august mass

so, i'd been planning to get blue streak (EDIT: you know, that failed blog. sigh.) up and running before july's critical mass, when i had planned on painting the url on my back to get some exposure (ha). i didn't have a functioning blog in july, though, or even in august. i am, however, a step closer to doing this in september, as i finally got body paint on thursday.

it was the day before august's mass. i had been temping in uptown, so belmont—where i heard i could get good body paint—was on my ride home. i was looking for something bright and sweat-proof, and i was sent to taboo tabou. they'd recently discontinued it, but suggested i try the alley. no luck there, but the salesperson i talked to suggested violet, a sex shop on halsted. there i found latex body paint. it sounded like it would stay put but be hella hot, plus the colors weren't that pretty, so i tried my luck at two nearby sex shops the cashier recommended. one had chocolate body paint plus a three-pack of not-so-good colors; neither ideal for my purposes. the other, batteries not included, had two 4-packs of body fingerpaints; one with glow-in-the-dark paint, one with bright fruity colors. i purchased the latter and immediately put some of the blue—blueberry, mmm—on my arm to test how sweat-proof it was.

before i go on, a note about what i was wearing. i'd been taking buses to work, changing after work, and biking home. my biking outfit consisted of the coolest clothes i had access to, which meant boxers, a bikini top, and (for the first part of the ride, before i got too hot and decided to take it off) some "negative spousal interaction apparel." negative spousal interaction apparel is, of course, a nice way of saying "wife-beater." i have a few of these as a result of my involvement with the Federation of Independent Scavhunt Teams (the F.I.S.T.), my scav hunt team of choice. so please, when you picture me wandering all over boystown and visiting every sex shop on halsted, picture me doing it while wearing men's underwear and a tank top proclaiming "FIST."

so riding home. down the lake path a bit, i realized that i probably sweat more on my back than on my deltoids—especially considering that the latter gets a sweet breeze—and thus should probably test some paint on my back, too. so just south of north, where those chess boards are, i stopped and asked a couple to write on my back.

the answer to the "is it sweatproof?" question, as i discovered back in hyde park, was a resounding "no." still, though, i was determined to use myself as a billboard, and at alii's suggestion i decided to hairspray the paint once it was applied. the test would be the next day's critical mass.

this was my third mass, and the first one i biked to alone. igor was out of town, so i borrowed his speakers (and bicycle, too! the advantage of superstar is that i can ride it hands-free, which makes groovin'-while-pedaling somewhat more possible). on my way down, though, i ran into slight difficulties. my bag was folded beneath the speakers, and the two items were bungeed to the bike's rack. not very well, though; a horrible noise let me know that the speakers had fallen. they, along with two 6-volt lantern batteries, had been attached to a wooden base, but after the fall the epoxy that was holding the speakers failed. i asked a passing pedestrian where the nearest walgreen's was, and though he didn't know, a passing motorist directed me to one a few blocks away on state. yaaay for helpful drivers!

i bought (what else?) a roll of duct tape and went about reattaching the speakers. a fellow cyclist was unlocking his bike and asked if i was on my way to critical mass. "of course!" i said, before admitting that i'd lost my bearings and asking if daley plaza was northwest of us. it was, as it turns out, though the fellow said we could just ride over together. we introduced ourselves (though i forget his name) and chit-chatted; i asked him what i should write on my back. he said he couldn't suggest much besides some expletives for cars. i'd been thinking of "fuck cars, let's bike," and my conversation with him cemented this desire.

over in daley plaza, i leaned superstar against a trash can (a downside of superstar: no kickstand) and did more duct taping to ensure the speakers' security. two nearby guys noticed the speakers and asked what music i had. after explaining that, in fact, i had *no* music, but would as soon as my friend (katherine!) biked up from hyde park with her mp3 player, i asked if they would mind, you know, fingerpainting on my back with some body paint and then spraying me with hairspray.

and that is how "FUCK CARS" came to be written in (cherry!) red above my bikini strap and "LET'S BIKE" appeared in (blueberry!) blue beneath it. i made sure they put an apostrophe in "let's," because as a copy editor, i would have been mortified to have a misuse of punctuation on my back. the horror!

if you, dear reader, happen to be looking for a quick way to befriend a bunch of cyclists, well, consider getting "fuck cars, let's bike" written on your back. it worked for me! i saw my two painters a bit into the ride and put on some phish at their request. "man, i could marry this girl," said the guy who'd painted in red to the guy who'd done the blue. "a little phish, a little body paint..."

marriage proposals aside, i also got some props for my musical selections, ranging from sufjan stevens to radiohead to the faint. since the speakers are kind of old and decrepit, though, bass-heavy music didn't sound the best. and that's too bad, because bass-heavy is often how i like my music. and i talked to some kids who'd just done bike and build, which made me want to do the program next summer even more.

my attire drew some attention as well, though likely not as much as that nearly-topless chick, who can be seen in this video. i've seen this cyclist at another ride this summer, where she was wearing paisties and not much else. this ride, she approached me while we were in daley plaza, in fact, and asked if i wanted to do the mass in paisties. "uh... not really" was my reply, since paisties don't provide the amount of, um, support that i've come to expect from biking clothes. for this ride, though, she was without paisties; wearing nothing but a thong and some temporary tattoos on her nips. i've gotta respect that; she's got more balls--albeit less boobs--than i do.

i can only imagine the things that were yelled at her. myself, i got a holler of "take it off!" from some asshat, and "woo! critical mass! i wish i was your bra!" from another guy. i won't call the second an asshat because his comment at least made me smile. though, really, it's disappointing when a 20- or 30-something male can't tell the difference between a bra and a bikini top.

a while into the ride, i realized i hadn't seen katherine in a long while. so i stopped at some street to look for her. before too long, a car had pulled up behind me and massers started thanking me for corking. gee, folks, it was really nothing. but you're welcome! by the time katherine rolled up, there were quite a few cars behind me, many of them angrily honking their horns. we decided to stay put until the last bikers had safely passed. our rejoining at the tail end of the mass came with a problem, though: a few blocks up, we happened upon about a dozen bikers who were stopped and didn't know which way everyone had gone. we had lost the mass!

we found it again, though i'm still not quite sure how. it involved lawrence avenue, that's for sure, and also some guys who had a copy of the route map. the mass ended at a beach whose name i forget (foster?). the paint had lasted for the most part, and i rolled around in the grass to remove it from my back, then katherine and i had tasty things like granola bars before biking south.

on the way back, we stopped by the 31st street beach, which has a pier that's great for jumping off of, as we discovered when july's critical mass ended there. in july, though, i did not jump into the lake because the ladder one must climb to get back onto the pier has very narrow rungs. which would not have been fun with a broken foot. i decided my foot could handle it in august, though, and i finally jumped in. wheee!

the great pub cycle

for my 21st birthday, which fell conveniently on a saturday, two friends and i biked north and bar-hopped our way south. we didn't have time to visit all the bars i'd intended to see, but we got a late start and took our sweet sweet time. according to my notes we made it to 7. below is a list of what i had and where (or what *we* had in the case of the hopleaf; we split those drinks between the three of us).
chicago brauhaus: bitburger
4 moon: amber lager
duffy's: hacker-pschorr
map room: wurzburger hofbrau
weed's: tecate
hopleaf: delerium tremens, lindeman's pomme, mead
and of course, the dark from the billy goat.

who carded and who didn't? where was i sung "happy birthday"? in front of which (motorcycle) biker bar did i gracefully fall off my bicycle?

these stories and more to come.