Best. May. Ever.

Wowza! What a freaking month! This might go down as my favorite month of being alive...ever? Any month where you visit 2 National Parks has to be special, right?

I'm still reeling from everything that happened this month and the ever growing mountain of laundry in my room is proof.

A short recap:

• 100k Night Randonneuring Ride
• Bus + Bike Trip to the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River (I'll write this one up at some point, because holy cow- taking the bus to go bike camping was a whole new level of awesome!)
• 30th Birthday Camping trip to Ocean Shores complete with razor clam digging & gravel bike ride through the rainforest
• Top Chef home game night cooking competition with my friends
• Solo weekend adventure to Alaska! (I'll also do a separate post on this, or three, it was THAT good!)
• Bike Everywhere Month with 82 coworkers- our biggest turnout yet! And tons of successful programming at The Bikery! 

I also might have exciting news to report soon on my career. I'm tight lipped for now, but there could be big changes coming soon!

For now, here's a slideshow of the best month ever (click through for photos- not the most intuitive interface.)  I hope June continues to be just as wonderful!

Well I Guess This is Growing Up

I turn 30 in tomorrow. 30 has always loomed large in my brain as a big momentous birthday, where you should have a certain number of life goals achieved, boxes checked on the “Life To-Do’s List” and in general, a pretty good idea of who you are and where you’re going. Now that it's here, I can tell you that’s all a giant load of shit.

Life goals? Ha.

To-do list? Does taking my laundry out of the dryer count?

Who I am and where I’m going in life? Now that I feel a whole lot more sure on.

My sister and I often joke that I should write a book about my life. The last ten years specifically have been a whirlwind of insanity and all joking aside, I’ve probably experienced more in the last decade than a lot of people do their entire lives.

Here's the 5 minute version of it. When I was 22, I emailed my mom to tell her that I was gay. Her biggest concern was that I sent the email from my work email. She also correctly predicted that I was more likely bisexual. Oh moms, they know you so well...

A few years later I then got gay married, not once, but twice (to the same person.) We were the 27th couple to be married legally in Washington State and were the media darlings, featured on RachelMaddow, Time, the Seattle PI, USA Today and who knows where else. Crazy, right?  Well, there's more.

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Happily ever after?

Six months of wedded bliss later, I was blind-sided by my wife leaving me for the woman she was nannying for.  

(In all seriousness, we had a really rad wedding. So many friends, family, and loved ones came out and supported us. Check out the first link for a beautiful write up on Offbeat Bride of our ceremony-2 officiants, a flower farm, a little girl in a suit- it was pretty cool.  I get asked all the time if I regret doing it and my answer steadfastly remains no. You can't predict when love will end, or change somebody else's behavior. I can only make my own decisions and how I react to situations.)

In retrospect, while heartbreaking, shitty, and a really awful way to leave somebody, my marriage falling apart at 26 was also the catalyst for me finding out all sorts of things about myself that I'm not sure I would have otherwise.

After we split, I moved to Capitol Hill, started biking, camping, traveling, and living for myself. I rediscovered what made me laugh, what fun was, that I’m a desirable person, and that I deserve to be loved. Since splitting from my partner, I’ve had the best sex of my life- with men, women, and plenty of them.  

I've also traveled. I've ridden a moped around Cozumel and snorkeled on the most beautiful beach in the world. On that same trip, I kissed a public bus driver while he was still driving the bus! I smoked weed on a beach in Jamaica and rode a hand-controlled roller coaster in Haiti.  I went mountain biking in the Virgin Islands on the rustiest bike you've ever seen. I swam under giant airplanes in St. Maarten on what has been named the most dangerous beach in the world and feared for my life as the taxi driver careened down the side of a mountain.

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Rusty freedom

I've popped holes in too many bike tires to count, learned how to fix those same bike tires, and passed on my knowledge of bike maintenance to other women. I've learned how to set up a tent, a hammock, and that sometimes, the best place to sleep is under the stars. 

I’ve learned to love myself. That it’s ok to say no. That it’s ok to say yes. It’s even better to say OH YES!  It’s ok to do some drugs (in moderation, of course.) Life is meant to be lived- not as a series of milestones that society places on us just because that’s what we do. If I never get married or have kids, cool. If I do, that's ok too. But I’m not living my life just to find Mr. or Mrs. Right, buy a house, and pop out babies.

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Slamming clams

 It’s just as ok to bike down a trail in the middle of the night singing at the top of your lungs as it is to go skinny dipping in Lake Washington. Actually, it’s more than ok, it’s perfect and wonderful and exactly what I need to do sometimes. I've learned that tandem bicycles are just as wonderful as they seem. Ride one if you get the chance. I've also realized that it's ok to sit at home sometimes, reading a book or tending my tomato plants. Quiet nights at home can be just as necessary.

I am so thankful that I discovered this, because dammit, life is fun. People, relationships, and adventures are fun. Yes, they’re hard sometimes too, but I truly believe we do it because it’s fun.

