Guess what. I'm gonna be on Road Trip Nation! Thanks to the Unknown Reader who recommended my blog to her friend Camilla. Unknown Reader, I enjoyed meeting your friend!
Sneak preview of upcoming novel.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Springtime Is an Indomitable MonsterThere's something so awesome about this story, in which the Houston Bayou Bend peeps had to put ice on their many azalea bushes to keep them from blooming too early. The Bayou Bend people are like, "Oh, no, don't let our March Azalea Trail Tourist Thingie get ruined!" And the azaleas are like, "You wanna stop us? You're going to have to ICE US DOWN, mofos!"
It does feel like spring now, because everything is blooming, because it's been so warm. I know we're not supposed to be happy about that, but I am. Spring and blooming flowers rock.
In Other Houston News
People who ride their bikes really slowly down Waugh Drive are self-centered assholes. Especially if they do it during rush hour. Why don't you people move out to the country, if you're so languidly rich and jobless that you can halt traffic at 5 PM, instead of using the sidewalk our taxes paid for? Use the freaking Heights bike trail. It's a mile away. Corporate Houstonians are not here to give you the attention your parents never did.
Also, you may have noticed the 3 gazillion signs on and near Waugh Drive that say "Waugh Drive Bat Colony" or "Look, Houston has a bat bridge just like Austin's!" or whatever. What those signs need to say is "Here's where you can park if you'd like to see the bats. And... Get your bikes off the road."
When you go to a Houston nightclub in Midtown that's basically a big, dimly lit rectangular room with $8 drinks, and when that Houston nightclub has a velvet rope and a line, just walk away. There's nothing at Bond or Red Door or that new place in Old Chinatown worth standing in line for. Especially if you're an ethnicity other than white, and you see that the doorman's white and only white people are getting in...? You should just leave. Don't stand in line, because it makes the club look like a place worth getting into. And they don't deserve you doing that for them. Let Houston club owners know that this isn't New York, and this isn't LA, and we like it that way.
Houston Avenue has fallen prey to dusty, rocky construction and it sucks really bad now. Avoid Houston Avenue at all costs.
Another thing to avoid is Ragin' Cajun on Richmond. Do not eat there unless you like your food to taste bad. You might think it's difficult to mess up fried oysters and fried shrimp, but that's because you haven't tried frying them in flavorless batter and old grease, like the people at Ragin' Cajun do. Also, I strongly suspect that they use MSG. Also, they charge too much.
Finally, in my last piece of Houston news for the day...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If you don't like the weather, feel free to go back to where you came from. Or please, at least, think of a more creative way to whine about it. If I hear one more transplant say, "I miss seasons! :( !!" then I'm going to hand that person a world map and scream, "Move farther away from the Equator, then!" I mean, god. Why don't you just stand there in the elevator and complain about the vastness of space? It'd be just as annoyingly pointless to everyone trapped with you, but at least it'd be something new. 8:15 AM #
Comments:
I miss Texas! I didn't miss "the seasons" at all when I lived there. Whiny babies. I bet as soon they move to some place with seasons they will be whining about having to scrape the snow and ice off their car.# posted by
vegontherun : 9:37 AM
Believe me, these same crybabies dare to complain about snow in post-global warming Minnesota.
It isn't even really COLD up here any more. And people still complain...or the opposite annying extreme where they walk around in a miniskirts and heels with no hose when it is 20 degrees.
GAH!
# posted by
Hazel Stone : 10:05 AM
Dude, share the road. Seriously. A bike is classed as a vehicle, and has every right to traverse the same non-highway roads as you do in your car. (As a matter of fact, it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk.) It's entirely likely that a large percentage of the people you see on the road HAVE JOBS. That they COMMUTE BY BIKE to. GAH.
# posted by
Charlotte Mittnacht : 10:38 AM
Veg and Hazel: Y'all are right. Whiners will be whiners.
Charlotte: It may be legal, but that doesn't make it any less inconsiderate.
It could be that these people are commuting, themselves. I didn't get that impression, since the second-to-the-last set I saw were a mom, dad, and two little kids. And since I don't know many (or any) people who commute in Houston on bikes, seeing as how the city is so very car-oriented, and not really safe for biking on its major roads.
