Ride Home 10/10

This was my first commute using a trunk bag, which was a present that I bought myself when I got my new job. It was decidedly fine, but not really big enough for clothes and lunch and lock and I don't think I'll be using it to commute, though that was never really my intention in the first place. I think it will be excellent for non-commue uses. This is in no way intended to be a review.
I wanted to take advantage of the lack of federal workforce and associated lack of car traffic and I thought that maybe M Street and Pennsylvania would be lighter than usual and since I also wanted to revisit the 34th street bike lane (I just can't quit you Georgetown!), it was down New Mexico and up and down Tunlaw and down 37th and up and across R street. (Burleith R Street is two directions, as is east Georgetown R Street, but R street east of the Park up to Florida is one way, heading west. I don't know who decided these things. George Washington maybe?)
Really, you don't need to honk. Really. I know that you're there. I probably even could guess how many passengers you have (zero).
Per usual, Washcycle was right and the newly painted lanes on 34th are narrow. Narrower even than the previously painted lanes a block up. Curious, but I think that the street might narrow as well. Still worth it.
M Street = still crowded. Washington Circle = still kind of insane. Sometimes I wonder if bike commuting is a mania. You get very close to cars in a way that's mundane in its frequency, but truly terrifying in retrospect. Even used to it, some nights, it's just "wow, I can't believe that "they" are making me do this", where "they" is the people who design the roads and while I'm aware that "they" aren't making me ride a bike, "they" are the ones making me ride a bike in these conditions. It's as if "they" don't have my best interests at heart.
Victory at the 15th Street sidewalk by Treasury.

This man was very confused with my taking a picture of a sidewalk. 

Believe it or not, when the sidewalk is open, pedestrians choose it over walking in the cycle track. I don't know to what extent the GGW article played a place in this or who at whatever agency pulled what lever to make it happy, but rather than snark about how it took a month, I'm just happy that the bikeway in once again clear and that, to the best of my knowledge, no one was injured in the truly avoidable scrum. Of course, then Pennsylvania was still blocked by Taste of Washington DC(which I thought might be over) and I had to ride back up to F and then to 5th. If you don't want to ride to G and don't know where E starts, just F it. It's not great, in that there's very little space to bicyclists, but what else is new?
Totally nailed it riding up Capitol Hill on Constitution. Just hit it at the right speed and just loved the whole ride up. This was the first time I've done it without feeling kind of crummy about how out of sorts I am when I normally get here. Just a nice feeling.
A lady stepped out nearly in front of me on East Capitol. She had two small dogs and was sort of behind an SUV and while in the crosswalk, she only stepped out as we were nearly even. I didn't stop and instead yelled "watch!" and then "excuse me!" and was met with a startled dirty look, but she didn't say anything. I don't know what else I could've done, since there was really no time to stop. I hate situations like this because I really don't want to be (or seem like) some jerk cyclist, the kid who gets a bad wrap from people in every single comments section to every story about bicycling ("Once, this biker almost hit me"). Oh well.