learning how to breathe

Three nights a week, I finish up work after the last train leaves. And so I drink sixteen ounces of sparkling water, saddle up, & hit the road. It's just shy of eleven miles from Old Pasadena to Angeleno Heights. It's no century, but it's long enough for me to notice a few things along the way. Like breathing.

I used to be a ballet dancer. One thing I learned through dance is the importance of using my breath in exercise — that the pattern of my breathing could work with me or against me. Let's say I'm doing small jumps (petit allegro*). It feels right to inhale as I jump up, then exhale as I land, with every small jump. It's what my body wants to do, to maintain a perfect one-to-one ratio of jumps to breaths. But the jumps are so fast that I can't get enough air in my lungs if I stick to the tempo. It's not efficient. And when you're performing as one of the Cygnets in Swan Lake, the number one aces top thing you can do to not suffer the fate of Moira Shearer is be efficient. (The number two thing you can do is stay perfectly, exactly in time with the music alongside the three other dancers; if you don't, you'll accidentally kick one of them, ruining the performance, & they will drag you backstage & murder you.)

I'm riding along Fair Oaks, not paying attention to much, when I sneeze. Twice. (I always sneeze in pairs.) I've just expelled all the air from my lungs, so I take a monstrous breath**. And then I let it out. It takes me two 360º revolutions of my pedals to exhale. And it feels pretty good. I slip into shallow breathing again (more or less one inhale-exhale couplet per 360º pedal revolution), but I notice that it feels ... not as good. I breathe slowly again. One full revolution to breathe in, one full revolution to breathe out, so half the speed. Then I inhale slower: once per every TWO full revolutions (& exhale at the same rate). And I keep at it for a while. And it feels amazing. Meanwhile, I notice that, with my current gear ratio, my breathing is just a tiny bit faster than my legs, which means my legs are constantly trying to speed up, to make my cadence match my breath. Which, coincidentally, is the same thing as going faster***. And wouldn't you know it, while I'm focusing on my breathing & my legs are focusing on my lungs, it's easier & more efficient to stay in the saddle instead of standing up, which means I'm using more of my legs, which makes them go faster, which makes me able to slow down my breath even more.

Then it gets fun. So two full revolutions per inhale (then two again per exhale) feels good, but what about two & a half? Two revolutions are easily split into four parts (right-left-right-left), so I just add one. Right-left-right-left-right on the inhale, then left-right-left-right-left on the exhale****. Then I let my cadence & my breathing get out of sync for a bit as I force my lungs to slow down & I try for three revolutions. I become a monster. I tear down hills, I annihilate corners, I chew up the road, & out of nowhere emerges the intersection of Figueroa & Cypress. 

I can't believe I didn't know this. I mean, I knew this once. But I didn't translate it. Did you know this? For me, it's a revelation, a minor miracle, a marvel of physiology, & the most obvious thing in the world. I feel silly & proud at the same time. And oxygen-drunk. It's cool stuff, that oxygen. You should try it.

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* "Petit allegro" — I know, I know, the first word is French, & the second word is Italian. That's what happens when French dance people name stuff using Italian music-notation descriptions. (There's "grand allegro", too.)

** A beast of a gasp.
*** This is where the analogy with dance breaks down. You can't — shouldn't — dance any faster than the music tells you to dance. But you can adjust your breath all the same.

**** Is there a less clunky way of describing the details of one's cadence? I hope so. 

this actually happened

On the last leg of my ride home, at about Sunset & Beaudry, I pass an old duffer in the bike lane. My bell rings, unprovoked, because my bell does that. But the guy changes gears, speeds up, & snorts,"What're you running, 35/17?" I counter, "48/15!" "Gears are good, y'know, for hills like these." "Is this a hill?" I meant to be funny.

We ride maybe a quarter of a mile in silence.

"I never did understand the whole no-gears thing," he finally says. "It's only good for riding on flats." I respond, "You should try it. It's very different. I ride both geared & fixed. And hey, if you ride both, maybe then you won't get passed on the road by a girl." I'm smiling though, hoping he can hear it. That he can tell I'm ribbing him, one rider to another.

One must smile in this circumstance, but it's an effort. I've been smiling all day. And this is the tenth & final mile of my ride home. And I'm tired. Sometimes, you just don't want to smile anymore.

He turns right, & I change lanes to turn left. My bell rings of its own volition, again. I consider wishing him a good ride, but then I think better of it. My face falls back to its usual riding expression — flat eyebrows, small mouth. I ride up the one hill, then I ride up the other hill, slowly, with great effort, & then I'm home.

je suis venue te dire que je m'en vais

I'm leaving you. I'm sorry. I love you, but I have to go.
Otheroom, Sunday 7/17 9pm for one last goodbye, until I see you again.

i quit

There are things that we do that we're proud of, & there are things that we do that we are not proud of. For the past ten years, I have gone back & forth, caring that I did something of which I wasn't proud vs. not caring. Does that make sense? No, right? So I did something about it.

