Foot Traffic

As anyone who uses a bike as a form of transportation knows, biking about town can be somewhat hazardous. Although I have been remarkably lucky, for the most part, in my traffic encounters, today I had a near miss that got my heart going.

Normally, when biking, the thing to be worried about is cars. Which is why today's close call was so startling. I very nearly got into a wreck, not with another vehicle, but with a pedestrian.

It happened on my way to work, which is mostly just a swift coast down a long gradual hill. There were no cars around and I (on my glorious Fuji) was a little bit late, so riding a little bit fast.

Into this scene via the left side of the street, (no intersection or cross-walk to give her the right-of-way) a girl stepped. This girl glanced left and right, and then lowered her head and began to walk. She continued to walk, seemingly oblivious to me, right across the yellow line and into the lane down which I was barreling at a formidable pace.

I would like to say I reacted with a comment along the lines of, "Excuse me, miss, but if you and I both continue on our current trajectories, we are going to collide in a most painful fashion. As you will note, I have a great deal of built up momentum and slick tires. There is no possible way for me to stop. So, if you could, please, let me pass before you go further."

Sadly, in the heat of the moment my thoughts didn't form quite so eloquently. Instead, I said, "Woh," loudly, several times, while slamming on my brakes and beginning to skid on my rear tire.

Luckily, my exclamations had the desired effect. She stopped walking, and I barely, barely, barely missed her. I believe I then uttered the word, "Jesus," at a rather loud volume, and rode on.

She said nothing. She made no apology or excuse for nearly sending me into a scratched up heap of stinging skin and spinning wheels. Her expression didn't even change. This made me want to go back and run her over just to be mean.

But I didn't. I went to work.

The Best $1.99 I Ever Spent

Yesterday, I went to Menard's. I had grand designs and plans. I, in my ongoing mission to make the basement into an inhabitable art-making space, wanted to block the view from my desk to the mess of pipes and ducts and things that make up our central heating unit. My thoughts for accomplishing this were along the lines of an elegant wood and rice-paper screen. Like this one:


The problem with screens like this one is that they cost a lot of money. Being poor, I can't afford to buy one. So, I thought to myself, hey, I use a power drill at work every day. A third of my job involves making four straight sticks of wood into one quadrilateral piece of wood. The rest involves placing something inside that quadrilateral space. I can handle this, thought I. I'll make my own rice-paper and wood room divider!

So, off to Menard's I went. After spending well nigh an hour wandering about, staring at different possible materials for the task, scribbling furtively on a notepad and adding things up on my cell phone's calculator, I realized that even making my own screen would be pricey. And, the final result would not be classy. I don't have any tools for finishing wood, so it would be raw and ugly. More importantly though, all the thin pieces of wood in all of Menard's are not straight. Not even remotely straight. Apparently thin pieces of wood in Menard's are meant to be nailed to thick, straight pieces of wood, and therein become straight themselves. As a support for a screen, nothing I saw before me would work.

Deflated, I left. What was I to do? Resign myself to staring at ugly pipes while trying to attain a state of artistic enlightenment? This hardly seemed fair, but there it was. I began to dismally steer my car out of the parking lot to go home, but then I thought, what about Target? Perhaps Target was having a rice-paper and wood room divider sale, right at that very moment.

Part of me wasn't inclined to continue the search. Have I mentioned that spending time in malls and other such retail havens is a fine-tuned form of hell for me? Well, it is. I hate consumerism, and the way people buy things they don't need. I hate that's it's actually cheaper for me to purchase something someone made in China than to make the same thing myself. But I do dislike looking at that central heating unit, so I rallied on. Already in a state of discomfort by the time I arrived at Target, the scene there (they are already selling Christmas things. Christmas!) did nothing to ease my suffering. I wandered more and more listlessly. Unable to find any screens, I found myself in the household goods sections, where I came across shower heads.

