Sometimes I can’t get to Dunkin Donuts for my daily dose of dread. When I go to “work” in the Back Bay, it’s more convenient to go to Au Bon Pain on the way. It’s a little different, but just as good, as for despair. (That’s what the pain in Au Bon Pain is, innit? Bet you thought it was French for “bread,” dincha?)

Dunkin Donuts in Dot, you get that blue collar crowd. Au Bon Pain in Back Bay, you get the white collar perspective. Honestly, in my experience, working class people, when they’re in their element, are more polite on the whole than their cubicle-dwelling white-collar counterparts are in theirs.

I think this has to do partly with the stress of expectations.

Being working class is pretty cut and dry (which is not , by any means, to say easy). But when you have haute bourgeois ambitions, things get complicated. And in the cut-throat world of the cubicle, forget Solidarity: you’re on your own. It’s not just at the top–It’s lonely in the middle, too.

So Au Bon Pain, around ten to nine on a weekday is a war of all against all. For some reason, as I stood waiting for my order, looking around, I caught myself thinking of one of my favorite Bukowski poems, “eyeless through space”:

it’s no longer any good sucker
they’ve turned out the lights
they’ve blocked the rear entrance and
the front’s on fire;
nobody knows your
name;

last is first
lost is everything;
the giant dogs mourn through
dandelion dreams;
the panthers welcome cages;
the onion heart is frosted
destiny is destitute
the horns of reason are muted as
the laughter of fools blockades the air;
the champions are dead and
the newly born are smitten;
the jetliners vomit the eyeless
through space;
it’s no longer any good sucker
it’s been getting to that right
along

Just thought I’d share.

I met an out-of-town friend on Newbury Street for coffee the other day, walking from the BPG to Starbuck’s behind the woman above. She was moving at a pretty good clip for someone loaded down like a pack mule. But you know how high-powered boutique shopping pumps up those adrenaline levels. And the more outrageously useless and overpriced the goodies are, the headier the rush. This chick was possessed. Maybe she had a shot of testosterone, or something. She must have strutted the whole length of Newbury Street showing off her booty (the pun was unfortunately unavoidable, given the circumstances).

Of course, it’s entirely possible there was nothing at all in those bags, and she was either a paid advertisement (however ill-advised) for the shops along Newbury Street, or (a little more likely) a bag lady collecting recyclable plastic water bottles on the sly. You just never know.

She seemed proud, but there was something shabby about her, sad to say. Too many bags, no one to carry them for her. Does she really think that’s something to be proud of?

People have clearly lost their minds. What tiny little minds they had to begin with.

Here’s something. I happened to pick up Metro last week–I think this was Tuesday or Wednesday, and I thought I had an op-ed in it (about Ralph Reed–but the editor was apparently skittish about some of the content–asked me for sources and everything, then never ran it–you can read it HERE, but it’s nothing special)–so on the op-ed page they have this thing called “Today’s Debate!” where they ask your schmoes, shmegeges, shlemiels, and shmendriks on the street what they think about something they’ve obviously never thought about.

Tuesday’s looked like this:

Now, as someone who lives in Dorchester, which is not a world away, by the way, I take umbrage at this willful Allstonian ignorance. Could they possibly have found three whiter, WASPier wankers to ask about urban violence? I’ll tell you what happened here. The reporter was too afraid to go to those “certain neighborhoods” Jennifer (who apparently has no last name–she’s like the Cher of Chelsea) seems to have maybe possibly heard that some of the alleged violence in Boston was “centralized” in.

The WASPiest answer was “You just need to be smart about where you go and what time you go there.” I think they left out the end of the quote, probably something like …to buy your crystal meth and cruise for rough trade.

It’s sad that Boston is so Balkanized people in one neighborhood doubt there really is a problem in the next one over. It’s true, as Jennifer says, that it’s concentrated in certain neighborhoods. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the whole city that suffers when violence erupts. Or that it’s not in our interest to examine what’s really happening (and, yes, it’s as bad as people make it out to be), why, and how we can stop it.

It’s not that far from Dot Ave to the Newbry, you know.

Two or three times a week, when I’m working from home and have nothing in the larder, except the emergency provisions our vigilant governor has urged us all to keep on hand (several liters of bottled water and a variety 12-pack of ramen noodles, some duct tape, and The Book of Mormon), I amble over to the nearest Dunkin Donuts for my Bavarian cream fix. Say what you will, I’m not ashamed. I am a cream queen, and proud of it. I mean, a donut’s eighty-nine cents whether there’s just a hole full of air in the middle (hold it up to your ear and you can hear the wind whistling through it) or a hole filled with pudding. HELL-O. Is this an intelligence test? I’ll take door number two, Monty.