But I didn't know that riding your bike on the sidewalk was illegal in Texas, so I'll concede that that's not an option.
Waugh Drive is a major road. With most cars taking it at 40 mph, a biker going 15 mph in the right lane effectively reduces Waugh from a three-lane to a two-lane road for the hundreds of people working 9-5 in the Montrose and downtown. I can't prosecute them in court, I guess, but I can certainly assert that people biking on Waugh at rush hour are a pain in the butt.
I *do* share that road - under duress.
# posted by
Gwen : 11:11 AM
Just a note on the riding your bike on the sidewalk thing...I don't know about Texas, but it's not illegal everywhere. Where I live, you can ride on the sidewalk if you follow pedestrian laws and on the road if you follow the same laws as vehicles. Slowing traffic on a major road during rush hour is dangerous for everyone. Share the road kind of needs to go both ways.
/serious part. Where I live people bike everywhere because they love the environment more than their cars (I disagree), and only now, after three years of driving here, am I starting to lose my fear of running someone over and going to jail forever. Fortunately, a lot of our major roads have bike lanes. Also, I've never commented before but I love your blog.
# posted by
Kirsten : 11:23 AM
Be thankful you don't have to deal with the raging assholes of Critical Mass. Once a month these shitheels would create traffic jams on several main streets in San Francisco by riding their bikes en masse, during rush hour, in the middle of the road, in some asinine form of protest. And instead of arresting them for stopping traffic for miles in every direction, the cops would actually use their patrol cars to block off automobie traffic in favor of letting these law-breaking idiots have their way. You don't know frustration until you're forced to park in the middle of the road, without moving an inch, for 20 minutes or more, because some lamebrained wannabe activists wish they could make all the cars magically disappear.
# posted by
tomthedog : 12:46 PM
I lived in Houston for seven years (and totally agree about the velvet rope/line rant - what the hell? It's HOUSTON for crying out loud, not, say, Dallas!) and rode my bike to work downtown, which sometimes required being on busy streets. I tried to avoid the main arteries and couldn't always, so then had to contend with buses and such. I tried to be considerate, but the cars didn't always reciprocate, which is annoying and dangerous. So, the folks you saw might be just out for a lovely midafternoon family jaunt (on Waugh?? in rushhour?? are they crazy??), but not all of them are. No matter why they're using their bikes (environment, exercise, can't afford a car or even gas), they pay taxes, need to get wherever they're going, and kind of have the right to be there. That said, if it were me, especially since there are lots of quieter streets running alongside Waugh, etc., I'd get my biking arse to the less crowded roads.
# posted by
alex : 1:36 PM
Amen sister. Those same self-righteous hippies are all over Austin, but seem to concentrate their oblivious selves on Lamar at rush hour. Granted, rush hour is 7 AM to always but still, find a back street..and get a job
# posted by
blondie : 2:16 PM
Ah, and here I am, prepping for a move back to Houston. How timely!
Okay, so I agree with the Rajin Cajun thing, but have you eaten at the Ambassador Chinese place in that same strip? The food is way yummy, and the owner is a fag hag, so you KNOW I love it there.
# posted by
timbrat : 3:24 PM
Y'all are making me laugh. I know I got a little hyperbolic in my post, and I promise I don't hate people who ride bikes. It's just the rush hour thing that gets me, you know?
Timbrat: Oh my gosh! You have to immediately tell me if/when you move here so we can hang out. We'll go to Harwin. Let me know.
# posted by
Gwen : 4:12 PM
yeah, i've had more problems getting into H-town clubs than when I'm actually in Miami or NYC! The very places that H-town clubs are trying to perpetrate! I think it may be bc they actually aren't prejudice against asians there!
# posted by
MissCathee : 4:58 PM
Venting in an almost-related fashion: I don't have a problem with bikes on the road, as long as they're following the road rules (person yesterday who shot through a red light? DANGEROUS). I live in Melbourne, and we have bike lanes everywhere. The thing that really bugs me is when people bring their bikes onto super-crowded, rush-hour trains. Granted, they could have had an injury or be otherwise unable to ride, but it happens so frequently that I can't believe that is always the case. You want to commute by bike? DO SO, and leave we pedestrian-types to squash into the trains without having to navigate the giant metal frame of your bike.
