Cyclists Need to Relax

           

            On the Friday morning of July 15^th, I looked out my window and saw a guy wearing a Canadian flag as a skirt. As he was crossing Dunn Avenue he suddenly turned around and walked across backwards.

With a fully charged bike cam battery I was able to upload the footage I’d shot the day before. I was surprised that I had been able to record my entire ride, from around Palmerston and Bloor to Greenwood and Sammon and then all the way home again. Nick Cushing had told me that a full charge would give me 45 minutes, but I ended up with at least 90. It’s too bad the microphone wasn’t strong enough to pick up my entire conversation with Dennis, but there are snippets.

My hallway neighbour told me that the people the next building over stole our landlord’s ladder and hid it on their roof. He said that he saw it and notified the landlord, who went and got it and then chained it to the fire escape.

            That evening I headed out again and I think I was able to record the whole trip again, at least until I was back in my neighbourhood at the supermarket.

            At Bay and Bloor a cyclist ahead of me got mad at a car that cut him off, so he banged on it as it passed.

            Then at Sherbourne and Bloor a female cyclist that was waiting at the corner for the light to change, with her bike off the sidewalk and out on the road about a third of a meter, as many do, got yelled at by another rider who was making a right turn and found her to be in his way.

            It always surprises me when cyclists aren’t more relaxed.

            I moved on ahead, but the woman came whizzing past me. I put on the speed and passed her before the bridge, then after Broadview she passed me. At around Pape though, she slowed down and was looking tuckered out, but I wasn’t.

            I rode up Donlands to Mortimer, across to Greenwood and then headed south and west to Yonge, south to Queen and west toward home. I stopped at Freshco where I found a whole chicken for less than six dollars.

            As I pulled up at the light at Brock Avenue, a tall guy in his twenties and wearing a bandana like Steve Van Zandt, was talking to himself while gesturing across the street. He said, “At least I’m not Gay!”

            When I was making coffee after dinner, a guy shouted at my O’Hara side window, wanting to know if the guy upstairs was home. I thought he meant David, the guy directly above me. He wanted me to open the door and let him in. I asked what the point of that would be if the guy wasn’t home. He requested that I go upstairs and see if he was in. I went up and knocked, and I heard the noise of perhaps the shower or something. Anyway, he didn’t answer. I noticed that the other third floor apartment, the one rented by the other Ethiopian guy, who I thought had been evicted, had a large not on it that said something like, “Stop harassing me. I know about the hearing. Don’t go in my room.” The guy that had asked me to knock was standing under my Queen Street window by the front door. I told him that he hadn’t answered. He asked if he was home. I said I didn’t know, but that he didn’t come to the door.

            Later, my next apartment neighbour knocked on my door to tell me not to let anyone in. He didn’t have to tell me that.