Adjust Your Speed

When I am walking or biking around, I feel like I’m in one of two modes. The first I might call “Tra-la-la” and the second is Ragey.

This morning, lucky for me and everyone around me, I was in my more typical Tra-la-la mode. This mode involves me singing, out loud, extremely random songs. I actually find it very difficult not to sing when I am biking. It’s a lot of Noah Kahan, Indigo Girls, Taylor Swift, and Chappell Roan. If it’s a particularly beautiful day, it’s the hymn “Hail thee, festival day!” If I’m in a rush, it might be “Come On, Let’s Go” by Ritchie Valens. If I’m gathering up a lot of stuff to head out, it’s “Jeannie’s Packing Up” from Brigadoon. Which is not even a good song. If I pass a big rock, I’m singing “The Rock” by Etta James. Which is a fantastic song. I know endless showtunes. The other day I was singing “Gary, Indiana” from The Music Man (maybe someone mentioned Indiana…?), this morning I was singing a song from the Tom Sawyer musical I was in in 6th grade (I think because my internal monologue included, “I tried,” which is similar to the start of Aunt Polly’s big number). “Young and Healthy” from 42nd Street is a frequent go-to, and Hairspray, Barnum, Oliver!, Fiddler on the Roof, and Hamilton are all represented on my bike rides. To be clear, when I am walking, you likely won’t hear me singing. I’m probably listening to an audiobook.

When in Tra-la-la mode, when I am not literally tra-la-la-ing or listening to an audiobook, it’s likely that I’ve stopped to take a picture of something. This morning, for example, I saw three different wildflowers that are actually native plants. Which I only knew because I had to stop and look them up on Picture This immediately.

My curiosity is not confined to plants, either. If there’s a house in my neighborhood on the market, you best believe that this nosy parker will be checking online for the interior images. From this morning, I was brutally disappointed that the adorable little brick Tudor only graced us with a single curb exterior shot online. I can see that already. And it’s pending, so now I won’t get to see inside unless I stalk and befriend the owners. Oh, well.

So, typically, when I am exploring the neighborhoods, I am in cheerful Disney Princess mode, greeting the bunnies and the squirrels, smiling to passers-by, and complimenting the dogs (unless a dog is acting stupid as I’m biking by, in which case my internal jukebox drops a single from Annie within my brain). I’m tra-la-la-ing roughly 90 to 95 percent of the time.

Except when someone’s speeding. The other morning, an incredibly fast car sped and passed by another car that was also breaking the speed limit along Grand Boulevard. The kind of speeding where you can hear them roaring up the street before you see them coming. And they passed on our one-lane road right by where we have a bunch of orange cones, barrels, and caution signs stacked up on the grass, useless, in the middle of the still-uncompleted boulevard “improvements” which look like the won’t be completed before kids start walking to school. Rage Katie ran halfway across the median, put up two middle fingers, and yelled at them. It was the same sort of out-of-body experience as that time I pulled my calf chastising someone about passing the school bus. And then I went home and rage-Facebooked about it. In fact, on that same walk, someone completely ignored a stop sign and I might have yelled at her, too.

But here’s the entirely insane thing about me. I get extremely annoyed when people go too slowly for me, as well. First, especially when I am walking, I do not like it when cars want to wait for me. I do my best to smile, make eye contact, and do that little “go ahead” waving motion with my hands. This often works. When it doesn’t, I get extremely annoyed and distressed about it. I honestly think that this due to my adolescent trauma, in which a group of boys in high school pointedly harassed me and even invented a nickname for me based on my walk. I probably need to, like, clear my chakras or consult a therapist so that I don’t respond with Rage when I feel like I’m walking on display.

It is a little better on a bike, because the walking-trauma thing isn’t triggered, so I typically just go. But one thing that happens, these days, is that sometimes Cute W and I will be biking together, and he is more aggressive than I am, so there are times when he’ll sail through a yellow light or speed quickly before vehicles have a chance to approach, and I don’t want to do that, so I stop and wait. But then, we are clearly together, because we were just near each other and we’re both on e-bikes with our matching panniers wearing helmets and sometimes visibility vests, so multiple people around us stop so that I can go. But what’s rough is that, usually not everyone stops, and I am still intimidated, and I would really just rather wait until I feel safe and like it’s a good time for me to go. But the people who have stopped are now watching me and waiting for me, and Cute W, almost every time, is just still zooming forward, entirely unaware. And so sometimes the people are looking between me, stopped, and Cute W, zooming forward in what appears to be an Alpine Divorce On Wheels (yes it is actually a thing). And so I have to go. Which I do not like.

And while the scariest/most-likely-to-harm-me drivers are the ones who resent bikes being on the road and so will practically sideswipe cyclists or the oblivious people who are parallel parked and likely to open their doors without noticing you, the super-duper-extremely-cautious drivers annoy me the most. Recently I was coming home from the JCC along Dean Street, approaching Nott Street with the plan that I would cross. But I arrived at a stalemate. A car that was on Nott and heading east toward Niskayuna had stopped because they needed to make a left turn onto Dean, but a car was approaching from the opposite direction, and they wanted to take a right onto Dean, but instead of actually turning onto Dean, they had come to a complete stop. There was also a person standing on the corner, and it was unclear if he wanted to move or not. He actually looked like he might be trying to look busy and disinclined to move so that the cars would ignore him and go about their business. Which I totally get, buddy. I stopped, took my feet off the pedals and landed them on the pavement, and paused. Still no movement. I said to the pedestrian, “Is anyone going to move?” and he laughed and shrugged. Another pause. I turned to the pedestrian again, “It’s like they think we’re going to throw ourselves in front of the car!” And again he laughed and agreed, “Really!” At which point I just turned and went in a different direction because I just do not have the patience. As far as I know, they might all still be there.

Basically, I just want people to pay attention. Is that so much to ask? When it comes to driving a car, I am much more patient than some people I know (ahem! Cute W!), mostly because I consider myself to be a not-particularly-skilled driver, so I will not cast stones at anyone’s windshields. And I try to be very aware of bikers and pedestrians, obviously. They are my people. But: look alive, y’all! I can’t put my life on hold for you. The other day I was in the Mohawk Commons shopping center, and after dropping off a return at Ulta, I was approaching PetSmart, and so were a mother, a daughter, and a small, cute, dog. So I slowed down, because it looked like they were going to cross. But as I rolled towards a stop at the pedestrian crossing, the mother abruptly stopped walking and started to chatting to her daughter, and no one looked at me. So I figured they weren’t going. Maybe the dog needed to pee, or they had to get something from the car, but in any case, even if they started walking now, I’d pass them before they got to my side of the street. Plus, random strangers don’t know this, but I really hate it when people insist that I should walk in front of them, so I never want to do that to others. So I started up again but was still going slowly enough that I heard, through my open window, “See? I told you they weren’t going to stop!” and of course, being me, I yelled out the window, “I was going to stop, but you weren’t moving anymore and you didn’t look at me!” at which point the daughter started laughing that her mother had been “caught” complaining about me.

So. If you see me around the neighborhood, please take care not to go too fast or too slow. Unless you are a flower or a bunny, in which case, I’ll happily stop, take a picture of you, and maybe even serenade you.