What does it mean to "ride home"? Does it mean to get on your bike and leave work (yes) or does it mean more than that, an act fraught with meaning and world historical significance (no)? Or does it mean something else entirely, something internal and visceral and difficult to express in words and only conveyable in wistful and longing glances to your secret paramour across a crowded ball room as Strauss wafts through the air and thuds one-two-three one-two-three? No, it's certainly not that. It's pretty much just the first thing, the thing where you get on your bike and leave work. That's what I did tonight and it was fine.
Remember your first day of bike commuting when they gave you that secret mind control ring that makes the driver in front of you go slow so the driver behind you can get mad and blame you? Why do they even give you that mind control ring? It doesn't make any sense. Bicyclists shouldn't be allowed to deploy mind control at drivers in front of them! Luckily, some really astute drivers, typically the ones behind the bicyclists, have figured out about the mind control rings and rather than get upset about the slow drivers ahead of the bicyclists, they completely correctly have determined that it's the bicyclists and their secret mind control rings that are to blame and thus they rev and honk at those bicyclists because, why oh why, must they have those powerful mind control rings? Remember: it's never the driver in front who might just be going slower than the driver behind you might prefer. It's the secret mind control ring and they're on to us.
Not the best night on the L Street Cycle Track. Oblivious pedestrians doing oblivious things, like obliviously stepping off the curb nearly into a collision with me, who thankfully, wasn't then oblivious to the world around me. I said "stop." She looked miffed. Rather miffed than spliffed (because maybe in the recovery of injury of broken bones and such there would be need for medical marijuana) is what I always say. Rolls right off the tongue. Anyway, I'm not one of those people who thinks that pedestrians need to be hyper-vigilant and never wear headphones and wear reflective vests and have whistles for some reason and run across the street only in crosswalks and only when the light a WALK and never when it's a RED HAND and numbers counting down. Really, I think we should aspire to the kinds of streets where people can get along just fine paying the bare minimum of attention. But let's at least then expect the bare minimum! This, in my opinion, includes not stepping into oncoming traffic, Mr. Magoo-style.
11th Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, which was nicely salted. I'm not going to complain about the salt because I'd rather have too much salt than too much ice. Same is true with a margarita. But WHERE ARE THE EMERGENCY TEQUILA TRUCKS? And the trucks that deploy novelty glasses with cacti on the stems? And yet we somehow call this is civilized place.
In the bike lane behind a woman dawdly riding with no hands on the handlebars and a bus lurking to my left and slightly behind, the driver waiting and waiting and waiting for us to get past the bus stop about a half a block away. Lurking buses are the worst. They make me nervous. Though I guess a lurking bus is better than a lurching one, one where the driver cuts you off to pull into the spot and you have to grab the brakes and pull and just hope for the best. In conclusion, I might need to see an analyst to talk about my bus issues. Or DC could invest in more separated bike infrastructure that keeps cyclists and buses farther apart. Either/or really.
Tried to wash my bike off with the hose in the back yard. Heard that's a thing you should do so the salt doesn't hatch into salt worms (is that how science works?) and corrode your bike. Hilariously, the hose was frozen, which might also be a line from the album Snoop Dog: Live from Antarctica and I ended up going inside, filling a bucket and throwing that bucket (of water, not confetti because I am not a Globetrotter) at my bike and I hope that did the trick. I think I'll take the other bike tomorrow, just in case.
Psha. I continue to scoff. Emergency tequila trucks?? Really? Methinks emergency lights should only be permitted on beer trucks, and only if the beer passes rigorous testing. and that DC needs to hire me to get this job done!
ReplyDeleteSorry I missed coffee this morning. again. I'm swamped this week, and forseeably (although not definitely) for the next 4.