Our shower head has been dying slowly since we moved into our house. It dribbles out the sides and issues one thick, overwhelming gush of water from the center that always hits me right in the eye, all the time, no matter what. I have long disliked our shower head, but until recently never thought about getting a new one. When I looked at the shower heads in Target, I was a bit disappointed. They ranged from between $15-$50, and I didn't see a way to tell by looking whether or not they would work in our shower.

Then, I saw something. At first, I thought it must be a mistake. But I looked closer and saw the smallest, simplest shower-head among them sported a price-tag of only $1.99. By golly, thought I. Even I can afford $1.99. I seized one up, slightly rejuvenated, and continued on my way.

From there I proceeded to the curtain section, where I had the vast and staggering epiphany that a curtain would work just as well (perhaps better) than a screen to block out an ugly view, and cost a fraction of the money/time to buy/make.

Finally set on a definite course, I (painstakingly) made my selections and hurried on home. I hung the curtain with a pleasing result.




But the real triumph of the day is the shower head. It's amazing. First, it sprays water evenly over my entire body. Second, it uses less water, but manages to seem like it's using just the same amount as before. I love it. It makes me want to shower more than I usually do. I plan to continue loving it for as long as we live in this house. And for the life of me, I can't think of a single thing I purchased for so little which will give me such repetitive and long-lasting enjoyment.

Essays

I "wrote" two essays lately for my non-fiction class. You can view them below.

The first assignment was, basically, write a photo essay (our assignments are rather vague sometimes). They were sort of supposed to be auto-biographical.

Next, we had to do something having to do with (maybe) scrap-booking, and/or found objects. I ended up using both.

Gallery Opening

Once again, the Hudson River Gallery shall throw open its doors to various and sundry art lovers. This time, the featured artist is Nancy Purington. The work is mixed media. A lot of it is inspired by water.

The opening is from 6 - 8 pm. Afterwards, anyone wishing to continue festivities is welcome to retire back to our humble abode.

Directions to the gallery can be found here. More on the artist can be found here.

For those of you curious about the downstairs portion of the Mansion, you can find a little bit on that here.

On the Fly

Today whilst dashing around at work (we've been busy busy lately), I suddenly felt a somewhat alarming sensation. There was a small popping feeling in the region of my waist-line, and then my pants felt looser. After that, I felt something round and hard slide down my leg.

I was wearing a pair of airy linen pants I've grown somewhat fond of lately. They are comfortable, but admittedly on the large side. They have a slight tendency to sag. When I realized that the button had just popped off (the threads had been working their way loose for a long time, I just hadn't gotten around to adding some newer, sturdier stitches), I wasn't quite sure what to do. I cautiously bent down, retrieved my button from the floor and slipped it in my pocket, no one the wiser. But I had a problem. My pants were not likely to stay on long without a button, and Nick was about to leave for Utah. Thus, the gallery was going to be in my hands alone for the rest of the day.

Luckily, I'd been patching a canvas so was wearing my apron, which covered any unsightly gapage for a while, but after Nick left, the sun began to shine more brightly into my room, and the air heated up. It was uncomfortably warm, not to mention the apron would do little to help in the actual moment of a pants-losing crisis.

So, there was nothing for it. I had to make repairs. Fortunately, among the many sundry tools kept on hand at my job, there is a needle and thread. I took these out of their drawer, threaded the needle and looked around suspiciously.

Now, the hard part. The problem with my workroom is that you cannot ever tell when someone is going to appear in the doorway. Also, since I was in charge of the gallery and answering the phone, I had to stay where potential customers could find me. I had to be ready to help choose a frame or pick out a piece of art the moment someone should need me. Like I said, work's been busy lately. It was likely I had very little time to act.

If you've never sewn a button onto pants you're actually wearing, I would recommend steering clear of the experience. It's tricky, and engenders all sorts of hazards, particularly if you are in a hurry.

Happily, you'll all be glad to know that I replaced the button, unscathed, before any customers arrived. I can't help but feel it was a close call, though. I only narrowly escaped ridicule of the kind usually only known in dreams. From now on, when I notice a loose button, I will respond a bit more proactively.