With the heat and with the exertion of biking 50+ miles a day, nutrition and hydration are becoming a bit of an issue.  I’m guzzling milk and juice and Gatorade all day, which keeps me well-lubricated, but also makes me feel bloated and icky and not so inclined to eat.  I’ve been able to get enough food into myself that this has not yet become an issue, but I’m just not sure I’m replacing calories as fast as I can burn them.  No matter – I’ll be sure to take a nice long recuperative rest once I get to Georgia.

This does mean that I’ll only have internet access once every few days, so if I’m not updating my blog or responding to e-mails, no one need get worried.  With any luck I’ll be in Athens, GA no later than the 21st.  After that, maybe you could start getting concerned.

Second: Camila has graciously provided me with some of the photos from Baltimore.  So here’s a shot of me and Camila at the grave of Edgar Allen Poe (click for full size):

My hosts in Philly treated me wonderfully.  Their neighbourhood in west Philadelphia is a hotbed for anarchists, which suited me just fine.  Once again I found myself staying longer than expected, attending a concert, partaking of a seven-course Moroccan meal, and drawing a picture to be sent to the White House.  And then I found I had moved on again, headed for the U.S. capitol.

Delaware was the first, and probably the last, state I was able to cross in one day, and then I stayed the night in Elkton, MD.  The next night, in a Baltimore hostel, I met Omar, an Argentinian-born veteran bike tourist, and his 20 year-old daughter Camila.  They’re going roughly the same way I am: down the Blue Ridge to New Orleans, then west from there to California (although I might have convinced them to go to Burning Man instead).  So from Baltimore to D.C. I rode with them.  Omar is forceful and sometimes demanding, telling almost everyone he meets about his round-the-world project and requesting donations or freebies.  Remarkably, it often works: not only did he get cash from some people, he convinced the owner of a pizza place to feed us all for free, and a guy at a roadside deli bought us some Gatorade after the owners kicked him out for soliciting.  Camila is a very quiet sort who didn’t had much to do with her father when she was growing up; she went to New York to meet him and then bus with him to Vancouver where he lives, but he sprung the bike trip idea on her, and off they went.  At any rate, although I only just met them, I love them both because their madness points the same way as mine.

I’m here in Washington for a few days, and then I’ll be off towards the Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The warnings I’ve received of endless steep hills seem less dire now that I’m in better shape: climbing is no longer the heart-pounding ordeal it was when I started the trip.  I’d like to ride with Omar and Camila, but I’m much faster than they are, and I’m already behind if I’m to get to Burning Man on time.  Still, we may yet meet again.

On Friday, having spent a pleasant few days largely taking it easy, I decided to go out and do something more active. This, I decided, meant visiting the Metropolitan Museum and then the Museum of Modern Art. The Met was alright – its Islamic Art exhibit, which I’d been looking forward to especially, was gutted for renovations, sad to say – but it is MoMA which concerns us, because it was at MoMA that I met this lovely girl. We played eye-tag a bit in the line for the coat check, and then she passed by me a bit later heading for the escalator, and since after all I am on an adventure, I decided the thing to do would be to swallow my shyness and approach her.

Well, she was fortunately of a very outgoing sort, and barely had I spoken a word when I found she had launched us into the middle of a conversation about which floors to visit first and why. This was all well and good – she knew which exhibits she liked, having visited several times before, and I was perfectly happy to let her lead the way.

Between comments about this painting or that, we got to know each other a bit. I told her about my journey, and she told me she was living as an au pair somewhere in Jersey. Her name was Eva, and she was a preschool teacher from Austria, cute accent and all. I was rather smitten, and she seemed to like me as well. We might have gone out for dinner that very night, but she was with friends who were visiting from Austria (they approached us only once and then gone elsewhere, for some reason or other). Tomorrow, said Eva, they would be returning home, and so she would be free to come to the Entheocentric Salon party at CoSM.

It’s a little confusing getting to CoSM if you don’t already know where it is, so I suggested we meet in Union Square, in front of the Whole Foods (simply because I’d passed by it a few times, and so was fairly comfortable with the environs). “Oh!” she said, “I don’t even need to write that down – I know where the Whole Foods is.” And here was my big blunder: I left it at that. No contact information was exchanged, not an e-mail address nor a blessed digit of a phone number. After all, what could go wrong, if, as it seemed, she were so familiar with the chosen location? The time chosen was 5:30PM, and then with a quick hug we parted ways.

