It's a long bike ride home, and I'm tired, so I get to thinking.

I seem to be unintentionally reading to a theme recently. Maybe it's unavoidable with a certain kind of modern nonfiction.

Kurt Vonnegut, in A Man Without a Country, says

"Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet -- the only one in the whole Milky Way -- with a century of transportation whoopee. Our government is conducting a war against drugs, is it? Let them go after petroleum. Talk about a destructive high! You put some of this stuff in your car and you can go a hundred miles an hour, run over the neighbor's dog, and tear the atmosphere to smithereens."

I have a plan for NY, that I share with people sometimes. So far they have all told me it's nuts. I say of course it is; that's why it's brilliant. In fact, if you compare it to my plan to eliminate all guns everywhere, it sounds positively sane and doable.

So: All cars in the city are forbidden for personal use. No more commuting, no more driving out to a restaurant or bar. The only motor vehicles permitted are buses and delivery trucks.

What are the downsides? It wouldn't work overnight, I know that. Some people are physically incapacitated. Some don't live near public transportation. Lots of problems. But what if we had better public transportation and much, much more comprehensive social services? Think about it.

If the only drivers on the road were professionals, and everything was clearly marked, suddenly biking (and walking!) become a whole lot safer. People who wouldn't currently dream of biking to work (and I don't blame them) would suddenly be able to. Buses would have dedicated lanes everywhere, and no one would have to double park because the delivery trucks would be able to pull into areas that are currently designated for regular parking. Their would be subsidizations for the MTA.

It's an idealistic vision, but not unworkable. Life as we know it is unsustainable, and the only way that's going to change is with, well, MASSIVE CHANGE.

Does it sound like I hate cars? I kind of do, but I don't actually want to do away with them entirely. Or anyway I'm open to the idea that we wouldn't. To go back to David Byrne:

Now I have to admit it's nice to motor around a continent and stop wherever and whenever one pleases. The romance of being 'on the road' is pretty heady, but a cross-country ramble is a sometime thing. It isn't a daily commute, a way of living, or even the best way to get from point A to point B.

Cars are fine for special occasions. It's the way we've woven them into our daily lives and accepted 100% their danger and noise and pollution to do it that is the problem. People have made their cars absolutely central to their identity and that, frankly, is bizarre.

Sometimes when I'm biking home from Rockaway I look over at the Belt Parkway and marvel at the constant traffic. Most of the cars have only a driver, no passengers. Most are SUVs. It's easy to watch them go by and think nothing of it. But then I do think, and what I think is THIS MAKES NO SENSE HOW HAVE WE DONE THIS TO OURSELVES AS A SPECIES.

If I'm honest, I don't think we will ever be able turn off this course we've set. Not without WWIV anyway, when we're all back to sticks and stones. So it goes.

RECIPE: Ginger Bourbon Pecan Pie, which will be THE Thanksgiving pie at my house forever and always (though I still love you, pumpkin; you can come too).

It is not enough.

Bikes. Cars. Doors. Trouble.

I have never actually been doored (this feels dangerous to say), thanks entirely to luck and the compulsive assumption that every car will door me.

I have been nearly doored many times. It is inevitable.

More often than not, the doorer says sorry.

I have never been able to accept their apologies.

And I have wondered, for a while now, why that's so. They do something wrong; they apologize. Shouldn't we then be square?

But... What if your partner cheated on you? What if a crazy guy pushed you onto the subway tracks? Sometimes sorry isn't enough.

In this case, it could be, maybe. But the doorers say sorry the same way they'd say it if their bag bumped into my elbow on the subway. It's an "Oops, sorry." To them, it's no big deal, a minor intrusion into public space, carry on.

What they entirely fail to realize is that it is a very big deal indeed. It is not an inconvenience. I won't accept an "Oops, sorry" because I am waiting for an "Oh my god I am so sorry I will never do that again I can't believe I just did that I am so so sorry."

You think it's overkill? Consider the consequences of a dooring:

When you, as a cyclist, see a door fly open ahead of you (or any obstacle suddenly appear in your lane) your immediate reaction is to swerve away from it. Which means, by default, you are swerving into the traffic that is coming up behind you, that you cannot see. Maybe it's a motorcycle. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a bus. And just like that, you're in front of it and under it.

