Ride Home 11/3

I need to see another, catchier musical and soon. I tire of Javert. And yet, true to form, he haunts my every ride.
In my never-ending (exaggerating) quest for better west-east routes, especially uptown ones, I rode from Mass to Garfield to Cleveland to Calvert. I think this might be one of the few routes that bridges the park rather than make me have to ride down and back out. In fact, it might be the only one. Well, maybe Porter, but I don't know how bikeable that route is on a weekday. It's not that I don't like the park- it's fine. It's just that I like my rides home to be at least somewhat direct and I don't necessarily equate climbing Matthewson (if you haven't done this yet, you should) with an easy ride home. Maybe it'll be worth it when they extend the MBT past Fort Totten. (Boy, I'm complainy tonight)
19th street is a signed bike route. It's much more common to see cyclists riding up the hill to Kalorama Heights than it is to see people riding down. It's a pretty good hill, but it's probably better than riding past Meridian Park on 15th. I don't know why the signed bike routes tend to have the worst pavement with the most potholes. Must be all the bikes...
T Street might as well be Q Street. I waited all 56 seconds for the light to change at T and 14th. It wasn't that hard.
Sometimes I decree myself the semi-divine arbiter of crosswalk justice. I'm wearing the reflective yellow jacket, so I might as well make some use of it by taking the lane, stopping and allowing pedestrians to cross. I've yet to be honked at or run over.
Valet fail. You can't just leave the car there. Or you can, but it's rather harmful to the progress of others.

That car has been abandoned temporarily must to the dismay of others. 

I'm always somewhat baffled as to the number of scoffs I receive from pedestrians standing in the bike lanes on Penn. Yes, they're designed poorly, but they're still bike lanes and it's not my fault that I'm riding there. In fact, my riding there is the reason that they're there in the first place. Geez.
There seem to be more bicycle-borne Capitol Police lately. I think that's a good thing. Though I suppose I question the sheer number of security personnel at the Capitol. Eighth graders are menacing, but not that bad.
Every time I ride past the Capitol I think about all the tourists and I think that an admirable goal for #bikeDC would be to 'photobomb' every single tourist picture. No scenic picture of DC should be without a bicyclist in the background. It's subliminal!
I think the taxi drivers in this town get a bad wrap. Though, I suppose that they don't help themselves by almost hitting bicyclists, like one nearly did me on East Capitol. Riding in the bike lane, totally unobstructed and the driver almost swerved his car right into me from behind in anticipation of his right turn as he and his fare seemed be looking down at a map or something. I said multiple "whoas" with an increasing degree of severity. It was like a Blossom marathon. This was just negligence on his part and it sucked. Carelessness just isn't cool and there's not much you can do about it. After it was over, and no longer in the 'heat of the moment,' I think I said something like "Fucking moron fucking look where you're going" to no one in particular and I might have been overheard by a small child. Sorry, little dude.