Mahtin's Blog

I don't want to live here anymore

Today was the first time I ever wore my brand-new red (I hate red clothes) wingnut t-shirt. I was so excited to get one when they first came out, but somehow the Long Haul never had my size when I had the money to buy a shirt. They have this saying about why Berkeley never slides off into the Bay-- because there's a wingnut on every corner (holding it down). The right wing calls us moonbats now.

Thinking I was going to get a ride from Momo, I ran my trader joe's errands before running my vet errands (couldn't do both in one trip, cuz I had to get cold stuff at both places). She lamed out and drove herself without bringing me (ah, the luxury of being able to afford gas and a giant car). It was a beautiful day, and the ride to TJ's was great. I think I didn't even break any eggs on all the really, really bumpy streets.

I put off going to the vet for as long as I possibly could. I took Sacramento, which becomes Market, to 45th Street. Market was really scary- lots of cars, particularly huge SUVs, going really fast, and the right lane keeps disappearing and getting wider and skinnier. It's not cool. Plus you tend to see lots of people who don't have license plates in that neighborhood. That means if you get hit, noone is held accountable. Mofos probably don't even have licenses. So I'm riding along on my bike with my trailer behind me. I cross MLK, I think against the light cuz I hate to wait when there's no traffic there. I head down 45th and under the freeway or BART or both or whatever. I have a good friend and client who lives near the other end of the block. The road dips under the freeway for some stupid reason, and there is a ridiculous hill to get back to street level. This is another rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, with projects and apartment buildings and also nice houses that are being bought up by white people.

I see some kids fooling around with some really big boxes, like fridge or bookcase-sized boxes, up near the top of the hill. I think to myself, that's funny, when we were littler than that, we used to play inside that kind of box, not on top of it. Well, they get tired of using the boxes as sleds, and two kids pick the boxes up (there were somewhere between 2 and 4 of these kids, all black, one with shoulder-length dreds or braids). People throw stuff at me ALL the time. Earlier today, one kid in a group of 12 or 13 year old wanna be mallrats had run alongside me, and I had ignored him the best I could. Last summer, some kids about 5 blocks from my house had thrown rocks at me and had even RUN alongside me, either for better aim, or hoping they could steal my bike. So these days I try to not acknowledge kids who want to have anything that could be negative to do with me.

Well, these kids held their boxes menacingly, and then threw them at me- first at my front tire, and then at what I thought was the trailer, but I think it actually hit the back wheel of a bike. I was so shocked that people would so something so shitty, so downright MEAN! I mean, come on!

All I could do was yell something like "Why would you do something like that? That's so mean!" I guess I was trying to engage them without swearing, tho swearing is my usual response. There were some people out on the street, a little ways up from where we were, still on the hill. I checked out my bike and sort of kept moving, but then sort of stopped to look at the bike, and yelled to the nearest person, "Whose kids are these?!" Like I hinted above, someone's got to be held accountable for these kids' actions. Obviously the kids weren't going to want anything like that. the guy was like, I don't live around here. and I was like, my front wheel could be wrecked, you know, cuz sometimes it doesn't show right away. and he was like, you might have a slow leak, you'd better get home! And then I was like, well, I'm not even halfway there yet! I still have to run my errands!" and got back on the bike.

Fuck. Why do people have to be so mean? Why do we live in such a car-oriented society? With what shall I arm myself so I can have some sort of revenge on the next people who do this kind of thing to me? Do I really want to keep cleaning for the people who live on that block? This is the thing, that eventually I will stop leaving the house at all, because I don't want to have any more bad shit happen to me.

Z suggested that I could have been wearing a red shirt in a "blue" (gang) neighborhood. I'm a fucking white chick with a bike trailer! I have in the past known white chicks who've run stuff for gangs on bikes, but I would like to think that I don't "look like" them. Plus, my neighborhood is, I think, a blue neighborhood. I rode around it earlier in my fucking red shirt. This shirt was $8, mind you, and my other red shirt was free, AND I usually wear blue because I like blue.

I get super-indignant when I think about how these kids don't know anything about me and the things that I do. I'm a fucking activist and gardener! I'm trying to make the world a better place! What were they thinking when they chose me as the target of their assholishness?

posted by mahtin @ 5:43 PM