Confessions of a Commuter

[CNF2002]

Wednesday
Miles: 6,637
Mood:

Confession #14- I'm soaking wet.

You'd think people in their heated cars, listening to the radio, talking on their cellphone, in a traffic jam, would have just the slightest sympathy for the guy on a motorcycle out in the pouring rain.

Of course, you'd be wrong. Faith in mankind is just at an all-time low. The only way they could have made it worse for me this morning is if they had rolled down their windows and thrown their coffee at me. At least it would have been warm, though. Here I am, out in the rain, just trying to get to work, and they won't even let me on the freeway.

Then, Mr Black Mercedes decides to merge into me. I blare my horn, and yet still he comes. So I'm sitting there, looking at the front of his car, my horn still blaring, and finally he decides I'm not going anywhere (I had, literally, no room to move. Cars bumper-to-bumper on my right, 10mph traffic jam, car to my front, and this guy is about to knock my rear tire out from under me with his front bumper. I sure would hate to scratch that nice finish or bust his headlight while I died. I'm sure that's the only reason why he didn't continue to plow into me.) so he slows down (a novel concept!) and merges in behind me instead. I'm sure he was baffled, wondering why (since he has a luxury car and I'm on a bike) I didn't suddenly disappear, or magically find a way to get out of his way so the Big Shot could get where he needed to be 10 seconds sooner. Seriously. I feel sorry for the poor guy, that my existence is just so darn inconvenient to him. I shall send his wife and children a sympathy card. But it's 8:30 am, the kids are off to school, and she's probably in the neighbors bedroom already.

Believe it or not, a small drizzle becomes a downpour when you're going 60mph. Or, when you are riding in it for your 30 minute commute that, because of 2 accidents and road conditions, takes 1 1/2 hours. Interestingly, you never really feel how soaked you are until you arrive at your destination, get off the bike, and sit down somewhere. You look like you just walked through a puddle after a woman threw a drink at your chest and you just couldn't make it to the bathroom in time.

But really, when you are sitting in the middle of a rainstorm in a traffic jam with no where to go, the best thing to do is laugh. In fact, its pretty funny when you think about it. Acceptance...isn't that the final stage of trauma? I really am evolved. Truly. I always did like to cut in line.

Note to readers: It takes all day for socks to dry when you cannot take off your shoes.

Note to forefathers: Thank you for discovering hot coffee.

[NorthernPete]

This just keeps getting better and better, keep them coming!

[camthepyro]

I had to ride in the rain for an hour and a half also, so not fun...

[Myself002]

invest in some cheap raingear and booties. I did and havent been soaked since.

[CNF2002]

Wednesday
Miles: 6,637
Mood:

Confession #15- I'm the worst yuppy soccer mom in the world.

On the cover of the new "O" magazine, it asks the question "Is Hugh Jackman the Nicest Guy?". Sorry Opera, but all I see is "Is the Huge Jacka-- the Nicest Guys?"

If you commute long enough you feel like a family. A few cars become familiar, and you smile when you recognize them. But if you are a newcomer, it can be awkward. You feel like that guy at the small-town Texas football game. You know, the stranger who is just a little too interested in high school football (players who should be studying instead of throwing pigskins and preparing to be the next generation's grocery store bag attendants) and no one recognizes, and therefore stares at for the entire game and spreads gossip across the bleachers such that, by the time the game is over, the police are waiting for him at the exit.

I was a newcomer. I was driving my SUV; the motorcycle in the garage, my riding gear still hanging and struggling to dry out from riding in a downpour commute the evening before. They all stared at me, wondering who I was. They stared even more than they stared at the white Toyota pickup which, we were certain, was about to fall apart and spread it rusty parts across the freeway at any moment. We were prepared, except for the blue Dodge Ram extended cab that weaved in and out in a struggle to get ahead.

He got nowhere. Punk.

I am the worst yuppy soccer mom in the world. Okay, ignoring the fact that I'm not a woman, and I don't have kids who play soccer...or kids for that matter. But I was driving an SUV all by myself, so that puts me ahead.

Yet I just can't cut it. Sure, I'm wasting gas, but where's the lack of attention, the careless endangerment of the public, the clear inability to handle a vehicle larger than a compact sedan?

Alas, I could not find a single "Starbucks" anywhere. Where are these people getting their coffee? They must be going to some secret hidden location outside the commute route. I forgot my newspaper! Here I am in this giant SUV, where I should be playing hackysack while I drive, and I'm not taking advantage of a single bit of it!