Of course maybe you can skip over that knee-jerk reaction. Maybe you've thought about it enough, and the timing is just right enough, that you can slam on your brakes instead. In which case you a) slam your bike up into your crotch and fall and either crash into the door or fall into traffic anyway, or b) go flying over your handlebars and fall and either crash into the door or fall into traffic anyway. Either way, there is going to be a lot of asphalt burn and broken bones.

To put it simply: Dooring a cyclist means you can very well either severely injure or kill them. It is not an oops offense. Sorry.

RECIPE: Tea Liqueur, because it's nice to have something smooth to sip of an evening.

Burb-les

Bicycle Diaries is maybe not a great book, but there are a few thoughts that resonated. Like:

...our tendency to postpone living and enjoyment -- as if we were meant to put up with substandard circumstances because we'll be rewarded later. With what, a house in the suburbs? That's the reward? Lots of people realize that isn't exactly the gold ring it has been made out to be.

Amen.

He natters on boringly in places, but I liked that bit. It's about the things we take for granted. What we assume we want without ever asking if we really do, or why. What are we working for?

Build a family, buy a house, raise your two children, let them have a dog if they agree to the responsibilities, save for college, take up tennis, retire; be a good person, vote, mow your lawn, contribute to the bake sale, shovel your driveway, take the car for regular inspections, change your oil, watch TV, take a vacation once a year.

What do you want? Is it the end, or a means?

I grew up in a house in the suburbs. It was nice. We lived at the end of the street, and there were no houses on the other side, so basically half the directions I could choose when I stepped out the front door were woods. Not, like, virgin forest, but plenty extensive and occasionally terrifying enough for a six-to-eleven year-old. My best friends also lived just down the street from -- what seemed at the time to be -- endless woods, so we never lacked for places to explore.

Call that the best-case-suburban-scenario.

(But consider when the woods are gone. (My woods are now a golf course; my friends' are mcmansion subdivisions.) Because they're more than a place to play; they're a place to get lost in. To quote a much better book:

All hope is gone,
for fairy tales,
it shall be written here,
are dying with the forests.
...
Because men
are killing the forests
the fairy tales are running away,
the spindle doesn’t know
whom to prick,
the little girl’s hands
that her father has chopped off,
haven’t a single tree to catch hold of,
the third wish remains unspoken.
King Thrushbeard no longer owns one thing.
Children can no longer get lost.
The number seven means no more than exactly seven.
Because men have killed the forests,
the fairy tales are trotting off to the cities
And end badly.

- The Rat, Gunter Grass.)

So, okay, no woods. What else do you even have to look forward to? Flat, green, empty, maybe with a few herbs tucked in around the edges if you're enterprising. This is where the children play. And children need a place to play, even if it's bounded. Still, I already have a backyard. It's called Prospect Park and it has lawns and woods and lakes and barbecue spots and playgrounds and what the hell else could I possibly need in that department? Also, right, back to lawns: listen to this. Get over it, America.

Of course there's the house itself too. Bought, not rented. Because... future value? An investment in...? First of all, our studio is plenty big enough. (Unless someone gives me a pool table.) I don't have to wonder which room R is in, or who's going to clean them all. I don't need more space for stuff; I already do my best to get rid of the stuff I have. And the house itself counts! Why own a thing I have to pay taxes on and take care of and learn about septic tanks or whatever?

Final dealbreaker is of course the car. I do not like cars, Sam-I-Am. I will embark on the occasional cross-country (America, Iceland, Mexico) trip in a motor vehicle, but the last thing in the world I want is to have to interact with one on a daily basis. Cars are smelly and expensive and dangerous and good for neither you nor the environment, and America would look very different and probably better if we had not, around the middle of the last century, succumbed to the vision of the automobile.

Which is all to say: No thank you.

RECIPE: Prosciutto, Goat Cheese, & Fig Sandwiches, because everyone needs a fancy delicious sandwich in their back pocket and this has been mine since like 2002.