c-log

I’ve been getting pretty comfortable living in the midwest. When visiting lecturers come to my office, some of whom are considering moving here from either coast, I have good things to say about living here. I know it’s more conservative than I like, but I’m usually not bothered by it as I can hold my own in conversation. I find that people aren’t used to being challenged on their ideas, and when I confront them with a well constructed argument, most of the conservative underpinnings dictating how things “should be” dissolve under the weight of open-minded rationality.
However, on my very short commute to work the other day, there was a house at the end of the block with a sign in the front yard reading, “No on 2.” The house is an older, well-used family house. Usually with lots of toys in the front yard. Sometimes the kids are out sitting on the steps watching the cars go by.
The “No on 2” signs have an ominous red color. I read it as I drove by and my heart sank. I almost did a double take. “That’s a conservative sign, declaring a stand against what I devote my life to”, or so I thought to myself. I live among people who are against stem cell research.
Over the next couple of days I began to see them everywhere. I might have expected to see them in other neighborhoods, but not in my own. Then again, I probably would have been surprised to see them anywhere. Just like when I used to see “Bush/Cheney” signs on motorcycle rides outside the bay area, but never in my own neighborhood. How could people simultaneously tell their kids to do good in school, but then put a sign in their yard favoring the inarticulate dumb guy over the too smart, too heady, well-spoken, experienced guy? I had heard that California was more conservative away from the cities, but I had to see it to believe it.
So here I am, living in a conservative part of the country, but in the neighborhood with the rainbow flags, thinking everything’s great, and I see houses all around me taking an active stand against research. It gave me the creeps. It reached inside my chest, and I felt a tinge uncomfortable. I actually toyed with the idea of packing up and moving. “Now that I know how you really feel, excuse me while I return to a more open-minded part of the country.”
I wondered if I should be a good citizen, walk down the block, and knock on the door of the red sign posters. “Hi. I’m a scientist, and I wonder if you could tell me why you favor throwing blastocysts straight into the garbage, rather than letting them donate a few of their stem cells to research that will benefit humanity?” But I felt afraid to approach the house. I don’t know exaclty what I feared, perhaps that people wouldn’t be able to tell me anything other than it’s just not right, and slam the door in my face.
What I didn’t see, were signs for the opposite viewpoint. I was sure that the majority of people were in favor of stem cell research. So where are all the signs for that?

I woke up this morning with my feet in one and half inches of water. Luckily my feet were in my sleeping bag, and the lower part of my sleeping bag was wrapped in a 30 gallon plastic trash bag. So though my feet were in a small lake, they were warm and dry. I had pitched my tent on a slight slope, such that my head was higher than my feet. At the time I didn’t realize just how handy it would be.
When I went to sleep the night before, there were lightening flashes in the sky to the North. They appeared earlier in the evening, announcing a storm that had passed through Nebraska, where a tornado had touched down. The sky flashed silently in the distance as my new friend and I talked about motorcycle rallys and places to ride. He got a call from his wife in Omaha. She had been trapped in a Walmart while the storm passed by. His son was at the movies when the storm hit, and everyone was herded into the lazer tag zone in the basement.
Just before going to sleep I could see black masses of density in the clouds to the North when the lightening flashed. Like an X-ray announcing the water source. I figured it might rain.
The guy in the tent next to me was named Jim. He was probably 20 years older than me, and looked like Mr. Clean with a grey beard. Muscular and rugged, but smiley and friendly. He warned me that he snored. I didn’t think anything of it until I awoke to the sawing of logs in the middle of the night. So I had learned to wear my earplugs.
This time however, I was awoken at 3 AM by the sound of rain pounding on the tent. It was coming through muffled but loud despite my earplugs. Which meant it must have been really loud without them. My anticipation of rain had been confirmed. I turned on my flashlight and immediately saw that little trails of water were starting to stream into the tent. My pillow consisted of an ice cream sandwich with my sweater in the middle and my folded pants on the bottom and my towel on top. Since my pants had been on the bottom, I noticed that they were wet. Of course, they were my only pair. My leather paniers were in the tent. The water was streaming under them as well, and collecting at the bottom of the tent near my feet.
I realized that I had some 30 gallon trash bags in my paniers so I took them out and started organizing everything and wrapping it in plastic. My paniers, my motorcycle jacket, the bottom half of my sleeping bag, all protected by plastic. I used to think thermarests were for wimps. Now it was like a life raft, and the only thing keeping me dry as water flowed all around it.
CRACK! There was a lightening strike close by. I was near the top of the hill and wondered if lightening could strike tents. My motorcycle was just outside getting the first real soak of it’s life. I turned off the flash light, laid my head down, and enjoyed the fact that despite the water running by, despite the wind that occasionally pushed all the air space out of the tent shoving the walls into my face, the thin little fabric shelter giving to me by my parents for my 15th birthday was protecting me 25 years later, so I could close my eyes and go to sleep.

