholas?" I doubled over in laughter because I thought that was more socially acceptable than dumping popcorn over her head.

7. I almost became a member of Team "If You Haven't Read The Book, You Don't Deserve To See The Movie" that day. I still feel that way when I see people on the interwebs raving about Harry Potter and it's painfully obvious they've never so much as laid eyes on the books.

8. I failed at being a vegetarian because I lack imagination when it comes to food.

9. When I see children misbehaving in public, I have to run around a corner or open a book in front of my face or something so the kid can't see me laugh. I'm afraid that sometimes the poor parent sees me and misconstrues my reaction as disapproval. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

10. I'm a serious fan of musicals but do not necessarily think that the originator of a role is the bar by which all others are judged. Well, that's not entirely true. I do think that, because I also think the originator's performance gives subsequent performers something to build on and it's almost inevitable that the originator's performance will be surpassed sooner or later. You won't find me in the "the original actor is always the best" club.

What's something the internet may not know about you? Please share!

If You Crochet Yourself a Bike Seat...

It just happened that last week (or maybe two weeks ago; I've lost all sense of time) I got the bus two days in a row. I also saw a couple of my former professors on the bus on those days, which was lovely.

One of those professors is fairly well known in Austin for his Bus Tweets. I started following him because of the Bus Tweets, in fact, long before I signed up for his class. So when I saw him on the bus, I thought, "Oh, good! Bus Tweets!" and went to check them once I got to the office.

And then this happened:

I don't know if it still counts as "yarnbombed" when I had to do it myself, but this is what it looks like:

Or did look like, until I spent two months sitting on it. It's a bit more...
 stretched, now.

Before the crocheted seat, it was tie-dyed duct tape, which wore out so that I had to replace it and all I had was boring silver. The yarn seat keeps it looking pretty and protects my legs from being scratched to bits by evil sharp duct tape edges. So you can understand why my bike is more famous than I am-- it's been a bit eye-catching for a while.

Anyway. I guess now I know what route to avoid if I don't want to show up in Bus Tweets.

Teaser Tuesday #37

Source: Goodreads.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

"Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged."



(Much like this unabridged version of the book that I'm reading.)

So, this is not a normal Teaser Tuesday, partly because I'm pretty sure I've done Les Miserables before, but mostly because I want to announce:

I am nearly done with this book!

Wow, can Victor Hugo ever write. And write, and write, and write some more. (Spoiler alert-- well, kinda. Just see the musical, okay?) Valjean escapes through the sewers with Marius? Cue four chapters on the history of the Paris sewers. That's what this book is like. Please don't misunderstand me: I love it. (Mostly. I could have lived without the Battle of Waterloo.) This book is fantastic, but wow, think of how many NaNoWriMos Victor Hugo would have had to taken on just one book if they'd had that sort of thing in his day.

And just for the record, the sewer scene was tense. As was the post-sewer scene. And then then three chapters leading up to Javert committing suicide? (What? I warned you! Watch the movie, for goodness' sakes.) Agonizing. I had to put it away for a couple of days to recover after that.

Anyway. My Kindle says I'm 96% done. Maybe after a couple of more weeks of reading it on the train on the way home (about 20 minutes every day) I'll have it finished.

Enviro Your NaNoWriMo

As soon as this merry little post appears in the blogosphere, I've written more posts for November than I did in October. That's just sad. I haven't had a 1-post month since 2004.

The other evening in class (I'm an online grad student; I know you've probably all forgotten about my adventures in education), our instructor asked, "Does anyone have any questions about today's assignment before we begin?" I said "Can I have October back? I'd like to give it another go." She agreed that she would also like to try October again, but she doesn't have that kind of power. How sad for all of us.

Anyway! NaNoWriMo is in full swing, except here, where I've spent the week catching up on homework, a work assignment, and another top-secret project that is not remotely NaNoWriMo-related. Not even a little bit. And since in theory Friday is my environmentally friendly posting day at Cheekyness, I decided to think of ways I could green up NaNoWriMo. (I've been typing it #NaNoWriMo so often on Twitter that I have a hard time leaving off the hashtag. Ye be warned.)

My mug of choice. So big it's
practically two mugs of choice. Also,
it's brilliant, as you can plainly see.

1. Drink your caffeinated beverage from a reusable mug. You're going to be on a first-name basis with the baristas at your local watering hole by the 30th anyway, right? They may as well know what your mug looks like so they can return it to you if you leave it behind one day in a sleep-deprived, alternate-world, writing haze.

