HOW TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, part 2, the BRIGHT side

of course it was on the first both warm and sunny day that portland has seen in weeks that i had an appointment and the eye doctor, and having not been to the eye doctor in enough years to forget how significantly dilation of my eyes affects my vision i let dr. ezra go for it and significantly complicated the rest of my afternoon. it wasn't for vanity that i didn't wear the disposable, roll-up sunglasses that dr. ezra gave me but for principle, the principle that if i'd shelled out so much for new frames at an eyewear boutique on mississippi avenue then i'd already justified being vain. and so i left the sunglasses rolled in my right hand and used my left to trace my way along the storefronts between dr. ezra's and fremont, and then a right turn and then a left onto missouri and to home, crossing each street at a squinty eyed dash.

i was fine watching the full sun from inside the apartment, through the open door across the shaded porch, but direct sunlight was completely debilitating. unfortunately, i needed to visit another doctor across town before his office closed at five. i did, however, have proper sunglasses at home. unfortunately, although my darkest pair made the effects of the dilation nearly unnoticeable even when i stood directly under the two o'clock sun, proper sunglasses have the unfortunate effect of disorienting me. (please ask me to take mine off if ever you see me wearing them and about to climb a flight of stairs.) but there weren't two ways about it, only the way to the second doctor's office, eyes dilated and disorienting glasses on and of course with my distracting ear buds in, because you can't ride on a day like yesterday without nicki minaj spitting in your ear. the pathetic irony of the situation was that my goal in visiting doctor number two was to collect my medical records from the follow up care i received after being hit by a car on my bicycle five years ago, and even the fact that i was collecting the records to have reference for continuing care after a more recent accident threw me over my bars and onto all of the joints that i injured that half decade ago didn't deter me from putting up every possible obstacle between myself and a safe ride.

i made it to 39th and division without incident, and the woman at the richmond neighborhood ohsu family health facility was pleasant and accommodating in assisting me with my request. i didn't put her in the awkward position of having to ask me to take off my sunglasses -- or of having to ask me why i couldn't open my eyes -- because after a self-imposed two hour timeout at home and my half pace, not cautious but worried ride, my eyes had improved to the point of my being able to use them without issue under the fluorescent lights of the health facility's reception area. and by the time i made it downtown to sell my penguin classics editions of in search of lost time and chat with the man who gave me my powell's store credit about the literary theme of not reading proust, my eyes had corrected themselves, which meant a renewal of my interest in a meeting i'd planned for the early evening at the bluffs.

but after sitting in it half naked and unprotected for an hour the sun lost the scintillatingly elusive charm it had had for me when i left dr. ezra's. and good riddance, i was happy to see it start to set, because i wouldn't have tried to ride out to 81st avenue for that artist's reception had the full sun been on top of me again. even as it set, however, i had enough light to get myself out to milepost 5 without thinking too much about the potential hazards of riding on a friday night in the no man's land that is central northeast portland past 60th avenue. i still had light when i rode past the intersection of 74th and glisan, the southern approach to which is where i was hit by that car. that intersection should have been at the front of my mind after having been to get my records, but i hadn't visually recalled the accident until i revisited the scene. i was happy to have had a helmet this time.

i did not, however, have working lights, the danger (but not the illegality) of which i was reminded later by the police officer who nearly pulled off of se 9th avenue on top of me as i was riding, ironically, far from the unmarked intersections of the no man's land, down the bike lane on madison toward the hawthorne bridge, then at least without my ear buds in so that i could hear myself being chastised (and not encourage a ticket). the encounter shook me, so of course i had to get something to drink, not that riding, shaken, without lights and under the influence was any safer than how i'd gotten myself around the rest of the day, but i just needed a moment, had half a six pack in my bag, the night air was pleasant, and there was enough light under the highway overpasses near the base of the bridge for reading the continuation of that bolaño novel that's being serialized in the paris review. the summer 2011 issue includes part two.

that cop had made me feel silly and childish, but the feeling was so keen probably because that's how i saw my entire day in retrospect, typified by my giving the cop the implausible excuse that both my front and rear lights were in my bag, their batteries having simultaneously failed earlier in the evening. (my rear light was actually stolen, but cops get that excuse all the time.) reading under the overpass, i probably looked just as silly as i felt as the jazz festival attendees walked past me on their ways back from the west bank of the river to where their cars were in the lot by where i was sitting. but my magazine was consolation, and not so much for the bolaño novel, of which i only read a few pages, but for the sudden but welcome reminder that if i moved to new york i could actually marry lorin stein.