Bike & Bus

I originally wrote this on May 2.

Yesterday, International Workers Day, was an exciting day in Seattle.  Walk-outs began at 1130a and continued most of the day for the General Strike, something Occupy had been planning for a long time.  In the morning, I attended a program on the campus I work at about the rights, love, and struggle of prison inmates and people of color. (oft times one in the same)  As I was walking back from lunch, I noticed tons of helicopters swarming downtown.  Ohhhhhh Occupy, always gathering so much attention.  But it was more than that.

Vigilantes (I don’t even know if that’s the right word for them) bashed in windows of storefronts in the shopping district.  Superheroes were pepper-spraying crowds (admittedly this is a rumor).  Things just went awry.  There is a serious confusion about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to making political change.  Forcing Nike into spending $14k to replace windows makes an impact, whether it’s appropriate or not. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

So pretty much from about 2p on I was nervous about how the heck I was supposed to get home to LQA.  I hopped on my bike around 445p and headed downtown.  Not after getting a judgmental look from my boss about having to go toward that area.  Um, do you wanna drive me?

Everything was good down Pine from Capitol Hill.  I even met another lady biker on a sweet Motobecane who was also wearing non-sensible cycling shoes.

Then, downtown.

All the streets were closed to cars! It was like a biking dream.  Of course there were cops swarmed everywhere, and yes I almost got clipped by a scary looking black suburban with under-cover police cars tailing it, but no stupid drivers not using their signals or checking their blind spots!  Stuff dreams are made of, kids.  While stopped at 5^th Ave I commented to a dude next to me how wonderful it was.

“Yes! Really! There should be riots every day!” he said.