Do Your Own Ride

 

Manners Road

20 April 2025

When someone asks me, "How are you," I answer, "I'm an NIH-funded scientist who works at a university."  If they don't know what I mean, I explain. In detail. About how our building is locked to keep ICE out. About the red cards set out for people so they know their rights. About how nobody knows if they'll have a job a year from now. About the three information sessions held in our department within one week. About how science is being destroyed because something something woke something vaccines something something. If you voted for this, fuck you very much, and how's your 401K?

So I make some phone calls, and then I blow glass and go out on my bike.

The aforementioned glassblowing is eating into my biking time. That'll be over in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, when I have been getting out, I've been leaving my camera behind. The group rides I've been on aren't camera-friendly.

There was an exception to that when I managed to wiggle out of work early enough to catch a Friday evening ride in March. I brought my camera because we'd be passing the site of a forest fire on Woosamonsa Road. We don't tend to get forest fires around here, but after last summer's drought (which we're technically still in), there's a lot of tinder lying around.

A lot of trees had already been cut down by the time we got there. Still, there were charred stumps and logs.

Our Jeff had started up his Wednesday evening rides again. At first I didn't go; with the construction detours between my house and my job, I could get as many miles in by riding my bike to and from work.

When his rides got longer, I showed up. The first one, a cloudy evening in the high 40s, ended with a 6-mile deluge. I didn't even put my cleat covers on when we got back to the parking lot. I put Janice away, laid a towel on the driver's seat, and drove home soaking wet. 

The second one had a lot of miles in it, and we got home at dusk, my GPS having switched to night view. I was beat before I even started that ride. I'd trained indoors on Saturday, blown glass on Sunday, blown glass on Monday, and, worried about losing fitness, commuted to work by bike in 30-mph wind gusts on Tuesday. Needless to say, out of 7 riders, I was 6th, far behind the front 5 on every hill. I used up whatever I had left on the downhill sprint at the end of the ride.

The third one, last week, was so windy that, had we continued at the 12-mph pace we were going on the flat River Road, we never would have made it home by sunset. He shortened the ride by five miles.

Back in March, still chilly, Tom led us from Bordentown to New Egypt. One of our riders got a flat that took nearly half an hour to fix. I didn't mind. My back needed a break anyway. On our way home, we encountered a bridge out on Meiers Road.

The surface was down to slats. Crossing it looked worse than it actually was. 

There were some rainy Saturdays. There were some rainy Sundays. There were some Sunday afternoons with good weather. On those days, I'd blow glass in the morning, come home, eat lunch, and suit up for a penance ride. I'd make up the route as I went along, mostly avoiding hills because my legs were already tired from stomping around on a cement floor for four hours. 

Meanwhile, Dave S was leading hella hilly rides to get the 30-some-odd FreeWheelers ready for their trip to Italy in early May. He led mostly on Sundays, so I missed them.

Last Sunday, Pete and Martin did Dave's ride out of Pennington, had lunch at a deli, then rode down to my house to meet me. They wound up with 67 miles and a zillion feet of elevation gain. I could feel myself falling farther and farther behind on my training.

Then, yesterday, I resucitated the dormant Chocolate Bunny Ride, 50 miles in the hills from Pennington to Flemington. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish without being in pain. 

There were ten of us in all. I rode in from home with a bag of chocolate bunnies to be handed out to everyone who finished and to anyone who cracked wise in a sufficiently bunny-worthy manner.

Martin led off: "I wore a jersey with white today," he said, "For the chocolate." 

"You get a bunny!"  We hadn't even left the parking lot.

Somewhere on the Sourland Mountain, as we regrouped after a climb, I saw this stop sign.

Now that I've posted it, I suppose I've made myself available to be disappeared.

Some bad puns earned some bunnies. Be grateful I don't remember what they were.

Tom and Jim left us on the other side of the mountain; they wanted fewer miles. 

We took Old York to Reaville, where, at the top of one of the many rolling hills, we stopped for a hay-bunny.

After Factory Fuel closed, we tried Bread and Culture. That was two years ago. What we remembered about the place were two things: there's nowhere to rest our bikes; and the pastries are gigantic. We went around to the back of the shop, to a small parking lot. Three loaves of bread rested next to a window. A baker waved.

