Cycling home along the
off-Broadway bike route, I notice out of the corner of my eye something unusual beneath the
Granville Bridge offramp, on the south-east corner at the intersection of
Fir and
7th. There, at the new site of the
Dianne Farris Gallery, is a vertical grated
air duct for the building at ground level. It is
blowing air in an upward direction, which is not so terribly unusual. What
is, is that a big old orangey-red leaf from some nearby
autumnal oak tree has drifted over and become caught in its perpetual
updraft, dekeing and twisting but always remaining a roughly-constant four or five feet up in the air, always
falling...
never landing.
I like to believe that until the moment it touches the ground, we will be spared the worst of winter's ravages.
A half-hour later, furiously pedalling ever-eastward, near Windsor and Kingsway I pass a rice burner with its brake lights on, playing minimalist and repetitive music audible, as its engine must be, from over a block away. Not really my cup of tea, that dance music. Making my way in the liminal transportation area known as the parking lane, I pay particular attention to lit vehicles adjacent so as to avoid pull-out collisions or - worse - getting "door"ed. But curious, no such risk here - the car is running, lights and music on, no occupants.
I am never satisfied to merely observe the world around me, but instinctively and habitually construct hypothetical scenarios leading to the atypical but mundane anomalies I witness so my experiences can be interpreted as meaningful to me. (This helps to dissuade me of the notion that everything I experience is contrived for my sole benefit.) What I reflexively arrive at here between pedal-pushes is that the vehicle's occupants, unaware as to the generally-heinous nature of the music they were slipping into its tape deck, were forced to pull over and abandon the vehicle until the tape ran out and it was once again sonically safe to approach and enter. (Damn, I'm a music snob.)
One more. It's short. Within minutes I'm at Kingsway and Victoria, waiting for the light to change so I can coast the last few blocks home and change out of these wet socks. Not everyone is so patient.
Certain hookers have been known to stop traffic, and it's understood that prostitution can be quite a dangerous profession, but in the company of their pimp they are apparently invincible. A scuzzball and a pride of loins, bearing steaming gobfuls of KFC poutine, of all things (perhaps appropriate) strut out into oncoming traffic. Brakes are slammed on, vehicles honk. Perhaps after you've looked HIV in the eye, SUVs don't faze you - what you can't see far more frightening than what you can.
I wait the 45 seconds for the light to change, and follow in my own way, rolling on back to the homestead to contemplate how long it's been since last I wrote a daylog.
in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...