Jerk on a Bike

Yes, thats me. I've decided now that I've become the bike rider that I originally hated. I swerve in and out of traffic (when needed). I yell at pedestrians. And I make people move for me where ever I ride. Depending on which side of the street I'm on as I cross Wilshire I have to move between the turning lane, and the 'going straight' lane, and because its in the morning I have to navigate between people who are late for work. There are some things that I haven't started doing yet, that I still hate, but we'll see.

I've been getting pretty lucky recently with catching green lights at important intersections too. On the way to work there's only two or three lights that I must navigate, and just yesterday I made it through both Santa Monica Blvd, and Wilshire Blvd lights with a green light! I think that's pretty cool cause it doesn't happen that often. Its just that on the way home I have to race from one green light to the Wilshire light, and even when I go really fast, the light still turns yellow when I'm in the intersection.

A few weeks ago I was riding my bike home and I was pretty sure that I heard some lady say something about not riding on the sidewalk. The sidewalk was 12-15 feet wide and no one else was on it. I wasn't exactly sure what she said cause I had my headphones in, but just in case I decided to yell something at her. But because I was unsure, I didn't yell it directly at her, I just yelled loudly, pointing the direction I was already going. So if she hadn't actually said anything, it wouldn't have mattered cause I was looking away. But if she had, I got my retribution cause I yelled, letting her know I won't put up with anybody's crap!

Then worst of all, I guess karma came back to get me cause last night I was putting my bike away and I had to shimmy between a wall and our apt. managers car, then a stair case, and Cheryl's car. But somewhere in there my front shimmying foot hit something cause I went down hard. I was holding my bike above my head at the time, so when I went down, my bike went down mostly on top of me, wedging me between Cheryl's car and the small stair case in our parking garage leading into the building. And me lying on the filthy ground filled up that space completely. My first emotion was anger, so I threw my bike off of me onto Cheryl's car, and OFF of me. Then I started feeling what parts of my body had hit the unforgiving concrete. Yup, it hurt to move then. My hip scraped on someones bumper. my leg hit concrete in two spots. My elbow stopped me from completely rolling around in filth. and my arm scraped against a license plate. Right next to where cheryl parks is the exhaust outlet for the dryer in our building so it spews lint and dust non stop practically. Also LA just has dirty air, and thats been collecting in our garage spot since she stopped driving last November. So as I staggered up I was covered in filth. I tried walking but it didn't treat me so well. My leg, hip, back, side, and arm were still mad at the concrete ground. I staggered up two flights of stairs to our apartment and knocked on the door. My arm hurt to much to dig into my pocket and find my keys, also my had was covered in bicycle grease. Cheryl answered begrudgingly. She was to involved with watching TV, surfing the net, and reading magazines, (all at the same time). I eventually felt better, but then by bed time, I was reminded of my scrapes and bruises when I laid down, on my back side. It was fine today, its just that my work chair makes my butt fall asleep. But other than that I've made a full recovery.