You can guess the rest, O my brothers. She did not arrive. I thought maybe she was seeing her friends off, maybe there were delays at the airport, as oft there tend to be. And so I waited and waited, fully for two and a half hours as I had nothing better to do, and then feeling somewhat despondent I headed off to finish the night according to the original plan. (I stopped along the way to CoSM for some sushi and a glass of plum wine, which was comfort food and made me feel a bit better.)

The party was not amiss. I met some nice people there, and got to watch Alex Grey paint a woman (her organs and aura on display) smelling some grapes or flowers or something. It was fascinating to watch him build up simple shapes and then gradually flesh them and add detail – doubly so because he was kind of swaying with the music while he painted. I got the sense that his experience of painting was not unlike my experience of proving theorems: that it got him into the Zone as one might be in when solving puzzles or juggling or doing anything really well.

But I digress; the story of our fair Eva is not yet at an end. I decided I was not going to take this kind of shit from the universe without at least fighting back, without at least putting in an effort, even if it was all for naught, and so an effort indeed put I in! First it was the Craigslist post and the Google search (the latter getting me nowhere) and then the postings on relevant Livejournal communities. I revisited the Whole Foods at the same time the day after the party, although not for so long did I wait this time, just in case there had been some confusion about the day. In the evening I scoured Facebook and several au pair websites. And then today, for my final act, I put up a bunch of posters around Union Square. Probably most or all of these have been torn down by now, postering being apparently much less acceptable here than in Toronto, but the point is that the effort was made. It’s in the universe’s hands now – I won’t be able to do much more than monitor Craigslist after I leave the city. I am not hopeful.

Lest I be accused of obsessing, it is worth writing of some of the other interesting things that have happened while I’ve been here. On Tuesday or Wednesday, while cutting onions for a fried yam dish with a super-sharp knife of Japanese make, I cut my thumb rather badly – it went through my fingernail like air, and I think it actually touched the bone. Fortunately I got the wound under running water right away, put a bandage on with neosporin, and it is already doing much better, though it seems I might lose a bit of feeling in part of my thumbtip.

On Friday, coming home from my MoMA adventure, and immediately upon entering the door I was invited by my hosts (excellent people, by the way) to a play they were attending. This was a very underground, low-budget affair, and highly avant-garde. The second half, to give you an example, was (saith the director) inspired by the question: What if the city of Baghdad showed up to dinner? The answer involved wrestling, a pot of spaghetti noodles, and about a solid thirty seconds of women just screaming. This was all surprisingly entertaining.

Tomorrow, I continue on my way, and it may yet be awhile before I take a break nearly as long as this one. Despite the prospect of terrible hill climbing, it looks like I will most likely take the Blue Ridge Parkway after all, as everyone I’ve asked (fellow bikers included) has highly recommended the route for its sheer beauty. That, I guess, is as good a reason as any.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/mis/694155573.html

Thanks!

Greg and I had a hell of a time getting to the city. We were hit with heavy rain for all of the second day, plus the bike route we were on led us ten miles in the wrong direction before we realized we should turn back. To add insult to injury, I got a flat and had to replace my front tube. The next day was more rain and another huge detour, but this one was at least going in vaguely the right direction, through the beautiful Catskills National Park. We stopped at an organic health food store, incongruously situated in Downsville, just as they were closing, and the proprietress graciously offered us crash space for the night on the back porch.

The next day we made it as far as Monticello, but with all the delays we wouldn’t have made it to the city in time had we not got a ride from Monticello to Suffern, courtesy of a friend of Greg who was also on her way into the city.  From there, yesterday, we biked the remaining 75km into the city – across the George Washington Bridge and down the trail on the west side – and I barely made it in time for the full moon gathering at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.

Alex Grey’s art is luminous enough on the printed page, but nothing can compare to confronting the massive original canvases.  It was an interesting paradox: I could now see the individual brush strokes, which connected the artworks to a more practical existence; and yet at the same time many of the paintings, particularly the Cosmic Christ, seemed to radiate a transcendental intelligence that comes across far more in person than in any artbook.  At any rate, the paintings were only a part of the mind-blowing decorations: archways were painted or lined with wings and eyes, and statues stood majestically against the walls.  It was against this background that the ceremony took place.

