THE NEW GIRL IN TOWN

'hipster puppies' already got a book deal. photo blogs seem to go from inception to print the fastest, but even so, two and a half months (january 30 to the date of that announcement) is dishearteningly quick. back in the day, i suppose that someone who wanted to make a book of captioning pictures of dogs could have just found an agency and had them pitch the idea to a publisher; which is to say they'd have had a book in no time at all as far as having to keep up a blog goes. that's some condolence. some. we just thought we were doing so well, is all.

so i made some time to think by taking the long way home along highway 30 and over the st. johns bridge. i probably shouldn't have, but it's been too long since i've ridden more than ten consecutive miles, and i wouldn't let myself shake the idea once i'd gotten it. the hipster puppies really had nothing to do with it -- although i did happen to visit that blog today and click back through enough pages to get the news, and i did plan on sharing it somehow.

my left pedal starting seizing about a month ago, or maybe a short while longer, but in truth i have absolutely no recollection, which just goes to show how much i'm willing to tempt fate in the name of thrift -- or some overthought extension of cost and maximum beautification of my bicycle. thrift isn't exactly right, because i've already bought a new set of pedals and have been porting them in my bag for going on two weeks now. true, the only 15mm wrench i carry is a socket wrench for removing my wheels, but i still take comfort in knowing that i could hypothetically pull a switch out once i finally grind down all of the bearings in the problem pedal and the body falls off the spindle.

i've known what to expect since the grinding started, because the same thing happened to my right pedal last december, and when the thing finally went (in a downpour at the edge of a speed bump on fremont), i went with it. i'd been over lubricating that pedal to silence the screeching and crackling of the bearings melting down, and i'll admit that the silver ooze seeping out of the pedal body after its final failure was exciting in its approximation of blood. had it been my own blood, my excitement would definitely have been tempered. my reaction to that is usually a faint. thankfully, the worst i got from that incident was wet(ter). though it did, i guess, make me a little later to my scheduled plans.

why risk it again? well, because i finally ordered new drivetrain parts the day after picking up my pedals, and it seems a shame not to have all of my pretty new fancies put on my bike at once. let it ride like nearly new for a couple of days, right? i'm going to have to clean the hell out of my bike before doing anything near the cranks anyway, so there's not wanting to do that twice, too. vanity a cruel mistress? she pales in comparison to laziness.

so i probably shouldn't have ridden highway 30, especially with my road-side pedal about to go, and especially since i hadn't put my new pedals -- or even the socket wrench or an extra tube -- back in my bag after hosing it off on sunday, as useless as any of those items might actually have proven. but a cheap disaster like a flat would've had me walking up and over the bridge to the number 4 bus at the least. i've been there before, and it's the unexpected waste of time (and it's easy avoidability) that really stings. but, i rode the long way anyway because i felt like it. the air was cool, but the sun was still warm; and there's a stretch of 30 about a mile from the bridge that's shaded in the evening by the trees in forest park, and the shade lasts until the top of the approach to the bridge so you've enough time to cool off before the second half of the ride back towards town.

despite the hospitable atmospheric conditions, though, this time the bridge approach had me a little scared. drivers are generally not ungracious about allowing cyclists to cross the two lanes of traffic separating the bike lane from the left turn lane that puts you on course to the bridge. but it's quite a hill after that, and in addition to the dying pedal, i'd recently replaced my cleat bolts without replacing my cleats (of course i'd want to wait to install the new cleats that came with the pedals until i'd installed the pedals themselves), and the little bit of grime between the old cleats and the new bolts has the bolts sticking out just a hair's breadth too far to guarantee them completely locking on to my pedals, which means my feet sometimes come unintentionally unstuck when i'm pulling up at full force. and on a hill, that pulling up is kind of key.

no problem. or, i should say, i didn't run into one. but there's always that jackass who ignores the "bikes on roadway" sign and must not see that there are pedestrians using the narrow sidewalk who waits until he's right behind you at the middle of the bridge to blare his horn and then swerve around you shaking his fist. there's another fucking lane, asshole, and hardly any traffic. the semis and buses don't have any problem moving along smoothly and safely. and so that guy reminds you that it's him that's going to cause you to crash and not the anticipated mechanical failure. it's always the unexpected things that do it. the view from up there is to die for, though. really. ha.

all that just to get home and tell you that tavi made the blog roll. tavi is thirteen. she writes about fashion. she writes like a thirteen year old about fashion. but it's obvious that tavi is an intelligent and thoughtful thirteen year old. is it more important when someone like tavi writes impressions of things that are similar to reactions you find elsewhere on the internet? apparently. she gets flown to runway shows and fancy parties. she had at least one magazine cover last fall. if tavi said that she really dug those big, old-timey panties from the dolce and gabbana men's s/s 2011 collection, would they sell better than as a result of us saying so here? (that's a zen kind of a question because no one reads this blog and tavi doesn't cover menswear.) teenagers just use the internet well. you never sound good comparing yourself to them.

we can't disparage ourselves any further in this post, because, yes, some people do pay attention to our small efforts. case in point, here is dolce and gabbana's take on me and monique in the backyard with the chickens. madonna does monique pretty well. i might even suggest monique go blond for the rest of the summer. and damn if i'm not looking good in those pants. one note to the stylist, though: we're not allowed to have roosters in the city.