internal conversations

As I rode to work today, I had several internal conversations going. An assortment of things went wrong before leaving the house, distracting me to the point that I was almost too late to ride (driving is quicker by ten or twenty minutes). As a result, I was not in the best of moods when I got on the bike.

I figured that riding to work would improve my mood--it usually does, even when my mood is already positive. It did, despite the driver that cut me off approaching a traffic light.

One of the internal conversations was yet another review of anti-cyclists' argument that bikes should not be on the roads (I had a brief real conversation on this with a motorist a couple days ago...). The details aren't so important here, but ran to thinking that it's a shame we don't educate motorists better before we allow them the privilege of driving. The few questions on the test now are hardly enough to suggest that driving is a big deal, not a given.

Of course, society largely considers driving an unassailable right, unless one is found guilty of pretty heinous crimes at the wheel (and even then...). It's taken a long time to educate folks that driving while inebriated rises to that level, and will take another long time to convince them that cell-phone use while driving is similarly problematic.

A shorter, but more entertaining, internal conversation regarded a license plate I saw on my way to work. The plate read: 1XY 4XX I can only presume it to mean that the family consisted of the father, the mother and their three daughters, although it could have meant that the man has four wives/girlfriends (I think it was the former rather than the latter). A friend of mine has three daughters, and referred to life in his house as being "full of Estrogen." His daughters have grown and, with maybe one exception, have moved out of the house (I think), but some of the stories he shared...

Anyway, there were a couple of other moments when other road users seemed to conspire to slow me down, adding to my frustration at running behind schedule. It was tight, but I got to work on time (I like to have a few extra minutes before work to shift my mental gears).

As I type this, it's raining. Hard. Gulley-washing hard. I hear thunder. The sky is very dark. The satellite radio is playing Texas Flood, the tune Stevie Ray Vaughn made famous twenty years ago. I'm hoping the coincidence is not an omen.

We need the rain. It will be good to wash the salt off the roads, and dilute it a bit so as to ease its effect on the plant life alongside the roads. I hope it doesn't shut off the electricity...

Edit: Not five minutes after hitting "publish post," the electricity went off for a fraction of a second--long enough to reboot the computer. I also got to see that the roof has a leak under severe weather--something that will be brought to the landlord's attention.