2. Unplug your electronics when they aren't in use. Save energy, save money, save yourself from getting up to use the loo at 3 AM and seeing your computer sitting in idle mode and deciding to type "just a couple of quick paragraphs" and still being there when your alarm goes off for work.

3. Short showers. It'll save you time, water, and money. Get a whiteboard and pen in there to write down ideas, but not if it will cause you to linger. If you forget to shower, don't worry about it. You'll get it next time.

4. Only do laundry on the weekends. Save your weekday evenings for writing, and save all your clothes up until you have a full load. And then ask your spouse/roommate/children/neighbours to do it for you so you can keep writing.

5. Writing by hand? Make sure to get as much use as possible out of your pens and pencils. Sharpen those things down to nothing. Use the last drop of ink. Write on both sides of the paper. Use those discards from the printer that have one little line of text at the very bottom.

6. Eat oranges, tangerines, pears, and apples. They're in season now. (Okay, in most of the US they're in season now.) No prep required, the peels are edible or compostable (or both, if you're anything like my husband-- he loves eating orange peels), and you can stave off the NaNoWriMo 10. (I don't know if that's really a thing. But I bet it is.)

7. Resist the urge to print. Look, it's a first draft. Those are always going to be cruddy. Don't print it out until you de-cruddy it a bit. Or a lot.

8. Seven is probably a good number of tips, yeah?

9. Just leave the dust alone. It will still be there in December. That's not really an enviro-tip so much as a NaNo survival tip. But hey, it will save you either washing or tossing the dustrags for a while, and there's probably an environmentally friendly practise in there somewhere.

10. Don't drive! Carpool or take the bus. Valuable writing time. Save gas. Less pollution. Transcribe bizarre conversations directly into your novel. It's a win-win-win-win. Change the names of your carpool buddies in your novel before you get it published, though.

Well, that was the longest "I'll just write a quick blog post before bed!" ever. Dangit. Have a happy Friday, everybody!

Are you a WriMo? Let's be friends! I'm cheekysu. (The one in Austin, in case that link doesn't work like I think it's going to work.)

Nothing to Report

Chad asked me something about my blog the other day, and I told him, "I still have things to write, but I haven't taken the time to write them." And then I sat down to write, and can't remember all the things I  wanted to write about. Meh.

Last week I went out of town with my work to do bicycle things. I also had to turn in my first reading response for grad school. Before that... yeah, I don't know. I probably tweeted about it.

Denise & I making faces at
each other. Kinda.

My sister moved in! Yay! I'm so very happy to have her here. So far we've spent a lot of time waiting for buses. Seriously, I don't know why she is so lucky, but I swear CapMetro has gotten slower since she moved here. No need to raise expectations, I suppose.

I hope to go around and visit a few blogs this week, maybe make some friends, that sort of thing. Also, did everyone else notice that NaNoWriMo starts in a month? Holy macaroni.

What are you up to? Any brilliant NaNo ideas you aren't planning to use that I can swipe?

All Aboard!

Last week, I spent quite a bit of my time on the bus giggling.

You see, South by Southwest was in full swing, so many Austinites heeded the sage advice to take Capital Metro to the festivities instead of trying to drive downtown. Quite a lot of out-of-towners did the same, with the result that many of my usual routes were full of first-time bus users. And that's where the giggling began.

Source.

Not that I in any way look down on new bus users, of course. On the contrary: I wish we could get more people into public transportation, so that the agencies responsible would have more money to run the services more often. And set up more express routes-- I'm just far enough away from the city center that my commute is 30-45 minutes by bus, but unfortunately that's not far enough away to justify a flyer or express route in my neighbourhood at Capital Metro's current funding level. (Or at least, that's what they tell me.)

And of course, I do remember my first bus ride with unfortunate vividness. Well, it was my sort-of first ride. I rode Lubbock's Citibus a few times when I was a student there briefly in '97-'98, before I moved to Scotland, but I really don't remember it. In Britain, you pay for how far you travel on the buses, and you get a printed ticket each time to prove that you've paid the fare. I had learned just how far I could travel for 50 pence, or a pound, or how much to pay if I wanted to go both ways.

After two years of this, I considered myself a seasoned bus rider, and so I was not prepared for the shock awaiting me when I moved back to Lubbock. To begin with, the woman at the bus plaza assured me, we don't have "timetables" in Texas. They're called "schedules."  Okay, call it what you like, I say. Furthermore, it's $1 every time you get on the bus, no matter where you're going. (I later found out this was not 100% true.) Well, that makes it easy, right? So the first morning of my new job, I got on board, paid my fare, and waited. The bus driver stared at me. I stared back.