I quit smoking.

Below is a pretty good list of reasons I might have quit:

· I taste things, professionally. And smoking gets in the way of my ability to taste things. And smell things. It prevents me from being as good at my job as I could be.
· Meanwhile, to be seen hampering my ability to taste lessens others' faith in how well I do my job. Employers, colleagues & customers, some of whom ask me on the regular for advice on coffees.
· Continuing to smoke — choosing to smoke — while knowing full well that it brings about an early, painful death is basically saying that I want to die. But the thing is, I don't want to die.
· It lessens my enjoyment of other things that are important in my life. Like food, coffee, biking, breathing, walking, singing, & feeling good.

But those aren't the reasons that I quit. I quit because I wasn't proud of it. And I would like to be proud of every damned thing that I do. I am not proud that I started when I was so young. I'm not proud that I gave money to the tobacco industry, on & off, for fifteen years. I am not proud that I allowed myself to be complacent when I knew it was out of step with what I believed in. And one day, I realized just exactly how un-proud I was, & from that moment forward I didn't want anything to do with it anymore.

So far, quitting has not been difficult. In fact, it's been remarkably easy. Perhaps this has to do with my reason for quitting — I'm not withholding something from myself that I want to have. I just don't want to want it any more. And that feels incredible.

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. My family, we are scrappers. We work hard, as a rule, & we're ambitious. There are reasons for this.

My father was born one year before the Great Depression struck. Thirteen years later, his father left his wife & five children. And so: My grandmother, after whom I'm named was suddenly a single mother of five in the throes of the biggest financial crisis this country had ever had (& has had to date). My dad, fiscally anyway, was essentially an orphan, though obviously he had the love of his mother & his four siblings. Not long after, his estranged father died, granting Dad & his siblings access to Mooseheart. Mooseheart is a boarding school in Brookfield, Illinois, for the surviving children of men who belonged to the Loyal Order of the Moose. I'm 100% serious.

My mother was born in Dublin, Ireland. At an early age (13!), she decided she wanted to practice medicine. But there were a couple snags. She was a woman, in the fifties, in Ireland. She actually needed special dispensation from the Catholic Bishop in Ireland in order to attend the (Protestant) college that would best prepare her for medical school. And he said "no". (I guess it's only the Pope that's infallible — Bishops err.) The other good college in Ireland told her she was too young. (She had skipped a grade, so ... what, she was too smart?) And so she, her parents, & her two sisters (also medically inclined) moved to America in pursuit of better sense. Her parents didn't have anything lined up in America, by the way. It was an act of faith I can hardly fathom, but the three daughters backed it up with personal sacrifice & incredibly hard work, & all three became successful anesthesiologists. (My mom says that putting people to sleep is the easy part — the trick is waking them up.)

Those two stories pretty much sum up the American Dream.

This year, I did not spend Thanksgiving with my family. I spent Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, doing a medium-sized collection of small things, things that didn't require businesses to be open. Tragically boring things. I can't be thankful for spending time with other Thanksgiving Orphans, I can't be thankful for a huge meal, & I can't be thankful for my beloved at my side (I broke up with him four days ago because I have excellent timing). I can be thankful, however, for the following:

· My father's dedication to education, both his & ours
· My mother's obvious joy in what she does, starting with medicine & continuing now to local politics & community service
· My sister's ability to come up with groundbreaking ideas that change how people think ... & then act upon them, bettering people's lives in very real ways
· My brother's incredible focus, setting the standard for what it means to be good at something

I want to go on & on, listing every family member downward & upward & out, but as you might imagine with a name like Kathleen O'Shea, we are rather Irish & rather Catholic, & so there are an awful lot of us. This, long enough even as a piece of writing, is my very long-winded Thanksgiving Grace. There's no god in it. There's not even very much luck. There is hard work, & there are lessons, & there is the sense that "goodness" is made, not inherited or chanced-upon. My folks are good, & I am proud of them, & I am thankful that they have shown me how good "good" can be. And, lastly, I hope someday to be as good as them.

new coke

An article from Wired UK titled "Meet Bruce Mau. He wants to redesign the world." has been making the rounds on the innertubes lately. I like & admire Bruce Mau. He has insightful opinions about brands & branding, & I'm impressed Coca Cola looked to him for his point of view. But a couple sentences early in the article made me stop reading, suddenly & utterly bored.

