Thursday, September 8, 2011

Rise and Fall

Man, those lakefront winds keep coming. Definitely no Indian Summer this September, it would seem. We went full-bore into Fall! I'm tired, kinda brain-fried at the moment (work was busy), but all is mostly well, I think.

Spittin' Mad

I'm a bit sore. The autumn winds are picking up at the lake shore, as they always do, which makes biking along that route tougher. My cruising speed with my bike is about 12 mph, and when you've got an 11-mph headwind blasting you in the face, it makes for a helluva slog.

Had some crazy asshole spit at me yesterday. He was this little goblin of a man. I was at an intersection, checking the time on my iPhone (the wind was making me mindful of my pacing for the ride, as I had a meeting to go to), and I hear *PTOOEY* at me, and turned, and the guy made this nonchalant look, hastily, like he'd just realized he'd bitten off more than he could chew. Nasty lil' guy, looked like late 40s, maybe (?), baseball cap jammed on his head, grimy, one of those paranoid schizophrenic-looking types. Anyway, when I realized what he'd done, I rode after him on my bike. He'd ducked by one of the CTA bus kiosks to dodge me, but I wheeled around and gave him a retributive spit on his back, then rode for my meeting. He spat back at me one more time as I rode off. Not a word was spoken, didn't have to be. The fucker knew what he'd done. He probably couldn't believe somebody would retaliate in kind, but that's how it goes. Spit for spat, Fucko. He's just lucky I had to go to a meeting, or I'd have really gone Celtic on him and pummeled him into the ground for that kinda shit (although, if I'd done that, bystanders would've just seen me beating the shit out of this goblin-man, wouldn't have seen the precipitating event, so I'd have likely been the one to get in trouble, had I gone that route; I was a model of restraint in that I only spat on him). Anyway, after 18 years in the city, I guess something nuts like that was bound to happen. It was a first for me, though. *PTOOEY* Spitfight with a vagabond! Can mark that off my list of life experiences.

The meeting went well, btw. I was inwardly amused by that, as I gave my presentation. Little did anyone know that I'd had that nonsense on the front end of my day.