"Where should we put the Italian bikes?" John asked. He had his Moser. Althea was on a silver Tommasini.

Martin, on his Orbea, said, "In the dumptster!"

I gave him a bunny for his sick burn.

We got lucky with the timing. It was 11:30 as we were in line. I chose the smallest pastry on display, a shortbread raspberry thumbprint that I ate while I was waiting for my cortado. Everyone else wound up with sugary, buttery things that were the size of a 53-cog chainring.

All that caffeine and sugar would come in handy for the ride back. We'd be facing a stiff wind coming out of the southwest.

I warned people ahead of time that I'd be stopping at the top of Manners Road. I take pictures from here every time.

Even after 25 years of road cycling, I have impostor syndrome. Within the groups of riders I find myself in, I'm by far the fattest. And by far not the fastest. I feel as if I'm holding other riders back if I can't keep up. 

Heddy and I were talking about this yesterday as I watched one rider zip ahead at every opportunity. This person has been training seriously for a year in order to get faster. I said I had no interest in that. "I'd just get dropped by a different set of people."

Heddy said she doesn't worry about anyone else. "I do my own ride," she said. 

And that's what I planned to do when I signed up for Dave S' Easter Sunday hillfest from Hopewell. This was my only Sunday off from glassblowing; I had to ride. 

I looked at the list of people who had signed up. I emailed Dave, "Well, I registered, and, as far as I can tell, I'm the only actual C+ rider listed. I'm not feeling confident. I expect to be riding by myself tomorrow." He assured me I'd have his company. With 57 miles of hills on my legs already, and with so little training, I doubted that.

His was the only ride listed. Of the registered members, enough of the fastboys were leaders that they cuold have posted something of their own and let more C+ folks sign up. They could have done their own ride instead of hijacking this one. I've been bitching about this for years. Other ride leaders are okay with this happening. I'm not; I make sure my listings tell them to stay away. Not for nothing, at the end of today's ride, one person said they'd avoided signing up for several rides already because so many fastboys had been registered. 

There was a stiff headwind out of the north that was already battering us in the parking lot. Three riders took off so early we didn't see them again until we got to the rest stop. Our first hill was Province Line north from 518. I stayed in the back, waiting for everyone to pass me. 

That didn't happen. Somehow, I wasn't last. I was, as usual, chugging along, mostly by myself, somewhere between the lead group and the handful behind me. What was interesting was that the members of these groups kept changing as the ride wore on, and that, for the most part, people were waiting at the tops of hills. 

I've missed so many weekend rides that I didn't know the Covered Bridge Cafe and Market had changed hands. I was confused by the "grand opening" banner. It's now the Covered Bridge Italian Market and Deli. It's pretty much the same as it was, down to the barista who made my cortado.

We caught some tailwind on the way home. Dave sent us up the top half of Runyon Mill. It's been a while since I've climbed that hill. I remembered the pavement being bad at the steepest part. It's worse than that now.

I made it back to Hopewell feeling pretty good. I guess glassblowing has helped maintain my endurance. What also helped was that I took Heddy's advice: I didn't worry about what anyone else was doing. I had the route. I knew where I was. My goal was to finish without being in pain. I dawdled when I needed to. I pushed when I felt like it. I did my own ride.

Hot Mess Part Forty-Eight: In Media Res

Some of Spring 2025

12 April 2025

8 weeks into the semester, I was feeling unsettled. The holding shelf was nearly full. I wanted to start moving things to the permanent collection. It was too early for that. 

The problem mid-semester is that the pieces pile up, but I never know how the story is going to end. Maybe I'll make something better than that thick bubble-mold vase, or maybe I won't try a rod in the bubble mold again and that will be the best of the worst for however long.

Was I improving my skills? Was I learning anything from my classmates? Did I really like any of the color-verb pieces I'd been banging out? 

Should I buy more white frit to replenish my diminishing supply? Will I completely run out of space by the end of April? Will I be able to get rid of all the pieces I don't want to keep? Will I even be blowing glass next semester? Will I even have a job next semester? How can I worry about such selfish stuff when there's a chance that people I know could be disappeared? We're walking on eggshells out in the real world.