# posted by
Ms Trebuchet : 7:01 PM
Preach on! I miss Texas too! "How do you people live here?", damn well, thank you very much,now go back to the rust belt if you want seasons.
Bikes in traffic work my nerves too.
# posted by
Diana : 6:40 AM
OK, Gwen. I love you, I love your blog, but as a dedicated bike commuter of over a decade's duration and "one of those critical mass assholes," as someone put it, I have to take exception.
1)Bikes are vehicles. They run on oatmeal instead of burning Iraqi children and young American soldiers.
2)In *most* urban places it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk.
3.)Bike commuting is cheaper. It's one very concrete way I can afford to be a single parent in the DC metro area. Bike maintenance is also usually an entire digit cheaper than car maintenance.
4.) Bike commuting is a form of feminist empowerment. I can fix it myself, I can out-pace sexual harassing assholes, and I feel safer biking in the city than I do walking (faster).
5.) Biking is really good for helping you feel like you are part of a community. I know many more details about my routes through the city than I would if I drove through the city all the time, life going by at a blur.
6.) If people weren't such entitled assholes in their gigantic gas-powered death machines, and maybe remembered where the brake pedals were instead of where the horn is, and maybe learned to share the road with pedestrians, bikers, stroller-pushers, wheelchair users, cross-walk occupiers, city busses and the like, and maybe voted for thing like, say, funding effective public transportation and intelligent urban planning instead of blithely loving their Hummer rebate, maybe I wouldn't feel like smashing my U-lock into windsheilds when I try and go to work and maybe I wouldn't feel like posseing up with a bunch of other bikers to slow traffic to a halt once a month to get my point accross that there's a better way.
7.) Free Brainless Exercise. Nothing like passing a window full of folks on stationary bikes when I bike by the gym.
# posted by
plainamyjane : 1:20 PM
P.S. bikes ARE traffic, people.
# posted by
plainamyjane : 1:25 PM
Yeah, that is so true. You have no idea how expensive it's getting to pump burning Iraqi children into my Accord.
Especially when I spill some of them onto the ground.
# posted by
Mike : 2:57 PM
''They run on oatmeal instead of burning Iraqi children and young American soldiers. ''
I realize people have their reasons, some of them are even valid, for riding a bike. I have no issue with that and I make sure to be very courteous when driving near them. Your safety as a bike rider is no less important than anyone else's.
However.
Until you move somewhere that doesn't require that every single thing you own, up to but for goddamn sure not limited to, your bike, spending some time on a big, stinking children killing rig like mine, you can keep that nonsense to yourself. Doing your part for the environment? Fine. Saving money? Cool. Easier to maintain and repair? Groovy. Indicting everyone who isn't able, or interested in, sharing your mode of transport as baby killing soldier haters? Screw that, whole-heartedly.
And again, if you bought it, a truck brought it so sleep well tonight knowing you are no less part of the ''problem''.
# posted by
IDriveATruck : 12:35 AM
Fair enough. We need trucks. We need peple who drive them.
However does a family of two or three (mine) need an SUV to go three blocks to the grocery store? No we don't. Do I need one to get my kid to daycare? Nope. The civic does a fine job with less gas. Do some people? Perhaps. It's also about appropriate use.
# posted by
plainamyjane : 10:44 AM
''It's also about appropriate use.
''
It's also about making your point and rallying for your cause effectively. Tactics such as:
''posseing up with a bunch of other bikers to slow traffic to a halt once a month to get my point accross that there's a better way''
are not going to change the minds of very many people and does, in fact, lessen your credibility.If you want respect for your values and interests then showing respect for views that do not mirror yours (ie not intentionally blocking traffic and dicking up the day of all involved) is a good place to start.
I understand the empowering statements of biking being safer, and faster, than walking but you lose points (and again, credibility) about the repairs. The indirect implication is that women are somehow powerless to repair anything more complicated and as a female who has spent countless hours under the hood of my personal and work vehicles, I find that offensive taken at face value.
