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October 27, 2005
Too many words 
So, somedays, you can try to lift yourself out of your doldrums, and what do you end up with? Lying soaked in your doldrums.
Yesterday afternoon at work was just a good example. I took lunch late because I was trying to finish up a project. As I left, my cow-orker/officemate reminded me of the staff meeting taking place in 10 minutes. Oh good. So I get a sandwich, take a bite of it, and go up to the meeting.
The beginning was not auspicious, when the boss asked what we were all reading. So everyone goes around, mentioning high brow fiction, and high brow political non-fiction, and I am filled with panic. I have lots of books, and I'm a chapter into most of them. Saying that you're a chapter into Firefox Hacks or Ambient Findability or Web Mapping Illustrated or Geographic Information Systems and Science or the Portland Edge or even 2/3rds through the Art of Urban Cycling—none of these sound high brow or impressive. They just sound like I'm a spazz, which admittedly, I am.
So I decided to take the faux-populist, anti-intellectual George W. tack, as well as the class clown approach: I say I'm reading Alterknits, and the Portland Edge, though I'm having a hard time with the latter because there are so many words. This gets a good laugh out of people.
I do find this stuff rather distressing though. I used to be an avid book reader before my dad died. But afterwards, I still read, just mostly magazines and newspapers. And I've never regained that conspicious consumption of books that I once had. Mind you, I still buy books, and take them out of the library as if I were going through a couple a week. But I'm not even getting through a book a month now.
Sometime this year, someone mentioned the fact that they had all but abandoned books, and then they realized it was an issue of needing reading glasses. Well, reading glasses really help, but since I've been waking up with a headache from my TMJ most mornings, when I forget and look up from my book through the glasses, I get a fresh shock of head pain. It's all very encouraging.
Anyways, I'm still mentally sorting through my panic and emotional response as the meeting goes on, and then I hear that I will probably be getting a partial RIF (reduction in force, not reading is fundamental) in the next two weeks, which is to say, I'll be involuntarily going part-time. Oh. Do you think you could have mentioned that to me privately rather than just announcing it in a unit meeting?
Anyways, I'm the only one who'll be RIFed in the department, and there is a cut and dried reason—the huge concern as to if we get the contract that funds most of my position. And it's probably all for the good, but it still comes as a big shock.
And it turns out that my boss had as much notice as me. Love it, I love it!
...
I've been really working hard to change my approach to cycling and walking, to be more predictable to drivers. For cycling, this includes not riding the wrong way down one way streets, obeying traffic controls, not darting across parking lots or lanesplitting, not riding on the sidewalk. It takes a bit of courage to be on the road, far enough out in the lane to be out of the way of car doors, knowing that while I might be inconveniencing drivers, I'm safer, and downtown, we're all going the same speed anyways.
Sweetie called me yesterday morning to let me know that the community radio station had the bike show on, and the bike show had an urban planner on. So I tune in, and all the callers are talking about how unsafe it is to ride on the road, and that they all ride on the sidewalk. The guests would patiently try to explain the vehicular traffic idea, which went over like a big lead brick.
Then last night, I heard about a pedestrian who was hit a couple blocks from my house. In looking for news about it, I found stories about another pedestrian was hit twice and killed maybe a mile or so away, and a suburban Seattle high school student hit by a school bus. I couldn't find any "official" news about the pedestrian guy or his condition.
And then this morning, I saw that Fritz had posted about bicyclists on a UK university campus: they like to ride on the sidewalks overwhelmingly, and 24% of peds report being hit by bikes (via Cyclelicio.us). How sobering.
Posted at October 27, 2005
Comments
I'm sorry about your job, VJ. I wish you the best of luck.
Posted by: neca at October 27, 2005 11:25 AM
Argh! The main reason cycling on the sidewalk is so much less safe than on the road is predictability: motorists just don't expect something on the sidewalk to be moving as fast as a bike (or Segway, for that matter). They throw a cursory look, see nothing, then continue (through the intersection, out the driveway). In the intervening time, a cyclist could easily occupy that nothing space.
I ride on the sidewalk in two places during my commute. In one, I'm hyper-vigilant because I know I'm in the wrong and doing something unsafe (the alternatives are even more unsafe). The other, outside my locker and the parking garage, I try to be super courteous to the pedestrians.
Posted by: tszuj at October 27, 2005 11:56 AM
Aargh...I'd give you an awesome, steady job in a minute if I had the power to do so... Totally sucks.
I'm with you on the reading thing. My recollection is that I used to read and read and read difficult and ambitious books with absorbed and inexhaustible attention. In the last year fiction and non-fiction have failed to tempt me, and only trash beach novels get my cursory notice. I feel crushingly guilty about this.
As for cycling, I hate riding on the sidewalk. I always feel like a cop is going to pull me over any minute and cite me. I just feel better on the street, acting like a car. Whenever I see cyclists riding against traffic or not obeying traffic laws or not using rear lights at night I just want to sidle up to them and make snarky remarks and hand them some sort of pre-printed "Rules of the Road" card or make a citizen arrest. Heh.
Posted by: Megan at October 27, 2005 1:37 PM
My sidewalk-riding is usually limited to crossings or distances of less than a block, so I get off and walk my bike. It feels like a good-faith gesture toward pedestrians, and I'm trying not to rush so much on my bike anyway. The magic conversion to instant pedestrian is one of the advantages of a bike over a car, in my opinion!
Posted by: Holly at October 27, 2005 4:46 PM
I am so sorry to hear about your job. If it goes through, will it be only temporary? I'll be thinking of you.
Posted by: Liz at October 27, 2005 7:04 PM
Ugh, so sorry about the job thing!
Posted by: Fritz at October 29, 2005 9:10 PM
What a mess about your job; sounds like there are some serious sensitivity issues with the management team, as well! I'm glad that you're finding some positive career counciling.
Like you, I'm all about trying to be conspicuous and predictable to cars while biking, especially now that it's so dark and/or rainy 90% of the time I'm on the bike. I have to second what Megan had to say about those other, thoughtless cyclists; I have the same impulse.
Posted by: Tricia at October 31, 2005 2:37 PM