about a bike and a t-shirt and a parakeet
I bought a bike. It's a Miyata, a mountain bike fro the 80s. I purchased this piece of awesomeness from the Bike Collective downtown for 50 bucks. It has a basket. It rocks my world pretty much. I ride my bike to school. Whenever I go somewhere near my house, I ride my bike. I'm addicted. I love riding my bike places. I hate when something is far away or requires me to drive my car. I don't like my helmet. I bought a kind of expensive helmet and it looks a little better than my old cheap one but still...no one looks sexy in a bike helmet. Except Lance Armstrong. But I also know that the day I do not wear the damn thing is the day I'll biff it and break my head open. So I wear my helmet. Once I have been riding for a while and feel stronger I want to start riding it back down to the bike collective and fix it up down there. They help you with that. Eventually I would love to repaint it....red with swirlies of course. It is named Poet. The first day I rode it to school my students were like, "Who's bike is that?" I replied proudly, "That would be mine." "You ride a bike to school? Don't nerds ride bikes to school?" I can't say that's the response I was expecting. But I just replied with this, "Well, in case you haven't noticed, I happen to be a super nerd. That's why I'm awesome." Most of them thought it was pretty cool though.
Every Friday I wear jeans and a t-shirt to school. These t-shirts are ones that usually have some kind of message on them. I have one that says "I heart free speech" and "Anything war can do, peace can do better" and "plant one, don't just hug a tree" and "sometimes I amaze myself" or my ramones, dropkick murphys or gogol bordello shirt. The first time I wore my "think green" shirt a seventh grader says, "Ms. Henry, are you a tree hugger?" and I coolly replied, "Yes, is that a problem?" He smiles, "No, that's cool. I was just wondering." Funny how things change. I remember last year, during our nonfiction unit, I had them read some environmental and activist essays and they were so resistant, making fun of "hippies and tree huggers." This year is different, you can see the mindset changing already. It's society, I think. That stuff is becoming more visible and prevalent in society and they are picking up on it. Which is awesome. (side note: when I chose these particular pieces for my classes to read, I was warned by our principal to be careful because we have students whose families own construction companies and car dealerships. What the fuck? Those are the kids who should be taught the most about damage to the environment.) My classes run the recycling program at our school. We delivered a recycling box to each teacher the first term and every Tuesday, during Channel One, my first period goes around and picks up the oxes and takes them out to dump into the recycling dumpster in the parking lot. I wish I had a spot on our grounds that we could do like a community garden or something. I worry that other students would destroy it though. I wonder how much it would cost to have big planter boxes in my atrium. Anyway, I ordered a shirt today that says "Make Art Not War."
We have adopted a parakeet. Anyone who knows me or has been to my house is chuckling right now. Because this means we now have: 1 parakeet, 2 hermit crabs, 2 koi, 3 goldfish, 12 tropical fish, 1 lobster, 1 cat, and 1 dog. Our house is a goddamn petting zoo. But we had to take Bob in. He has a very sad story. His first owners kept him in a closet, then Jason's sister had him for seven years and never really wanted him so didn't realy take good care of him and now he is very resistant to humans and has bald spots from all the grooming he does.