''If people weren't such entitled assholes in their gigantic gas-powered death machines''
And your Civic is no less a gas powered death machine. I don't know where you get the idea that the highways and interstates of America are flooded only with Hummers and other SUVs, but as someone who has been on every major interstate in the country, most state highways and too many backroads to count, I can assure you the number of Civic's and smaller cars far outnumber the vehicles you single out as ''death machines'' but regardless, they all run on the same thing, so the self-righteousness can be taken down about a thousand notches.
# posted by
IDriveATruck : 12:33 PM
"The indirect implication is that women are somehow powerless to repair anything more complicated and as a female who has spent countless hours under the hood of my personal and work vehicles, I find that offensive taken at face value."
You're right. Point taken. I apologize.
Death machines? Well, hyperbolic, but not inaccurate. I have been deliberately revved at, run off the road, deliberately doored, and otehrwise harassed when riding courteously and legally (read: not in the way and not riding like an ass). You may recall Tommy McBride, a biker in Chicago deliberately run down by a guy in a Chevy Tahoe in a fit of road rage. Bikes don't win in any "Car vs. Bicycle" match of this sort. Two tons of steel, when wielded thusly, will kill a person.
# posted by
plainamyjane : 1:34 PM
Come along, now. Me on foot versus a bicycle makes that a killing machine, too. Someone can run over my neck just as effectively with one kind of tire as any other.
WOW I bet Gwen's never going to complain about cyclists again.
# posted by
Mike : 5:55 PM
Yeah, a bike can kill a person on foot. Which is why it's, once again, illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk, and why bikes as traffic deserve the same right to safety as everyone else. I was also deliberately run off the road, doored, tailgated, honked and swerved at, had shit thrown at me from shitheels in trucks...all while following traffic rules to the freaking LETTER and riding in bike lanes and back roads when they were available. So forgive cyclists if we get a little testy about the entitled and dismissive attitude that a lot of drivers show towards cyclists in general.
# posted by
Charlotte Mittnacht : 6:18 PM
I have no problem with people riding bikes and especially with people riding bikes who ride them properly.
My problem is that almost every person I run across who is riding a bike while I am driving seems to feel that the rules of traffic do not apply to them.
Every time I encounter a bicyclist it seems that it is as I am slamming on my brakes to avoid hitting them as they roll right through a stop sign or even a traffic light. Or if I am walking, cut me off. I even had one cyclist yell at me "God dammit, get out of the f-ing way!!" as I stood motionless on the corner waiting my turn to cross the street and he was jamming past on the sidewalk.
Maybe it's a function of the fact I live in Los Angeles. I had no problem with the bikers in San Francisco, including no problem with Critical Mass. But here, it seems almost every encounter I have had with someone on a bicycle has been an unpleasant one, so I understand where Gwen is coming from.
So if you are a biker who follows the laws of traffic and rides in a way that is meant to be harmonious with the drivers and pedestrians around you, then I doubt Gwen's post was aimed at you.
But just as there are a-hole drivers, riding a bike doesn't automatically make you a saint. There are a-hole bicyclists out there as well.
# posted by
KT : 5:55 PM
Mike: I'm thinking, next time, I'll complain about the rudeness of the people selling guns at Wal-Mart.
Obviously there are multiple issues here: courtesy, safety, the environment, oil greed. I enjoyed reading everyone's passionate (and hilarious) beliefs regarding those subjects.
It kept making me think of GWB saying that Americans are "addicted to oil." I'm not. I'm addicted to getting to work on time and getting my kids to school on time, and, so far, a car is the only way I can do that, here in this town.
# posted by
Gwen : 3:49 PM
I heart Gwen!
# posted by
plainamyjane : 9:56 AM
Thank you. I heart you, too.
# posted by
Gwen : 10:54 AM
There's no love for public transport here? I don't live close enough to the city to bike, and traffic and the expensive parking fees to drive since my office doesn't have a parking lot make driving much too pricey.
Instead, I have a passive commute that includes reading, or more often, falling asleep until I snort myself awake and panic that I've missed my stop. When the train's on time (which is, say, four out of five days) and it's not raining, it's kind of nice to take the train and then walk to work.
You know, so long as the bikes aren't disregarding the traffic lights and going right through the crosswalk when I'm trying to cross the street.
# posted by
Logophile : 9:53 PM
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