Bike bike bike bike bike bike

Monday I got on a bike for the first time in a year.

Monday I got on a bike for the second time in a decade.

Monday I practiced mounting and dismounting and starting and stopping my bike, with no more than three pedal cycles between each action.

Wednesday I bought myself a new helmet, and very butch little bike gloves so my hands will not get road rash. (I intend to bike in full leather jacket and jeans until further notice to protect the rest.)

Today is Thursday. Today I practiced figure 8s in our dead end[1] for almost 20 minutes, figured out gears[2] and then rode three blocks out and three blocks back in our secluded neighborhood.

I didn't die and everything.

This amazing breakthrough in mobility which I have been putting off for years even though I have longed to get groceries from the store a mile away without it being a production number has been brought to you by the city of Seattle finally tearing up a horribly congested thoroughfare and cancelling ALL of the bus stops within a mile of my work as a consequence.

There are ways of addressing this that would not have involved biking, but they would not address the fact that I've gotten very accustomed to a bus stop directly in front of the grocery store, and thus gotten accustomed to eating about two pounds of produce a day at work, which has been fantastic for my mood.

Apparently fantastic enough for me to deal with bikes.

I have to go shower off a whole lot of adrenaline now.

[1] It turns out our dead end is almost exactly the same dimensions as the concrete patio in my back yard growing up, on which we rode in circles for days and days and days and days without getting bored before Mom pushed us to go out and learn to bike in a straight line. I'm pretty sure the resemblance is what got me past the hurdle tonight.

[2] The bike I am borrowing from arjache is of fantastically high quality and, like everything she owns, mysterious in its complexities. It has Presta valves (which is to say, the weird ones I had to look up online which have a little screw top), no kickstand, and gears that are powered by two separate levers each. I keep telling myself I know the next bit because I have had a bike before, and I keep being wrong.[3]

[3] This is not a bad thing. It is just hilarious.

House hunting

Belated announcement, we talked to the landlord and he's not dropping the rent. Looking at local prices, his position is totally legit. And I'm still done being the primary person in a landlord-tenant relationship that leads to my ranting for 45 minutes at a time about his faulty memory, complete inattention to detail, and attitude toward code (which is to say, he doesn't believe in making sure anything is to code ever).

So we are moving, as soon as we can find a suitable place, which might be rent or buy, but I don't have to worry about it anymore, because miracle of miracles, my housemate-sister is running a business. It turns out she's been independently running a business for a couple of years.

It turns out this means she's gotten past a lot of the family phone and paperwork dread, and has just... started taking point on checking all the listings and booking us for house viewings.

I hadn't realized how heavy that weight was until it was lifted. I'd dragged my feet on looking at listings for over a month, because I'm almost ten years tired of being the person who does that and suddenly, oh. I don't have to be the one that does that forever?

Oh.

So anyway, we have our eye on a house with one more bedroom for more money when we thought we were looking for one less bedroom for less money, but it's only four blocks away and looks fantastic, so we hope we get it. It's like a maintenance and layout upgrade on our existing everything. We'll see. Thanks be to the person following up leads so I don't have to.