it's okay to run a few seconds behind schedule, statist

😆😆

It's bicycling season again and I took my baby out to the grocery store today.

There's something to be said for walking to the store too. During the winter and the colder parts of spring, that's what I do. You can zone out and listen to music and have a trippy time with yourself.

Biking is more like going to war. Horns are honking, filthy exhaust is blowing in your face, and tons upon tons of steel are sliding by you on the regular.

It's great in its own right, but it's more like war. (Because of the cars and the way they make the roads, not because of anything inherent to biking.)

A pet peeve of mine is when you're on a steep downhill and you're cruising. And the road is narrow without much of any shoulder -- so even tho there's no shoulder, it doesn't matter too much, because you're going fast, and these roads tend to quickly wind into a wider, better road. So even as a cyclist you aren't much of a hindrance, because you don't actually need to be passed. And still the dumbdumb feels the need to pass you at any brief opportunity.

Ya, I'm sure you're looking, I'm sure you think you're 100% to do it successfully, and I'm sure up until this point it's worked out like that. But it's not 100%.

There's no reason to try to pass them just for the sake of shaving like 15 seconds off of your commute.

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Basically, not all situations of being behind a bike are created equal. If there's little or no shoulder and they're going very fast and you're about to cross into a main road anyways, it may not make much sense to pass the bike. If there's plenty of space, probably a perfect time to pass. And all the shades of grey in between.

You almost always will decide you should pass, yes. Cars usually pass bikes. But you should start with the question of whether it actually makes sense to, and go from there. Rather than vice versa where you assume you're just supposed to, as quickly as you can get it over with.

It's better to wait until you can do it as safely as possible, rather than have the goal of your commute time being as short as possible.

Not all motorists are bad and I appreciate the ones who genuinely look out. So that's why I call these people statists and not motorists 😛

If we really need to have cars, I'd love it if a part of getting your car license was that you had to prove competency as a cyclist and testify to having spent at least 6 months commuting that way.

statists

They probably don't even have anywhere to be, they just feel vaguely rushed and hurried at all that they do.

They have to hurry home to their television set to eat pot roast (a perfect encore to buzzing around in their SUV spraying shit into the air and risking my life and limb).

And then they learn about climate change and how the only possible solution could be overarching treaties and a few people collecting money every time we use something. (The problem couldn't possibly be their car and their pot roast.) That's what they had to rush home for.

picture of plants to end it calmly

Unwittingly, I got back just before a flurry of heavy rain and lightning. I pulled the plants in as I noticed them toppling over and blowing around.

I have mixed feelings tho, I feel like they kind of wanted to be out there.

I mean I guess ideally they want to be in the ground. And if they're gonna be in the little pot then maybe it's a human judgment call. Maybe they don't wanna blow around in the pot, I dunno.