Rides 11/17: 35 Animal Heads

It rained.

My brakes made an awful noise, louder and more prolonged than the usual squeal. I found it to be over-dramatic.

I stopped at a red light on East Capitol and talk to some Metropolitan Police Department police officers. They were waiting in the rain to babysit some Keystone XL protestors, who had gathered to shout at a building (or maybe the people inside a building). You suck, building! You're probably made of oil and/or pipes! Boo! (I am not especially acquainted with the issues surrounding said pipeline. I try to remained as uninformed as possible.) I expressed my sympathy that they had to stand in the rain. They said that it wasn't so bad. An officer with a mustache said my bike looked really heavy. I hopped off and let him pick it up. I trusted that he wouldn't steal it, as it would've been very easy for me to call the cops, namely his partner sitting inside the car. He was reasonably satisfied that the bike was not too heavy. We said our goodbyes. In hindsight, I find my extroversion weird. It's not my normal inclination, which is somewhere between taciturn and comatose. I wonder how they found it. Maybe a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy morning? In related news, LOL.

The Mall has reopened and I rode past the museums and wanted to take a picture of the dreary-as-all-get-out Washington Monument, bathed in fog and gray and this picture almost happened, but then my phone's battery died. So just imagine a fog covered Washington Monument. To aid your visualization, if you have an obelisk and fog machine at home, get those out. If you don't have those items, get thee to your nearest obelisk and fog machine warehouse. There's probably a sale. My phone is nearly on its last legs and I will replace it soon, but for maybe the next month, I'll have a phone that can't consistently remain functioning in the cold weather. I haven't yet assessed to what extent this might be a problem. I mean, on one hand, if all a wonky phone prevents is foisting on your blurry pictures of what I say is the Washington Monument enmeshed in fog, then that seems like no major loss for any of us. But I'd hate to have to need it in an emergency and not have access to it. My plan for the next few weeks is to have no emergencies.

This time it wasn't an UberX blocking a crosswalk, but a Lyft. Sharing economy for the win.

The roads were comparatively empty on the way home. It felt like a Sunday before a holiday Monday, but it wasn't that at all. I was on the road 10 minutes earlier than normal, but I don't know if the sixth of an hour really made that much of a difference. I guess people just didn't drive to work today? It felt odd and mildly disconcerting. Unfortunately, sometimes the only thing that keeps the worst of drivers from indulging their worst habits is the presence of copious other drivers. It slows them down at least and the slower speeds cages in their terribleness. But when there's no traffic, that's when the worst of the lot find themselves speeding along and staring at their phones and altogether oblivious of things like drifting into the bike lanes and coming perilously close to me. "THIS IS WHY YOU CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!" would be a sorta meme-y thing I could scream, except I'm too busy trying to stay out of the way. The best of when you get the 'I'm sorry!' wave and the guy giving you the wave HAS HIS PHONE IN THE WAVING HAND. Please, please, please, please pay attention while you drive. Please?

M Street to Pennsylvania to L Street to 15th. Then, back to Pennsylvania again. At 11th, I watched a woman not run across the street even though the crosswalk numbers counted to zero and a red hand flashed. She just kept walking, as if she thought that human decency and understanding would prevent the driver at the now green light from blaring on his horn. She was on the phone. I wonder if he just saw a 'distracted walker.'

So moody:

Filters used to enhance moodiness. I have no idea what reality looks like anymore. Not sure what Instagram filter adds Trump billboards. They should really look into that. Pretty sure that's not supposed to be there.

At Lincoln Park, a woman screamed. She screamed "Zack!" and she ran towards the road, looking panicked. I thought "holy shit lady, Saved By The Bell has been off the air for decades. there is nothing to get that excited about something is wrong" and asked "is everything ok?" Her eyes scanned the road in front of me and while her pace quickened she said "no, it's just my dumb dog" and I guess she spotted the dog, across the street in the arms of a woman who had crouched over to hold the black dog still. Dog crisis averted. To be honest, it's kinda hard for me to blame the dog too much. A dog's just a dog.