But the great thing about my Dunkin Donuts, roughly at the intersection of Mass Ave and Columbia Road, is that along with your Bavarian Cream and coffee, you get your daily recommended dose of DESPAIR, absolutely free of charge. Jesus God, that place is Desperation Central.

I mean, first of all you’ve got all these people rushing to get to their dead-end jobs. There are little acts of kindness, of course–a big, burly construction worker type (rowr!) held the door open for me this morning, as an entry-level schlub tried to shove his way past me–but even the kindness has the poignant feel of politeness between doomed seamen (oops–there’s that cream again) aboard the Lusitania.

But the real misery is behind the counter. Always new faces, always the same look of doom on them. Doing things is definitely not what they like to do. Nope. The thing that gives me that extra kick on the way to my daily existential crisis is that the despair is always fresh (like the coffee and donuts), and there are so many varieties to choose from.

This morning, for instance, the young woman behind the counter was overly affectless. Overly unresponsive to any attempt at human kindness. She seemed to have a force-field of affectlessness all around her to repel even the most minor acts of compassion one might feel compelled to engage in on her beleaguered behalf.

I want to be clear: I believe–really it is the cornerstone of my “belief system,” if you will–in the sacred autonomy of each individual. This belief has many implications that I won’t get into at the moment. I don’t for a moment think that this young woman’s job at Dunkin Nonuts entails fulfilling some psychic need of customers for some semblance of humanity along with their purchase. This young woman is obviously not present inasmuch as she can not be present while being present, and is likely not paid enough to be fully present. With her aggressive affectlessness she says to her customers: I will use certain of my body parts to fulfill certain simple requests, but I will not use my soul. And a customer has no right to ask it.

She is, of course, working out her own answer to the old mind-body problem. I would say, from my brief interaction with her this morning, that she’s probably your average, garden-variety substance-dualist. It was not mixing well with my physicalistic-monist mood, though. If they had been out of bavarian cream donuts, there could have been an ontological rift into which all of existence would have been spontaneously sucked.

Not to say that existence sucks.

And so another day begins.

I was riding my bike in Back Bay yesterday a little after noon. I was headed down Dartmouth, towards Copley Square when one of those Back Bay slacker-temp type jaywalking schlubs sucking on his jumbo iced coffee, plugged into his ‘Pod, stepped out in front of me without looking first. Boston needs a Rudy Giuliani. But more on that in a minute.

I swerved to avoid him, of course. Since he had not looked in the direction of traffic before crossing, and therefore was not aware I was already right on top of him, I swerved right, behind him. But at the last possible moment he saw me, and, startled, staggered backwards. I had to slam on the brakes, which sent my back wheel up, and me flying over the handlebars.

So there I am on my back in the middle of Dartmouth Street, arms and legs akimbo, my bicycle lying on top of me. I look up at this guy looking down at me. He’s like, “oops, my bad.”

I don’t know which was worse: his stepping cluelessly out in front of me, or his looking down at my mangled form after causing me to crash, and quoting “Clueless” to me.

So that set me off. First of all, people: “my bad” is not an apology. Unless you’re, like, three years old, and you’ve just pooped your pants. But not when you are a thirty-something office temp who has just nearly killed someone through your zombie jaywalking on your way back to your data entry job from Dunkin Donuts with your fifth coolata of the day. No.

You might not have been aware of this: “my bad” actually reached a critical mass yesterday afternoon, but this noxious example of rampant anthimeria has been gaining speed for years. Although there’s some confusion about its origin and etymology, the likeliest culprit is, unlikely as it seems, Manute Bol, the impossibly tall Sudanese NBA player whose native tongue is Dinka. He reportedly used to say it whenever he flubbed a pass. It apparently spread through the college basketball subculture (such as it is), emerging in the print press in ‘89 (first in the St. Louis Dispatch, and then, days later, in USA Today). From there, in the mid-nineties, it made its way into TV (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and movies (Clueless, where it is, coincidentally, used by a character who has just caused a cyclist to crash). By the noughties, it had become the punchline in late night comedians’ monologues, which is where most of corporate America gets what pseudo-original thoughts it has. I’m quite sure that when Mr. Bush is finally indicted for war crimes his mea culpa will come in the form of “my bad, hehehe.”

The expression has layers of nuance, of course. The wiki-site, urbandictionary.com, which lets visitors identify, define, and vote on the most accurate definition of slang terms, offers this consensus definition of “my bad”:

A way of admitting a mistake, and apologizing for that mistake, without actually apologizing:

“I did something bad, and I recognize that I did something bad, but there is nothing that can be done for it now, and there is technically no reason to apologize for that error, so let’s just assume that I won’t do it again, get over it, and move on with our lives.”

Ruder than apologizing, but with the same meaning: a flippant apology.

The number two definition, which also garnered several “amens!”:

(n.) A combination of an apology and a dismissal. Basically, saying “oh yeah, I did that, but I don’t care”.