I want to feel the false safety of thinking I drive a bulletproof tank because I need a stepladder to get into it. I want to feel 'empowered' when doing everyday tasks like driving to the convenience store. I want enough room in the back seat for my single child to set up an outdoor swingset. Why can't I have these things? Why? Why?

[CNF2002]

Monday
Miles: 6,659
Mood:

Confession #16- I'm a working class hero.

We all have them, those moments where we say "oops!", kind of like when your brain shuts down for a split second while a cloud of embarassment passes over you as you try to figure out just what it is that you were supposed to do but didn't. For example, at the stoplight this morning in neutral (which you are hardly ever in at a stoplight) and you give the bike a good revving in an attempt to speed away onto the freeway.

Your brain shuts down when it realizes you haven't moved. Wait! There it is, I'm in neutral. How do I shift again?

Oops is probably the number one word we say in our heads. Okay, so we verbalize it so we don't look like a dweeb, using some colorful euphemism that we are sure our parents would disapprove of. Or we don't say anything at all, because our brain has shut down. Like when you invite the in-laws over for dinner and realize you left incriminating evidence on the bedstand. There's a 3 month scowling penalty for that one.

Did you know I'm a working class hero? I must be. I saw it in a movie. I left this morning with just enough fuel to make it to work. There was not enough time (or motivation, I'm not sure which) to hit the gas station, so I went to work with only enough fuel to get there. Not to get home. I've seen this movie, where the pilot goes into enemy territory with a one-way ticket to drop the important payload that no one else can.

Yeah, I'm that guy. Hopefully this isn't based on a true story. If it is, I won't make it back alive. If its all in a writer's head, I'll probably make it back on a tailwind alone. Fiction stories always have to end happily. You only get a sad or 'realistic' ending with true-story movies, which is a darn shame because if its based on a true story you probably already know how it ends anyway.

Now make a movie based on a true story and completely change the ending. Wouldn't we have been surprised if the Titanic suddenly got a second wind, bobbed up to the surface, and everyone celebrated with scotch and martini's? Now that would have been a movie to see.

[CNF2002]

Tuesday
Miles: 6,681
Mood:

Confession #17- I smell like dog pee.

Where are the cupholders on my bike? If cyclists can have water-filled backpacks with straws attached to their collars, I want one, too.

I've made a few observations about road-rules that I think need reaffirming.

1) Yellow does not mean hit the gas. Its bad enough you do it at stoplights, but when a yellow blinker comes on a vehicle, it doesn't mean 'hurry up and close in the gap so they can't merge'.

2) In the right-most lane on the freeway it is your responsibility to allow those on the on ramp to merge. Face it, if you are in this lane, you are stuck with the social responsibility of allowing others on the freeway. Its just plain courtesy. This means that if someone is trying to get on the road, you do not maintain your cruise control as they attempt to sneak in just because you feel you shouldn't be inconvenienced.

3) The left lane is not called the 'fast lane'. It is the passing lane. The law says that slower vehicles must move right regardless of the posted speed limit. This means that if you are passing someone or a string of people in the right lanes, you are using the passing lane as it is intended. The passing lane does not mean that whoever is the fastest on the freeway has the right of way, and everyone else needs to get out of their way ASAP.

4) The 2 car-length gap applies only to around 40mph. Above, say around 75mph, you need much more than a 2 car-length gap. In fact, most people need to add to their 1/4 car-length gap that they maintain at 80mph. This applies mostly to people who are confused about item 3.

I smell like dog pee. A dog, who is not mine, has been 'squatting' at my house under the permission of my wife who, has decided, that dog-sitting should be taken into our home, much to the destruction of our property and the torment of our cats.

So the dog, last night as I was being so gracious as to take the beast out for a walk, out of the pure kindness of my heart and great sympathy to the poor thing's big brown eyes, decided to urinate on my motorcycle pants as I was putting on my shoes.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but this is not appropriate behavior for an out-of-place houseguest. Certainly not one who depends on me solely for food, water, and the right to breathe. Needless to say, the dog was yelled at for a good 10 minutes before being dragged into his crate, locked up for 30 minutes, and scowled at for that entire time.

Why, I ask, why did I end up giving him a walk anyway? Well I suppose it had something to do with pity. Dogs are experts at making you feel sorry for them. They could rip apart your house and set your yard on fire, and still when you scorn them they just look like the whole world has come crashing down onto their fragile little lives.

