Rides 8/19 and 8/22

Started Friday with a ride to A Baked Joint on K between 5th and 6th. I got there by taking 17th to Q and then crossed town to 11th or possibly 7th before taking one of those to a different street and let's just say I got there because I definitely did and there are witnesses so quibbling about the details after a weekend seems unnecessary, ok? I rode the Brompton, which I took to work by riding up 5th to R and R to Massachusetts and up that until my workplace got in the way of my bike ride, as it does during these commutes.

The ride home was one of mild frustration, as Friday afternoon rides so frequently are. The embrace of the weekend should be a joyous affair, but drivers drive the worst on Friday afternoons to the point that it's noticeable. Passes are closer, speeds are higher and there's a general sense of anxiety about 'escaping the office' that translates into an apparent dickishness on the roads. For awhile I thought that Monday mornings were the worst times for jerky driving behavior, under the theory that people wouldn't want to go back to work after the weekend and their grumpiness would translate into crummy driving, but that's not true. Crummy driving is, quite interestingly, a result of...anticipation of a good time? Or excitement about that good time and an attempt to get there faster? Anyway, if the NSF is reading (and they hack everybody, right? Oh, that's the NSA. But how else are you supposed to get a man to the moon? Wait, that's not them either), I'll take a million dollars in grant money to study this scientifically. The study will involve electrodes, so that definitely makes it science.

Today's commute aspired to start with a Bikeshare ride downtown, but there were no bikes, so I went back upstairs and got the Brompton instead. I rode downtown using the streets between where I live and where I was going and then after walking the bike to the metro, folded it and took a humdrum underground train trip to work. I only beschmutzed my pants a little from carrying the bike against my leg from the train to the escalator and whatever gunk wound up on my pant leg was easily smudged into the gray slacks to the point that it blended well amidst the previously smudged gunk from the other times I carelessly carried the folded bike. I rode the bike from the metro to work. Nebraska Avenue could be a much better street. It won't be though.

I stopped at the store on the way home for vegetables and bread and limes. Another delicious dinner of key lime sandwiches. Mmmmm. I have this very nice bag that I infrequently use since it's normally too small for the amount of things I want to bring to and from work, but I used it today and it fit my lock and my limes and my coffee mug and a folded copy of the newspaper and some other things.

Riding down Newark through Cleveland Park is a joy. I've even come to liking riding on Connecticut Avenue from there until Woodley, which is a monstrous thing to admit. Connecticut Avenue is, in common parlance, a fuckshow, which is like a shitshow, but worse. It's not that the behavior is especially bad, but the speeds are faster and given that D=RT, that means that when things go bad, they take less time to get to you. We could have lovely avenues in DC, but don't.

Sometimes I think about Big Things during my bike commutes, in spite of trying to help it. One of the recurring themes of this blog is hatred of pogo sticks continuity and change. I guess that happens with any kind of daily accounting of some repetitive activity. How were things different today in the context in which everything around pretty much stays the same? How am I the same today in the context of everything around me slightly evolving? To what extent are my brake pads running down and turning into nothingness and What Does It All Mean? I didn't have any answers by the time I turned on Biltmore and I was tired of pretending to think about it by the time I got to T. I got home and walked the dog and folded the bike and I'll unfold it tomorrow.