Usually I look forward to riding my motorcycle. Whether it’s the short 2 minute ride to work, or a longer ride just for the sake of a ride, I look forward to climbing on and navigating the streets. But for the last week or so I’ve been opting to drive. I’m too distracted with hard timelines. It throws off my concentration. I guess I don’t like to ride when riding is a distraction from something else.
But I rode the Guzzi to work today. No Labor Day barbecue or relaxation. I have to prepare posters for a conference coming up later in the week. I know I have to hate it before I can enjoy it.
For the first time this summer, the air was cool. So cool that I donned my heavy leather jacket instead of the mesh jacket I’ve been wearing for the last 6 months. As I waited for the elevator at 2 AM, on the way out of the building I had a feeling of another time. The heavy leather had me thinking that I would be riding my motorcycle across the bay bridge, which would refresh me no matter how tired I was. Instead I rode through the university down suburban, tree-lined Rockhill Ave, all alone. Not a soul around. No activity. Just cool night air, 62 degrees.

Tried a new place in Wesport called Torre’s pizza for dinner. Walking in just before 8, the place was nearly empty. “You have pizza here, right?”, thinking I was being cute. The woman near the bar offered to seat us, but then started with warnings and qualifers that in a few minutes the place would be over run with people about to do some heavy drinking during the 10 dollar power hour, where 10 bucks means all you can drink from 8 to 10 PM. Did we look wholesome and unworthy of being surrounded by cheap party animals I wondered?
We sat down and ordered a medium pizza, and sure enough the room started to fill with twentysomething men wearing shoes but no socks, each holding two plastic cups, one in each hand. For every 10 men there was one woman. By the time we left, just thirty minutes after arriving, the place was standing room only.
Back on the street in Wesport we headed over to Kelly’s Bar. I’ve heard about it for ages, but had never actually been there. We stopped in for a drink. It too was fairly empty, but the night was young. The bartender who served us had been there for 25 years. People started arriving more frequently just as we were leaving. We noticed that we were the only ones who hadn’t been carded on the way in – though to my eyes everyone looked evenly spaced between 25 and 40.
Just after we left, two women with very long legs, long blond hair, and very short red miniskirts were crossing the street to enter the bar. They were carrying large black bags, and I realized they were representatives from a drink company, there to blend in and ply the crowd with bottled mixed drinks. I wondered what that job would be like.

After work Kim and I rode our motorcycles to McCoy’s public house in Westport. So far we’ve only taken short rides around brookside, though last weekend we rode to breakfast at Mam Belle’s cafe. Tonight’s ride was on busier streets and through more traffic than before. I took her through the Plaza so she could cruise by Latte Land on her lovely blue Ninja and see the motorcycle crowd there, but I think she was too focused on riding to see them.
The weather was great for sitting out on the deck at McCoy’s, drinking beer, and eating dinner. Kim’s Dr Pepper tasted like a rubber hose because the waiter poured it from the outdoor bar hose that had been sitting unused for awhile, so he replaced it with a pour from the regular soda fountain. Wesport was moderately active for a summertime weekday evening. I was surprised to see that the house Stout had the lowest alcohol content in the 3% range whereas the IPA was more than 5%. I tried both.
Afterwards we walked to the Broadway cafe for espresso, and then rode the bikes home.