Well. I'm blowing glass in spite of all that, to forget about all that for four hours at a time. When I'm in the hotshop, the only thing that matters is getting whatever is on my pipe into the annealer in one piece.

March 31 was the first day of fall semester registration. The school had switched to a new system that worked almost nothing like the old one. A week before registration began, students got access to the new platform to create fall schedules. I played around with it, putting every step into a text message for the workshop group.

So I guess I made the decision to come back in the fall, the plan being that Sometimes and I would be weeknight partners.

On March 30, she helped me make another vase with the earth-tone colors my friend from California had sent me. This one came out well enough to send back out west. I have enough feathered pieces already. If I were to keep this one, it would end up lost in a sea of similarity.

I laid out three piles of frit on the hotplate and picked them up, not quite evenly around, on a clear bubble. I lost the bowl to a bad breakoff. Looking at the broken pieces in the scrap bucket, I realized that the colors weren't standing out. For the next attempt, I went with a white background. This time it was a half-assed vase. When I get a color idea, shape is secondary, especially when I've already lost one.

The vase lived in my house for two days before I gave it to a pair of cycling friends who were my very first ride leaders 25 years ago. I hadn't seen them in close to a decade. They hadn't changed a bit.

March 31 was unseasonably warm and humid, more like late May than the end of March. I registered for class first thing in the morning, and later in the day helped a classmate by phone. I was fielding text questions from fellow glassblowers all day and into the night, copying and pasting my initial instructions over and over again. 

The classroom was 98 degrees by the time we got started. 

I decided to tackle the bubble mold again, this time with green aventurine powder I had a lot of but seldom used. Once I melted it in, I remembered why. What I'd hoped would be a little drinking glass ended up far too big for that. While I was still shaping it on the pipe, I hit the bottom on the furnace door and had to spend the next five minutes getting myself out of trouble. By the time I was on the punty, half the bubbles had disappeared and it was clear that this aventurine wasn't going to sparkle.

Tempted to chuck it, I put it in the annealer instead.

It took a lot of grinding to get the thing to stand up straight. I took it home, still hating it. There was a clear patch, from where I'd cut the bottom off after going into the mold, a necessary step. I found some lime green nail polish at the grocery store and reached down into the bottom to paint over the blank spot. Having done this, I knew I could never sell it. I'd have to toss it or keep it.

I carried it up to the Window Sill of Judgment. There, it became clear that the bottom needed more grinding. I packed it up again and brought it back to the classroom the following Sunday. 

CP came over to see what I had. He liked it. "It looks like a watermelon," he said. "It was supposed to be a drinking glass," I replied. But now, because it was a green watermelon, I liked it. I took it home to live in the keeper section of the holding shelf. 

Back to the 98-degree day: Not to be outdone, I tried the same color with the bubble mold again. I lost control, and half the bubbles, later in the process. When it doubt, spin it out.

This one had a bald patch too. I put the nail polish on the underside this time. The bowl lives with the rest of the floppies, barely fitting onto the crammed shelf. It will become a planter when the cuttings I've made at work sprout roots.

One of the Sunday afternoon classmates was giving out Iron Maiden rod. At the end of the night, now that it was a cool 93 degrees, I had about 15 minutes to make a quick cup. If I'd had more time and more courage, I'd have blown it thinner. Tonight was obviously not the night for finesse.

It's an intriguing set of colors, but it's also $90 for a kilogram rod. As Murano said the following week after he tried it too and I told him how much it cost, "It's nice. But not that nice."  I wouldn't say no to another chunk of it, though.

*****

Jack went to an antiquarian book fair in Manhattan. He texted me a photo, captioned "A book on glass for just $6850."

Feeling snarky, I grabbed a paperback off a pile of books he'd been reading and set it on top of a threaded cup, now a soap dish, that I made in my first year. "A book on glass for free," I texted back.

Sometimes has been making mushrooms to sell. She's good at selling her work. She draws people in with the mushrooms and they buy her bigger pieces too.

I asked her if she could make me a couple of mushrooms. She did. I put one in the jade plant in my kitchen.

The other one went to live in the classmate collection. That's All The Glass' fused glass sheet the mushroom is sitting on.

*****

Some ideas come to me as I'm falling asleep or waking up. Setting out three spirals of frit was one of those ideas.

