Place, Paced.

Agree or disagree, this is a flooring choice of words.  (Also, place AND pace!)

If someone opts to use a proxy for their hometown, it's very possible she has a rationale that goes beyond mere convenience. So let's not tell her she's wrong.

Even as somebody who can really relate, I'm super on the fence about this; the argument from Dorchester is pretty valid and most of the rest of us could usually use some perspective.

"Why You Shouldn't Mock Suburbanites Who Say They're From the City"

I chuckle every time someone endorses me on Linked In for "Environmental Awareness" (a term the site suggested I add).

At St. Anthony’s, bluejeans dry on chain-link fences, and futile daily chores include watering the dust. So many promises for improvements have come and gone over the years that doubt, an unwelcome neighbor, made itself at home.

So when Chelina Odbert, the 36-year-old co-founder of the nonprofit Kounkuey Design Initiative, based in Los Angeles, showed up two years ago and asked residents to propose ideas for a park that they might design and build collaboratively, most assumed she was yet another do-gooder bearing 'muchas promesas' that would come to naught.

According to the map, Bono should stick to rural areas, while avoiding Vermont and Maine. 

Who's still not home in post-Sandy NJ? A diverse array of people whose experiences are profiled in this locally-sourced longform.

After the stories, the piece addresses the longterm outlook for Shore communities, including the need for a central plan for recovery rather than individual responsibility leading to redevelopment in a "haphazard pattern of some houses anywhere from 5 to 15 feet higher than others."

The image captures one of the central paradoxes of life in New York: the way that the city's crowds of disparate people create a climate that is both lonely and communal, both private and exhibitionistic.

"If Somerville has a spiritual center, it’s probably Union Square."

- In Somerville, High Anxiety of Eminent Domain (WGBH)

& "Somerville's affordability conversation [...] is one that dozens of U.S. cities developing or expanding their transit systems must soon have."

- Does New Mass Transit Always Have to Mean Rapidly Rising Rents? (Atlantic Cities)

Like my neighborhood in the news this week, this blog's in transition. I'm not completely sure what either will become (besides a beacon of inspiration for research and process applicable throughout the globe, of course), but I'm sure as soon as I figure out what Tumblr's supposed to do, you'll see lots on place, space, people, environment, photography, running, music, and embarrassing facts about my thoughts and behavior.  

It’s been awhile, but it’s been an interesting week.

Summer schedules being unpredictably social and filled with community meetings that count as work obligations, I had no opportunity to carpool this week. Even with the beautiful ease of the uncongested summer commute, that’s a lot of alone time.

Also this week, the world experienced a breakthrough in the social acceptance of commuting, while overcoming the fear of broaching a subject often assumed to be too deeply personal to discuss. Well, all of that’s not really true, but this great video about singing in the car went viral: 

And I would argue that the passion one can reach when singing in the car alone is even greater and more unreasonable. That might be because there isn’t anyone else there to suggest that you, the driver and sudden pop sensation, should have any shame at all, and so you even try to sing the verses, which don’t have lyrics that are nearly as memorable and certainly don’t lend themselves to the passion you’re going to convey anyway. Anyone who has seen my (genuinely heartfelt) spoken word version of the first verse of “We Are Young” or my entire eight-minute rendition of "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" can feel free to take those as additional examples.

I’m using “we” for much of this post because being honest about the communal nature of this solitary activity is the first step to accepting and discussing it as a social norm and ceasing the suffocation of embarrassment. Plus, if you don’t think this applies to you, I’m willing to lend you my car; the radio’s preset at 101.7. 

So, why the car? Why aren’t we as passionate in other aspects of our lives as we are when those certain songs – whatever they may be for each of us – turn on while we’re driving? I’m inclined to say that it’s a safety thing – clearly not road safety, though I do commend the drivers in the video for pulling over when the passion of the song overwhelmed them, but simply safety from embarrassment. After all, a car is like a tiny little room on wheels; so long as the windows are closed, it’s extraordinarily private. Right?

Not really, and I’m fairly sure we all know this. For very good reasons, you can see out of most parts of your car that your face reaches. And most of us are probably aware that our vehicles aren’t made of one-way glass. They’re also certainly not soundproof to the outside, especially when someone inside is essentially yelling.

We know this, and yet we continue to sing, contort our faces to match the passion of the lyrics, and even dance a little (again, safety first, of course). We do these things on the highways, city streets, backroads, and parking lots alike, many of which are often crowded. And we’re aware of how often we look into other people’s cars, so we must know others could look into ours. And so I’ll suggest that we don’t sing in the car because it a place protected from embarrassment, but because it is a safe place to embarrass ourselves.

Here’s where I’m coming from: There is definitely a little pride, excitement, and personal entertainment in knowing that someone could be watching me belt out a ballad (or the pop song du jour whose lyrics speak to me like a ballad). I like the idea that someone expecting a simple, solitary ride to work or an errand would briefly catch a glimpse of another driver being a total goofball all alone and perhaps be entertained by it. Honestly, I actually make a point of turning up the radio and singing along particularly wholeheartedly sometimes. Lately, I’ve tried it out in particularly bad city traffic. Even if it doesn’t lighten the mood of anyone around me, singing in the car is sure to make my ride, or gridlock, more enjoyable.

Even if we’re mostly in separate cars, there is a certain “We’re all in this together” mentality that seems to permeate the roads. I tend to feel it especially during morning rush hour, which happens to also be the perfect time to make oneself smile and feel excited for the day ahead. This morning I caught a red light behind a bus full of elementary-aged boys on their way to a summer day camp, and I spent the two light cycles it took before we moved making funny faces and doing silly dance moves to an increasing audience of them. When we reached the light and their bus turned right and I went straight, I made a cartoonish sad face and waved goodbye. They did the same.