7/21/14

Rides 7/21: Scandalous Cupcakes

"Heroin," he said and that caught my attention. Then it was marijuana and strip club and an incinerator and "$100 million dollars printed by the Federal Reserve." This was at 7th and Pennsylvania and after the rambling man crossed the street in front of us, eyes still locked on us or nowhere in particular, the bearded cyclist, with a beard that looked like that of an Assyrian king, in front of me took out an ear bud and looked back and asked me "what?" I told him that there's drugs and money being burned in an incinerator behind at strip club. He said "ok" and put his ear bud back in. Then from the sidewalk the rambling man said "that's why your taxes are so high."

Otherwise not much of too much excitement on the rest of the way in, except being told to ride on the sidewalk downtown by a construction worker attempting to direct a reversing dump truck into where I would've ridden otherwise. I did ride on the sidewalk, but only for 10 feet. I guess I could've stood my ground and insisted on my rights to the road, but if there's one rule above all to which I assiduously adhere, it's my urban cycling tip #1: don't fuck with dump trucks.

It seemed like maybe I could've gotten to work faster than I did, but I definitely don't think I could've made it home any faster. Not because I was going particularly fast, but because I didn't feel great and I don't think I really could've ridden with any more effort than the minimal effort that I mustered. I might have a little head cold or maybe I was just a #ugh from a long day at work, but it was definitely slow going and I was definitely subprime. I thought about stopping for a Snickers at a CVS, having been so a won over by lifetime of advertisements from Big Candy Bar and the alleged palliative powers of the product, but I pushed through the urge finding myself halfway home and most of the way home soon enough.

It seems strange that pedestrians continue to not die gruesome deaths under the wheels of cyclists in the plaza in front of the White House, where there's not markings or sidewalks or any semblance of traffic laws, but just a big mix of people on bikes and on foot all going a million different directions. It's almost as if the likelihood of a cyclist causing harm to a pedestrian, while certainly real and certainly having had occurred in  instances, is overstated and while perhaps annoying, maybe people on bikes just aren't as dangerous as people in cars and maybe this doesn't have anything to do with the people themselves but maybe the fact that one is 20 pounds and goes 15 miles per hour and one is multiple tons and goes much faster. Sometimes I wonder if we can 'pay attention' our way to an end of people get hurt by car drivers and I definitely think that more attentiveness be a huge boon to safety, but I just don't know if you can ever put things that big and fast and powerful so close to people in an urban environment. Maybe some thing just aren't meant to go together, like peanut butter and sardines.

Some bigwigs get to park their cars on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 15th and 14th and because of this buses can't turn from the right lane and have to turn from the next lane over and then drivers in the next lane over get blocked by the outswinging bus and then always somehow a taxi ends up driving in the bike lane. If you introduce a taxi in Act I, it's driving in a bike lane before the play's over. That's just the way it goes.

Rode up the House side of the Capitol. That was different. DC is still not a State, so that's the same. Though the President is 'for it'  nowadays and I'm sure once he closes Guantanamo and passes comprehensive gun control, we're next. Now might be a good time to segue into my sometimes calls for you to sign the Tim Krepp for Congress ballot nominating petition, which I will bike to you on my bicycle or your bicycle if you lend me your bicycle. I will not steal someone else's bicycle and ride it to you on that pilfered bicycle because stealing bicycles is wrong and it most likely also won't meet my Very High Standards as far as bicycles go.

East Capitol is the opposite of a slog. It might be the best street in town. It's flat and the houses are pretty and there are trees and bike lanes. It's like drinking some lemonade after housing some Funyuns. If you swish it around a little, it can clean your teeth. In a way, at least.

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