Once again, the shape was secondary. The reducing purple reacted with the white frit again, turning it a shiny bronze.

I spent the rest of that Sunday working on two more color verbs. The first was "Green Distract." Lately I've been swinging the top when it breaks unevenly off the pipe and I don't have a specific shape in mind anyway. If I'd had the guts and the skill, I'd have put a handle on this and made it a pitcher. But it curves in for a good hand-hold as it is.

Murano was making a low bowl, a shape that is stressfully difficult. Staying well out of his way, I made my last piece entirely at the furnace, which doesn't give as even a heat as the glory hole does. I got a thick vase, "Moss Green Creep," that is flirting with rejection as it sits on the Window Sill of Judgment.

Sometimes, meanwhile, was making very tall vases. Murano called out, "You're on fire!" as she swung and pulled the lip on one side of her last piece.

Of course I was jealous. I'd been wanting to make tall, skinny things for a while. It had been on my list. I just didn't know how to go about it.

"You're gonna have to teach me," I told her.

"It's easy. Blow, swing, blow, swing."

The next night, that's what I did. Away from the Sunday pressure, I blew and swung.

The first piece was with cherry red frit that has always been a color disappointment. I keep forgetting that it's too orangey. I blew, swung, blew, swung, transferred, and swung some more. It seemed tall.

I texed a photo of it in the annealer to Sometimes: "I made a tall thing!"

"Hell yeah!!!" she wrote back.

My second thing wasn't as tall.

The color was from All the Glass' basement. GGP was playing with colors she got from him too. 

The box fan next to the glory hole gave up the ghost. I found another one under the back table. The blades turned, but there was no current. "I bought a hot plate and blocks," I said. "I ain't buying a fan."

I tried making another cup from the leftover bubble mold cuttings. The bottom was lime green aventurine. The center was clear. The top was gold aventurine. The green was too muddy-looking. The top was too thinly coated. The shape was good, but thick. The punty took a big chunk out of the thick bottom when I broke it off. When I took it out of the annealer days later, I decided it wasn't worth keeping or photographing. It went into the waste bucket.

With 20 minutes left in class, All the Glass showed up. I was busy blowing, swinging, and blowing a bubble of off-batch gold ruby extra. While he chatted with GGP and Rose, I blew, swung, blew, and called GGP over for a transfer. On the punty, I heated the top third and swung, heated, and swung.

"I'm gonna put it away!" I called out to GGP and All the Glass.

"Whoah!"

"That's tall!"

I texted Sometimes again: "Look! Look!" The top curved, but I liked it anyway.

When I fetched the vase later, I was surprised it was only 14.5 inches high. It seemed taller when I was working on it.

I couldn't help but stand it next to Sometimes' tall vase in the cabinet. I'd beat her pulled top by about half an inch. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?!?

Sometimes' record is 18 inches. We decided we should make more tall things.

*****

The powers that be decided that we would not be blowing glass on Easter Sunday. Eight of us would now be pushed out to May 11. Nope. May 4 was already too far into spring biking season. I'd have to take the loss on that one.

At the same time, the powers that be got around to offering the four of us Sunday morning folks a chance to make up the class they'd canceled on our first day.

We were given the option of four time slots. One was Saturday afternoons. Nope. Biking. 

The other three were during the day on weekdays. After going back and forth with a program director at the school who was still replying to emails well into the night (I thought only we scientists did that), while I exchanged texts with Sometimes, we worked it out so that both of us would take two half-days off from our day jobs, probably get the glory hole to ourselves, and not have to show up on May 11.

I counted the number of glassblowing days left before my life could return to normal: 9.

*****

The annual student art show kicks off on April 26. We have to have submissions in by April 20. I'm still on the fence about handing over the susupended balloons that now live outside by my front door.

 

I got the reimbursement check for the blocks today, paid out of money we've raised from selling our donated glass. Now we need to sell some more. We have several tubs of student glass out in the shed next to the classroom. The dean, ever fearful of clutter, wants them gone. 

In the past, we've held a student sale on the day the art show starts. We've had demos in the classroom at the same time. The demos draw crowds, and the crowds buy our glass. I suggested we do this again. Then I added that I don't want to be the point person. Enough is enough. There's a fine line between being a team player and being a sucker.