Gear Prudence #2, aka "they let me do another one?," went live today and I'm grateful for the reading and the sharing and the commenting and the outright disagreeing with my advice and judgment. I suppose I could've gone into greater depth about why I think the thing I think is rude is rude, but there are only so many words allowed for these things and I spent too many of them most likely pissing off the Brazilian martial arts community and now I can't provide justification because I've had to relocate to a secure location where Brazilians can't go [a World Cup final?] to ensure my continued safety. Just kidding! But back to the "why" part, like anything else with etiquette, it mostly depends on your frame of reference. Maybe you don't think chewing with your moth open is sorta rude. After all, who is it hurting? If the people across from you don't want to see your mastication, they should just look away, right? Or get over it. There's only so much time for lunch and you don't want to spend any of it kowtowing to the delicate sensibilities of those who just can't cope with seeing teeth and gums and all the cud you've built up in there from whatever $5 footlong you've settled for today. Anyway. It's free advice and that means you should totally ignore it if you'd prefer or you could heed it or alternatively ignore and then heed and feel your way into developing an opinion about its rightness or wrongness. You do you. But thanks for reading! And submit questions!
I need a new way through downtown in the morning. Maybe a way that skips it entirely. It's not that it's boring per se, but it's fatiguing. I'm tiring of the mess that is M Street, especially around Connecticut Avenue. I'm not choosing off-roading, so much as it's choosing me. The pavement is abysmal and random and there are deep furrows and cuts and gashes. I half suspect that DDOT is working on some kind of secret Nazca Lines project and we'll only be able to see the giant potato etched into the landscape from an overhead gondola car someday. And then we'll all be "well, that hardly seems worth all the trouble."
I also think my desire for greater bucolia has been in no small degree amplified by my riding with MG, of the Chasing Mailboxes blog, Friday Coffee Club and yesterday's blog post, and our relaxed rides down by the river, then along Ohio Drive, and then today, across the neck of Hains Point and over the Washington Channel (CSPAN?). It's been a nice break from the bustlier downtown trips, which hemmed in by the artifices of buildings and cars and people. Commuting on trails is a fundamentally different experience than riding on city streets and while I probably wouldn't want to do it all the time, a respite's a respite. Breaking up the usual routine has been a bit like summer camp. Maybe tomorrow there'll be canoeing. I hope not- that means something has gone horribly wrong. Gear Prudence: should I always pack a snorkel in my pannier? Yes.
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