My goal for the next decade is to focus on this and remember that life isn’t so serious. None of us are getting out of here alive after all.

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Who doesn't do this for fun? 

We Can't Wait for a Safe Network of Bike Lanes Downtown

The Seattle City Council's Sustainability and Transportation Committee met yesterday to get the details on why SDOT is cutting the downtown bike network and bike lanes throughout Seattle (background here.)

As a daily bike rider who is directly affected by the lack of action by SDOT, I planned to testify about my experiences biking around town, but especially downtown. I thought I would have 2 minutes, but with such a big turnout, Mike O'Brien shortened public testimony to 1 minute each.

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When my name was called, everything I planned to say got thrown out the window as a jumbled mess of something came tumbling out of my mouth. In truth, I think I invited the council members to go for a bike ride, told them it was unsafe, but other than that I'm not sure what else. King5 got a clip of me and surprsingly I don't sound too awful: 

Thankfully, I also saved the text of my planned testimony. So, dear readers, here is what I planned to say to the City Council (and have since emailed them):

Good afternoon Council Members and Seattle Department of Transportation. My name is Marley Blonsky and I’m a daily bike rider. I ride my bike everywhere- to work, for errands, for fun, for volunteer commitments, camping trips- literally everywhere. In the last two weeks alone, I’ve taken 62 bike trips for over 300 miles.

This year, I’m also in charge of my company’s Bike to Work activities. I recruited 82 coworkers to join me this month in biking to work. 36 of those people are new to biking to work. When they ask me about safe route into work, I don’t have many options to give them. Sure, we’ve got 2nd Avenue, but have you ever tried to get there on a bicycle? Good luck.

Imagine building one mile of a freeway with no connections to it. That’s what our 2nd ave protected bike lane is like.

My daily bike commute takes me from Capitol Hill to 3rd and Madison in downtown. While I’m a confident bike rider, it is incredibly scary to transition from a bike lane on Pine to a wide open street with no bike lanes at Boren. Downtown is even scarier, with no connections to the bike lane on 2nd Avenue, constant construction, and daily construction hazards.

Going home in the afternoon is even worse. After I leave the 2nd Avenue protected bike lane, I jockey with taxis, buses, and trucks from 2nd to 8th avenue on Pike Street until there is a bike lane on Pine street again.

This isn’t right.

 I had hope for more protected bike lanes and neighborhood greenways.

I called voters for the Move Seattle Levy. 

The current state of our streets is NOT SAFE.

If you think it’s good enough, I invite you to ride with me one day and see how close cars come to me. Seriously, let’s go for a ride.

Please, restore the 16 miles of bike lanes that were cut. We need a connected bike network. Thank you.

Something I said stuck with some reporter, as a friend screenshotted this quote from the Seattle Times:

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Climate Change, Babies, and Jealousy

There's a number of questions on OkCupid about your desire to have kids, and for the most part, I've been pretty ambivalent about it. Sure, in theory they're wonderful. Pass on your genes, take care of you when you're old, give you something to be responsible for, all that jazz. But honestly, I never saw myself as much of a mom. Ever.

Growing up I never really played "house" with my friends, and when we did, I was the Dad, or the sister, or the aunt. Never the mom. It's not that I'm not nurturing, as I think I probably have that ability, but it's just never been an innate quality.

Back when I was married, my partner and I were looking towards having kids, and had gone so far as to investigate sperm donations, work with a lawyer, and even ordered bulk ovulation testing and pregnancy testing kits from Amazon. Turns out you can get them super cheap in bulk. (Spoiler alert, no kids came out of it. The affair happened before we ordered sperm from the magic bank.)

That all seems like a lifetime away, as the thought of being responsible to a living being (besides my tomato plant) seems to inconceivably foreign to me right now.

Which is why it is so strange that when biking home tonight I saw a woman about my age, about 7 or 8 months pregnant and got an intense urge of jealousy. I can't put my finger on it- perhaps it was her rad SubPop sweatshirt, doting partner with a lustworthy red beard, or just the round pregnant belly, but something deep inside me ached to be in her position.

I pedaled onwards up Capitol Hill, reminding myself of all the reasons I've rationalized to myself against having kids. Primary in these is my lack of ability to maintain any semblance of relationship with another person, but also, climate change. Yes, that magical global warming is a big reason for me not wanting to have kids.

As much as my uterus aches to bring a baby into this world, I logically cannot fathom leaving that child to deal with the ecological wreck we've created on this planet. The last 7 months in a row have been the hottest on record, basically assuring that 2016 will be the hottest year on record. And we all know how this goes- famine, drought, war, floor, fire, etc.. Repeated cycles. 

I know this seems really gloom and doom. And it totally is. I just honestly cannot imagine bringing a child into a world like this.

At least I have an adorable nephew to dote on. My sister can keep reproducing all she wants and give me all the cute nieces and nephews ever. I'll just be the best auntie.

That's Liam- my super cute new nephew.