sept 16th night/sept 17th morning

Sept 16th ride home -- infamous rainy night --

Stepping outside literally a few minutes before 5:30, a guy is admiring the bike and I look up and ask if that was lightning we just saw.

"I don't know, I was looking at your bike."

A half-second later, I knew it'd rain in a matter of minutes. But that normally doesn't deter me because I've beaten the rain before in terms of getting to Penn dry (or mostly dry). That didn't happen this time. Had I left 5 minutes earlier, I would've been mostly dry entering Penn. But I rode it out, pedaling as hard as I could in the third gear and was doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that by the IFC theater at W. 4th Street, I thought I could pull it off. It's invigorating to look uptown from street level just before a storm breaks -- the lightning off in the distance aesthetically blocked off by the skyscrapers is quite nice. If only I wasn't 66% water and riding an aluminum bicycle I would've stopped to bask in it.

But about 10-14 blocks later, the party was over and I was drenched. Somewhere before 20th Street I had to pull off the road and run the bike via 6th Avenue sidewalks. My shoes kept untying themselves and my sneakers were saturated. I had enough time to make it on foot and I knew I was licked, which boosted my confidence. Once I hit 31st Street I hopped back on the bike because there weren't that many cars. Approaching 7th Ave. corner, however, I saw that the water wasn't draining very well and hopped back off and made my way downstairs. I entertained the notion of jumping on the very first train I could and just changing at Jamaica. I probably should have done that -- it's impulsive but under the circumstances I just wanted to get home -- but I didn't and decided to wait the 5 minutes for my train to be called. But it never did and the rest is a bunch of regretful history.

Morning - Sept 17th

The only good to come from yesterday's stomachache was that much of my lunch is still in the office fridge, so I didn't need to brown bag it, and decided to bring a small folded shirt and my still-wet copy of Into The Wild in a plastic bag and let it dangle off the handlebar. I'm wearing a thin, long-sleeve cotton green shirt (which I wore to sleep) and my damp shorts and love the feeling that I have forgotten something when in fact, I've intentionally left my backpack at home. I'm sweating much less and the ride is mostly pleasant. I'm listening to Audioslave's Revelations from the start. I found out that my bike will take another week to fix up since the part is so rare it needs to be ordered -- that means my 300th trip will be on Bob's bike. I have no real problem with that but there's some sentimentality to the event. But then again, it's just another day and another round-trip.

I'm halfway through the book and it's quite gripping. Part of me wishes I could do what McCandless did, without the dying of starvation part.

Today I'll be sans coffee for the first time in a while and we'll see how that works out for me today, and more importantly, tomorrow. I'll allow myself a second cup of regular tea today and then that's it. I wonder if I've been less fun this past week because of the gradual fade of the java in my system. I'm waking up more easily, that's for sure.

The roads are slightly glazed but otherwise you'd never know that there was a tornado not 20 miles from here.

Since the day after Labor Day, I'm 8-for-9 with the bike. I haven't worked out this week but that's okay, I'll make up for it next week.

Thank you for reading.