We opened with some chanting, then there were some short monologues, music and (surprisingly good) poetry recitals.  The theme for the evening was viriditas (“greenness”, the capacity for generating life and growth) and the Green Man.  This was convenient, as I was wearing all green and under the influence of mushrooms these kinds of things take on a certain significance that in other circumstances might be overlooked.

The concept of viriditas put a name to something I’ve been pondering for much of the trip.  One of the things that really struck me early on was terror – not fear of the challenges I might face, but fear my own power and agency.  Entirely on my own (for a suitable definition of “my own”), I had decided on, planned, and begun the execution of a monumental task.  On an unconscious level, I suppose, I’m used to having some superordinate authority supervising and dictating any such undertaking.  I thus experienced no small degree of cognitive dissonance: why was there no set route?  Why was there no “official” or “right” formula for me to follow?  Most of all, why was nothing stopping me?  The sense of total freedom was exhilarating but also deeply disturbing.

As I’ve continued on my way, and as I’ve come to terms with that sense of freedom, I’ve encountered some beautiful people who are striving to shape the world around them, who pursue their chosen works with joy and dedication.  That, I suppose, is how I understand viriditas: the innate power, inherited from the universe by every human being, to apply will and energy to any goal, however chosen.  As long as that attitude is maintained, the rest will sort itself out, for human ingenuity is boundless.

For the time being, my viriditas is devoted to getting me to Nevada and back in one piece; but once I’m back in Toronto, we’ll see where it gets applied.

Now that I’ve arrived in Ithaca, the whole trip is beginning to shape up much more like I hoped it would.  Ithaca is a charming university town, tucked against the southern end of Cayuga lake, full of hippies and anarchists – the vibe is very much like what Peterborough could be if it were less of a shithole.  I was fortunate enough to connect with some lovely people who have been hosting me, feeding me, and generally showing me a good time.  One of them, it looks like, will in fact be joining me as far as New York City.  Everyone I’ve met has been exceedingly nice and generous – this is the first town I’ve come to in which I could genuinely imagine myself living.

Saturday evening, when I arrived, I was invited to a Taurus party outside of town.  There was good food and a bonfire, and people gave me advice and supplies for my journey.  Since then I’ve wandered through nature trails, attended the local farmers’ market, gone mushroom hunting, helped out at the local bike co-op, cooked some delicious food, and generally kept busy.  Last night we celebrated my birthday with vegan cooking, wild morel mushrooms and shots of Chartreuse.  I’ve stayed here several days longer than I intended to, since I’ve been so thoroughly enjoying myself; and so Greg and I will be attending not the exhibition opening at MicroCoSM but the full moon ceremony at CoSM a few days later.

Finally, at the top of the hill, I encountered a restaurant called August 25, where I met some fabulously nice people.  One guy – I believe his name was Danny – was renovating a campground just down the hill, and offered me one of the cabins for the night.  The cabin was filled with assorted junk, including two beds, complete with mattresses; I slept on those in my sleeping bag.

In the morning, a retired microbiologist named Bob drove me to a bike shop in the nearest town where I picked up a new tire and tube, plus two extra tubes just in case.  After grabbing a bite to eat, I continued on – and immediately hit a series of grueling hills.  The worst by far was the one just past Warsaw that I had to climb to get to the motel.  I’m not ashamed to say I walked my bike all the way up.  And, at the top, I found I had another flat, this time on the front wheel.  This time, at least, I was able to find and remove the tiny stone that had caused the problem, then patch the tube with no problems.

Today, thankfully, things are going better.  Despite a strong headwind, the kilometres just flew by all the way to Geneseo, and I hope to reach Geneva or at least Canandaigua before nightfall.  I met a fellow bike tourist who warned me the terrain will be pretty hilly as I go south through the Finger Lakes, but I have some dead weight I may be able to jettison (notably the portable stand, which is heavy, requires a socket wrench I don’t have, didn’t come with enough washers, and didn’t even
help much when I used it).