"Mau observed later that [a commenter at a business conference] was ... representative of what Coke and every other company is up against these days: a public that is more aware of, and concerned about, what firms are doing - and one that also has more ability to question and challenge business than ever before. Companies such as Coke are realising that they must adapt and adjust their behaviour to survive this new level of scrutiny."

Gross!

I often think of brands as people. Are they doing something interesting? Something new? Are they standing tall for what they believe in, sticking to their guns, fighting the good fight? Or any fight. And are they ... you know. Nice? Would I want to talk to this person at a party?

Coca Cola makes sugar water. (Delicious, delicious sugar water, mmmm.) Not new, not that interesting. Okay, so maybe their tastes & values are different than mine. But Mau is suggesting they seek out what people want from them, then change the whole timbre of the brand. He's advising a huge multinational corporation to become boring, sycophantic, & kind of ... sad. I don't want to talk to that person at a party.

It's not that I don't think Coca Cola should be held accountable — I do. And it's good that people are looking closer at the companies to whom they give their money — I'm a fan of voting with money. It's the "adapting & adjusting their behavio(u)r to this new level of scrutiny." No. Be awesome, for its own sake. Or don't be awesome. But always be something. Even you, Coca Cola.

— · — · — · — · — · — · —

Okay, okay, I finished the article. Okay. Curiosity got the better of me, & I was willing to be outraged. (Outrage can be good!) And I re-discovered that Bruce Mau is fucking rad. But I also have very little faith that all the ways in which Coca Cola is attempting to re-organize the company — to "make more sustainable, make more of what we love, using less of what we need" — has anything to do with Coca Cola suddenly becoming awesome thought-leaders & everything to do with Coca Cola wanting everyone to love them, just please won't we only love them, & doing whatever it takes to that end whether they believe in what they're doing or not. And, like I said, that's sad. And the mark of insecurity & fear. And disappointing.

bikes in cities

I first started biking when I moved to Portland, OR, where I was a student looking to save some dimes. I wanted to pay for transportation exactly once. No fares, no gas, no insurance, no licensing. I bought a bike, & I rode it every day, & I took it in for repairs two times. Once, I broke a spoke. And once, I got a flat.

I didn't know how to repair a flat.

Then, I moved to Los Angeles, & I didn't ride for about six months. But I missed it. If I worked on the weekends, I rode in, to "treat" myself. Then, I started to "treat" myself every day because I could see no reason not to. I learned how to repair a flat, how to adjust my brakes, saddle height, derailleurs, &c., because I had to. My bike started to fall apart all of a sudden, it seemed, because I was riding it much more, & because I had enjoyed startlingly good luck in Portland. I amassed a small bag of tools, which I kept with me at all times.

My fourth (or maybe fifth) group ride in Los Angeles.

Later still, I discovered Midnight Ridazz. It took me about four months after I started riding every day to learn that thousands of other riders were doing the same all throughout the city, the Valley, Orange County, the Westside, the Eastside. Bikes were everywhere, but they had been invisible, even to me. In retrospect, this is almost inconceivable. Riders in Los Angeles are the most tight-knit group of people I've ever come across, anywhere, & the most welcoming. (I was jumped into a bike gang on my third ride, by SP00K.) How did I miss this? Now, I'm (unofficially) a member of three bike gangs. There is no rivalry; we all go to each others' birthday parties.

Ridge Way Bike House turns 2.

I don't think bikers in Portland are as galvanized. I figure it's because bikers are as common as the roses that grow untended there. Like their roses, it's just as beautiful a thing, but it's not so very special. In Los Angeles, riding a bike is a strange thing to do. When seeing someone else riding on the road, I look to see if I know them, & often enough I do. If I don't know them, I nod. A tacit acknowledgment that we both know what's up. It's a unifying activity here, whereas in cities where it's more common, it doesn't mean as much.

Another thing: In Los Angeles, riders don't seem to care much about what you ride. I mean, they care — they appreciate a good whip. But I ride with fixed gear riders, geared riders, mountain bikers, BMX tricksters, chopper bike riders, tall bikers, road racers, polo bikers, velodrome rats, & even people who ride recumbents.

Just kidding. Not recumbents.

I rode this bike once. ONCE.

Every day is a custom bike show. Every night is a ride, usually several. Alleycats every weekend. Name a holiday — Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, your birthday, your dad's birthday, Arbor Day. There's a ride that day. Ahh, enthusiasm. It's fucking scintillating.

SCINTILLATING RIDES:

The Ride with No Name
The Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time
C.R.A.N.K. MOB (The Wonder Year)
Westside Mosey
ROB010100100101010TZ
Midnight Ridazz (official) rides
Wolfpack Hustle
Cub Camp
All those rides that wound up on the beach in the middle of the night, & then there was swimming, & Trouble

Go ride.

Love,
Katie