Maybe it was raining this morning. I don't know. I wore a jacket for a little while, but then I took it off because it's just too hot in the summer for jackets. What must yellow jackets feel like in the summer? Existentially angstful? My yellow jacket felt overbearing and clingy, so I dumped it at the first red light when I really stopped. This was at the base of Capitol Hill, where I stopped behind another cyclist. Her bike had a rear rack but no fenders and I find this look bizarre and I most unsubtley disapprove of it. I'm making a thumbs down gesture at the computer screen right now and I'm booing quite loudly. I'm sort of a jerk. I get that you might want a bike that lacks a rack and fenders both, but the rack-no-fenders combo just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe fenders don't fit? Maybe you like to carry stuff and get the underside of that stuff wet? Like, if you've set up some sort of sea monkey habitat on your rear rack and you need to water them for some reason. I'm pretty sure that "sea monkey habitat" is never the end result of Occam's Razor.
I have reversible pedals on my bike and some days I wear clippy bike shoes (technical term) and other days I wear non-clippy shoes. I wore the clippy shoes today and I felt like it made a really substantial difference. Perhaps even my wattage was greater. I care deeply about my wattage.
On 11th, first I saw a guy smoking a pipe and on the next block I saw a guy wearing a bow tie. Had I seen a dude with a monocle, I would have hit the trifecta. Later on R, I saw a pudgy-faced, pale WASPy time, bleary-eyed behind dark sunglasses, smoking and drinking a red bull, wearing light khakis and a blue blazer and looking overall like a parody of a parody of someone who went out for Halloween as someone who was in an extra in Dead Poet's Society. His O Captain would be Cap'n Crunch.
It takes a real special kind of jerk driver who doesn't want to move over to allow you a little bit of room when there's a truck blocking the bike lane. I'm not shy about riding my bike close to people's cars, but many of those people have the common decency to recognize that maybe I'd like more than 6 inches of space. This lady was steely-eyed. Her license plate said Maryland, but her driving said so much more. I expect this kind of cold-hearted determination to be exhibited by tank drivers in battle, not SUV drivers on city streets. Just move over a little. Please?
What: Me. Tuxedo. Karaoke.
Where: TBD
When: Sunday, 8/26. About two drinks after I get there.
Why: $ for WABA. Time to pay the piper.
More details to follow. It would be kind of hard to have fewer details. Speaking of the piper, Kate (she who is paying for this luxury of my "singing") wrote a really smart and honest blog post about bikes and burnout and I encourage you to read it.
So more music stuff! NORA and One Left, a music band, sent me a copy of their album Bicycle and while I've listened to it (and enjoyed it), I haven't had time to write up a formal review. But Washcycle has! So read that. And if you'd like to review it for this here very blogging enterprise (basically TFTS is the Pitchfork of bike commuter blogs. No, I'm not entirely sure what Pitchfork is), I'd be happy to pass along my copy to you. But you can't just abscond with it because that wouldn't be fair to the 8 other people who read the blog and might want to know about it. Email talesfromthesharrows@gmail.com. Please have an extensive background in music reviewing and/or not that.
Some exciting shoaling action on R Street, mostly undertaken by a guy on a CaBi.
Some less than exciting last couple of miles action from Dupont to work. I'm going to need a way to make this more fun. I've been riding this route for almost a year and I still haven't figured out a good enough way to keep myself distracted during this fairly boring stretch. Maybe I'll ride on the other side of the street. That might spice things up.
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