Persons of an older generation can find this quite annoying to hear when expecting an actual apology.

That definitely sums up how I felt about it, although I do not consider myself a “person of an older generation.” And the pathetic thing is that the schlub who said it was probably my age, too.

So there I am on my back in the middle of Dartmouth Street with this pudding standing there sucking on his iced coffee staring down at me. “Dude, my bad.” I just tore into him. I told him in the future he might want to look the other way–the way traffic is coming–before crossing the street. I mean, I don’t get it. Somebody could’ve been seriously injured here.

He sneers at me, mumbles, “dick,” and schlubs off across the street, leaving me battered, bruised, broken, and in disbelief.

Not really. I was lucky there’s a little hill there, and I was going uphill at the time. If I’d been on the other side, heading downhill, I probably would’ve broken my neck. So I was bruised all up and down my left side, and a little sore afterwards, but not too much worse for wear. And I wasn’t really in disbelief, either, I just like alliteration. The whole thing was all too believable, unfortunately. You’d actually expect it in Boston.

Which is why we need Rudy Giuliani. And not just for the jaywalking, either. Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians all need to seriously shape up. Streets should be color-coded. Cyclists should have dedicated lanes, as should buses and cars. Traffic signals in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic should be modified, with shorter waits for pedestrians, who should be allowed to cross intersections diagonally (which means red lights in all directions for auto and bike traffic when pedestrians have the “go”). Cars, bikes and pedestrians who violate traffic rules should be aggressively pursued, and excessively fined. This will wound Bostonians’ rampant sense of individual exceptionalism and entitlement, but in the end it will make our streets much more livable.

(Speaking of livable streets, there’s a Street Social this afternoon in Cambridge starting at 5:30 sponsored by Livable Streets–click HERE for details.)

There’s room for debate, but I think part of the problem is the suburbanization of the city. And I mean attitudewise. Because a city is not just a place, it’s a distinct state of mind. A set of attitudes and values often at odds with those of the suburbs.

One thing every city has is a double-life. You either get that–and celebrate it in your own life in the city–or you should really just move out to the ‘burbs where you don’t need manners or social skills to get around, just an SUV and a credit card.

For those who would like to set up shop in the city, you should understand the unique spirit of cities. The secret life of cities, if you will. We all know that cities are inconvenient to get around, that they’re full of menacing crowds, multiple barriers on our way from point A to point B. But to those with eyes to see it, these barriers are passages to the secret city.

Not a hidden city, mind you. This second life of the city is an open-secret. And it opens up when you do. And when you grasp that everything and everyone is significant. And that you must strive always to be where you are. Be here, now.

When I enter a subway car I always think, “what if something happens here? What if my last moment on earth is here, in this subway car, with these people?” Because the last moment is The Moment. When the present is finally undeniably present and accounted for. When I walk onto a subway car, it’s like: I am here, now. Funky as it is. Everything that happens her and now is significant. There is no throw-away moment, no throw-away encounter with a fellow traveler, even that one there, groping his way along in the dark from one coolata to the next. My encounter with one of them yesterday could have been the death of me, after all. Careless, disconnected, coolata-fueled. It’s a deadly combination.

This secret life is made up of all the little interactions we have with one another, however careless and seemingly casual. They all play a role in our fate. They’re all significant, without exception. That sounds ominous and scary, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s about connectivity, after all. We are a part of each other’s stories. At the time of their telling. It’s a conversation to which we have to bring a respect of the other, and a genuine curiosity about the nature of this extraordinary organism of which, however different we may be from one another, we are each a vital part.

Not to sound too evolved, but I rarely see hints of awareness of this whole here, though I’m always on the look-out. Seems today we Bostonians are more likely to think of ourselves as impermeable, autonomous units, never mingling our auras gracefully, generously, like fellow travelers, but banging and bashing into each other like bumper cars, on our way to nowhere. We’re “in” our ‘Pods, with our urban armor to protect us. This may be a function of fear: the fear of potential violence so often associated with race, or the fear of affrontery so often seen in highly class-conscious cultures.

When your city is little more than a glorified bumper car course, you’re going to get banged up occasionally. I understand that. If that’s how it is, that’s how it is. But when you bash into me, please, please, whatever you do, just don’t say “oops, my bad,” or I will be forced to bash back.

In the New York Times, HERE [$]. Some comments HERE.

I am always humbled by any response that I get on the blogs. But once in a while one comes that is especially humbling, and this one from a certain “Leon” in response to a recent post, “screamers,” was one of those very special ones, so I wanted to share:

You “don’t want to sound like the Grinch of Upham’s Corner” but you’re going to sit there and bitch about the young kids in your neighborhood? Relax, when you live in the city you have to accept a little noise.

