Ride Home 3/30: Arrows by any other name would smell as sweet

Friday afternoon on the penultimate day of March, but I just wasn't feeling it. Ride homes lately haven't been nearly as fun as rides in, which is thoroughly odd. I think that I just prefer the morning traffic (bikes, pedestrians, cars) to the evening traffic, even though it's pretty much the same people or at least I presume it is. It also takes longer and the ride seems clumpier, to use a word that might not actually describe anything, or at least accurately, but only vagues expresses the sentiment of a lack of smoothness, which is very much the feeling brought about by the predictable punctuation of the same stop lights on my southeasterly route. Still better than getting stuck in traffic, I guess, though that's part of the ride home too.
I think I'm going to vote for Peter Shapiro.
Sometimes jerks drive Audis or at least one jerk does. I don't think there's much in the way of prescription to stop aggressive and speeding driving (tickets only go so far), but I guess the best idea would just be to try to convince more people to sometimes ride bicycles to be able to feel what it's like when you're passed too closely by a speeding car. Maybe?
I rode behind a guy on a Nishiki who I rode behind this morning and roughly along the pretty much same exact stretch on the ride in and ride home. He had a shoulder bag and looked like maybe he works in graphic design or is Danish or both.
When the L street cycle track is installed, I might start taking that because it'll at least be something different. Plus, I really want to buy the T shirt at the giftshop at the end that says I SURVIVED THE MIXING ZONES, like you might do if you're in eighth grade and took a summer trip to an amusement park with a roller coaster named after either an terrifying jungle animal or a disruptive weather event.  As you might be able to glean, I'm not crazy about the design. Can't we just have some real protected, separated bicycle infrastructure like real bike cities have? Please?
If I were in charge of DC Parks & Recreation, I'd hold a 5k where people just run around Logan Circle and I'd call it Logan's Run and the prize would be- well, there's no prize for first place, but trust me, you wouldn't want to be last.
I was behind another bicyclist on 11th and I didn't cross following my usual pattern and instead waited at the red light rather than cross when the crosswalk turns green (there's a pedestrian phase for crossing L and Massachusetts, but the red for drivers) since that's what he did. It turned out not to be the end of the world. Later on 11th, two other bicyclists, in a bout of stupidity that's far too common, anticipated a green light that didn't come because the other direction had a left-turn-green and they rode into the street and almost got hit. That was dumb. Don't assume stuff.
On Pennsylvania, a guy in a mustard shirt passed me on the right, but while moving, after the light turned green, but he passed a little close for my liking. I was piqued. But then at the next red, he turned around and pointed out that the lights seemed out of sequence. Oh mustard shirt, I can't stay mad at you! Anyone who knows and care about light sequences is a friend of mine.
You know all those cyclists who just "came out of nowhere" and then got hit by cars? Yeah, I've been watching Doctor Who lately and I'm pretty sure I've figured out how it's happening. Yeah, I'd ride a Specialized TARDIS. Vertically stiff, space-temporally compliant.
I'm going to stop writing now because today is Ellie the Poodle's birthday. She's 4 now, which means that she no longer needs a fake ID to go out to bars. And that's definitely really cool for octogenarian Mrs. Mabel Peterson of Kissimmee St. Cloud, Florida, who can get her drivers license back. We're not going to do a lot of celebrating tonight, but I'm not going to promise that there won't be cake tomorrow. I mean, people cake for us, not poodle cake for her. So, that'll be nice. Have a great weekend.