Driver: Do you need a transfer?
Me: (A what?) Um... no?
Driver: Okay, you can take a seat.
Me: Oh. Thanks. (Wait! What about my ticket?)

I was really nervous, those first few days, about riding with no ticket in hand. And that, by the way, is a good snapshot of culture shock: Things that seem familiar are actually quite strange, no matter now normal they once were, and you have no way of explaining to those around you that you've undergone a personality change and you have no idea when you'll be back to normal. It's an adventure.

So, my giggling last week was not without sympathy, but more out of remembrance. Most of the struggles seemed to be with how to pay-- where do the bills go? What about change? How do I swipe my ticket? And there was some trouble signalling for a stop, too. In other words, I'm really happy not to have to relive that confusion. However, if you are looking to start using public transit soon and think you might have trouble, I do have a handy guide to riding that might help.

Can One of You Be My Next of Kin?

I called my father the other day to get his input on my garden (which is all planted now, and I'm very excited about it!). He had to call me back, and it happened that I was crossing the street when my phone rang. So we had this conversation:

I should send my dad this picture.

Dad: What's up?
Me: Hang on, I have to turn up the volume. I can't hear you over the traffic.
Dad: What?
Me: I'm crossing the street.
Dad: What?
Me: I'm walking to the bus stop.
Dad: Walking?
Me: Yes, walking. It's this thing people do when they don't have cars.
Dad: Where's your car?
Me: I don't have a car.
Dad: What? (You begin to see the common theme here.)
Me: I don't have a car. I ride my bike and take the bus.
Dad: What happened to your car?
Me: We sold it when we moved to Austin.
Dad: Oh. I thought you had a car.
Me: Nope, not since we've lived here.

You can see here that 1. I wasn't exaggerating when I said my parents don't read my blog; 2. Turns out my dad isn't losing sleep over my cycling all over the place after all; and 3. If you've read my blog for one day, you know more about my current life than my father does. Maybe he should check in with my grandma (his mother); I write to her about twice a year. She's probably more informed than he is. (And no, it's not like I haven't told my father this before. He also doesn't know what my major is. I'm not sure that he remembers offhand that I live in Austin.)

So, clearly, should anything ever happen to me, I'm going to need one of you to step in and tell the relevant authorities what I've been doing lately. Any takers?

The Depressing Route

It's the day you've all been waiting for: the glorious return of Have Bus, Will Travel!

Yes, I know that no one has been waiting that much. However, today's little adventure is all about route #37, which it the bus that comes by my apartment. You know the saying "Familiarity breeds contempt," yes? It does. A lot of contempt.

A fountain at UT that is on the 37 route. (More pics coming
ASAP! My camera is on the blink!)

This route is long and has a lot of stops. A trip from my apartment to UT, in theory, takes 35 minutes. In practise, it's more like 45-60 during rush hour, because we stop at every stop. If I stay on and go all the way downtown, it's a 45 minute trip that can stretch to over an hour. And it's usually packed, hot, and noisy. The worst trip all day is the one right after school gets out, because there are four schools on the route and so the (generally) already-full bus has to take on massive groups of kids. I will say that the kids are always well behaved (better behaved than most of the adults, anyway), but they have us seriously outnumbered. And any small ones, like kindergarten or first graders, have to have a seat, which is hard to manage. And kind of a dumb rule, IMO: When it's that packed, how could they possibly fall down?

To their credit, CapMetro has adjusted the schedule a couple of times to address the problem, but with no success so far. At least they're trying, but in the meantime I go out of my way--to the next nearest bus line 1/2 mile down the road--to avoid taking this route. On the other hand, we used to have an express version of this route that was at least 15 minutes faster, but it was eliminated last summer, despite all my e-mails of protest. I'm still mourning its passing.

Anyway, on to the highlights. From my house to downtown, the bus passes two libraries, four schools, four shopping centres (one of which is quite nice; I'll write a whole post on the Mueller shopping centre one of these days) and one cluster of locally owned Mom & Pop-type shops, a handful of bike routes, two hospitals, and UT. One could, in theory, get a lot of places while riding this route, if one were willing to sit for a while. There are faster buses in the neighbourhood, though.

So, not my happiest bus post. But I'll balance that out by posting about the bus route near my house that I love, I promise.