At least after a good wash and hanging they were dry and clean by the next morning. But I swear, they still smell like pee.

[KarateChick]

CNF - as always - great posts!

[CNF2002]

Thursday
Miles: 6,703
Mood:

Confession #18- I love concrete.

As I come into the city in the morning I am greeted by a gorgeous view. My eyes pass back and forth over it and it makes me smile. It is amazing, perfect, and natural. One would assume that I am talking about a giant oak tree, or perhaps a field of flowers off the side of the highway.

No, I'm talking about the city skyline. Every day I am treated to this wonderful scenery [on my commute home, nothing! Just ugly blue sky - well, brown sky, but the upper half is blue as it rises above the smog]. As I approach it, it transforms from a vague haze to crystal clear and I can see the sharp edges and creative architectural details as I draw closer through the smog-filled city.

I can only imagine that in the 1400's, sailors felt the same way as they drifted in an endless ocean, finally crawling into a fog that slowly revealed precious land. It was natural, it was beautiful, it was their world.

Concrete and steel. That's our world. We forget on our commute that every day we are not just travelling to work, we are witnessing the gradual evolution of nature's transformation. Is it wrong to build? We as humans of course are part of nature. Is a skyscraper more unnatural than an ant-hill?

What did mothers and fathers imagine their children's lives would be like as the culture around them urbanized and quickly paved the landscape? I feel more comfortable walking on a power-washed road than in the soft mud. I was born on concrete. My first experiences at birth was first laying on a steel table, then soon after being surrounded by a clear plastic cage. From that point on, my natural habitat was the one that we've created.

What world will our children exist in? A world that is always connected, where you can communicate with another child in Africa at the touch of a button, and information, knowledge, and entertainment is always at your fingertips. How small it would seem. To the early Europeans, the world was endless, bordered only by a waterfall to an infinite abyss that no one had ever seen. How small our world must look to our children. They travel at the speed of electrical currents. What will they do? Look up for new world to travel, or will they simply fall into the digital age and adapt the computerized virtual world as their natural habitat, just as I have adapted concrete and steel to mine.

Instead of gazing at a skyline as they ride to work (on motorcycles of course) they might look lovingly at their ergonomic keyboard, never needing to leave their homes. Is it so hard to believe? The idea that they never leave their constructs? But really, when you think about it, when was the last time any of us truly left ours?

[CNF2002]

Friday
Miles: 6,724
Mood:

Confession #19- I have had a revelation.

I shift like a granny. On merging to the freeway this morning, I attempted to 'throttle' the bike a bit. I managed to barely keep up with a Toyota sedan that was, probably, only accelerating normally. I doubt it was lack of power from the bike, but rather due to my lack of ability to shift.

In normal conditions I do not notice it. I shift fairly normally, with an emphasis on smoothness rather than maximizing power. And I haven't tried to really push the bike since I first got it, that one fleeting moment of fancy. So it is possible that I simply do not harbor the skills to ride very fast.

To soothe my ego, I'm sure that most people who want to go fast end up buying a 1000cc bike and, regardless of their shifting retardation, still manage to go fast much to the credit of the bike instead of the rider.

I don't want to go fast, mind you, I just want to learn how to shift properly in abnormal conditions. You would understand if you saw. I would throttle up, accelerate, and shift...but there was this second-long pause when the engine got real quiet, too quiet, and I did not have enough torque to increase my velocity in the next gear so there was a hesitant lagging. I looked like an 80 year old in a basic MSF course who had never ridden anything except the little electric carts they have at the grocery store. It was very sad. The big guy in the Dodge Ram, I am certain, was giggling.

I had a revelation today. The freeway was clear as it is often, I had the run of the road, as I sometimes do. But it was different. I suddenly realized that I wanted to do something more than just the commute. I wanted to ride on the weekend. I wanted twisties!

It is hard to explain the feeling. Forgive me if I use an analogy that only men will truly understand. It was like I was 13 years old again. That moment that you never forget that changes your life; you are in the shower, look down, and it's like a beam of light shining on you. The choir sings in the background and all is aglow. You have heard it from other people, you understand the basic concepts, but it never quite struck you. Then, you suddenly realize for the first time in your young life "Oh! So that's what that thing is for!"...and your life is forever changed, new doors have opened that you never knew existed.

Oh! That's what the bike is for! Now this does not affect my commuting one bit, but it is very likely that someday in the near future I will be experimenting on an empty, twisty road. Perhaps, someday, soon.

Once I learn to shift.