Of all the things I hear outside my window, hearing children play doesn’t bother me too much. If it [sic] the sound of these children playing bothers you so much, why don’t you go knock on their door and talk to the family about it? Or better yet, sell your computer and buy and [sic] AC. That way you wouldn’t have to hear noise from outside and we wouldn’t have to read your terrible blogs anymore.

Douchebag.

I’m not sure if that last bit was Leon’s signature, or was meant for me. I puzzled over it, asked a couple of brainy friends and some very clever colleagues, and we decided Leon probably signs all his correspondence “Douchebag.” It seems a pretty good nickname for him, in fact. In the future I would just recommend “Yours Sincerely, Douchebag.” It’s more professional-sounding.

Some thoughts. First and foremost, I would like to assure my readers, while I have your attention, that no children were harmed in the writing of this blog.

And I would now, for the sake of posterity, like to respectfully address Mr. Douchebag’s comments point by point:

1) “You’re going to sit there and bitch about the young kids in your neighborhood?” Yes. I think this is a rhetorical question, and if so it’s very astute of you to catch that. Good job, Douchebag! Because it’s something a lot of people don’t seem to get about the blogosphere: bloggers “sit there and bitch”. That’s what they do. If, after nearly a decade of blogs you haven’t gotten that bit, just turn off your computer. It’s not making you any smarter.

2) “Relax, when you live in the city you have to accept a little noise.” Thank you, Douchebag—may I call you Douche for short?—for the sage advice, but I was not talking about “a little noise,” I was talking about a BIG, EAR-SPLITTING, BRAIN-PIERCING NOISE.

3) “Of all the things I hear outside my window, hearing children play doesn’t bother me too much.” No, I’m sure you like it very much. It’s a cue to grab your camera with that special telephoto lens to capture their nubile flesh glistening in the golden sunlight as they gambol and frolic about. Thank you so much for sharing, Douchebag! Of course, nowhere in my post did I say that “hearing children play” bothers me too much, either, actually. What I find nerve-jangling, as I believe I said several times, is kids “screaming bloody murder.”

4) “If it [sic] the sound of these children playing bothers you so much, why don’t you go knock on their door and talk to the family about it?” Hey, maybe I should call Child Welfare Services instead! I think the real question here is actually why it bothers you so much that it bothers me so much.

5) “Or better yet, sell your computer and buy and [sic] AC. That way you wouldn’t have to hear noise from outside and we wouldn’t have to read your terrible blogs anymore.” Ooh. Was that a psychotic break I just heard? Who is the “we” you refer to, first of all? Is it the Royal We? Are you a Queen? Should we call you HRH Douchebag, Queen of Dorchester? How many voices are there in your head with you, Leon? Just give us a rough estimate. And are they the ones forcing you to read my “terrible blogs”? Or is it the little green men with the anal probe? Or is it…Satan?

Let’s be serious, though, for a moment, here. Is this a cry for help, Leon? Or just an excuse to vent your unfocused rage at your own loneliness and impotence, your isolation and unhappiness, and using my blog as a forum to advertise your painful limitations, and the young kids in my neighborhood as your human shield? No one could criticize you, after all, for bravely defending innocent, adorable screaming children against an evil blogger who insists on mercilessly bitching about them! The horror.

I mean, it’s not like I even hinted at how such little monsters might be justly dealt with. Can you imagine Douchebag’s reaction if I had gone as far as W.C. Fields when he said, “Madam, there’s no such thing as a tough child— if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.” Or, echoing Jonathan Swift, in “A Modest Proposal”: “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled …” Douchebag would be screaming CANNIBAL! And calling the cops!

But do I honestly think Douchebag is in a flaming tizzy over me sitting here bitching about a screaming child (not just a “playing child” as he disingenuously, distortingly says in his flame) under my window? No, of course not. As pathetic as it might be to sit here bitching about a screaming child below my office window, it is infinitely more pathetic for Douchebag to sit there bitching about me bitching about a screaming child. Whether it is even exponentially more pathetic for me to be sitting here now bitching about him bitching about me bitching about the screaming child—well, it’s a risk I am willing to take to make my point.

Which is that the chief purpose of these self-righteous rants–not mine, silly! Douchebag & Co.’s!–is to prove that somewhere, somehow, however briefly, the ranters themselves exist. No one in their day-to-day, flesh-and-bones life seems to notice them overmuch, which is understandably unsettling for them. So they flame out on the internet, projectile vomiting their curdled, acidy, upchuck existence into the ether, hoping that the splatter will stain, or otherwise somehow leave a trace of them on someone else.

But I suppose it’s also possible Douchie’s addicted to T-Rage! And in case you are struggling with such an addiction, I am here to tell you, Douchebag–because obviously you need to be told–that it is easy to free yourself from The Rage! Simply stop doing things you don’t want to do and then blaming others for your doing them. You know, blogs don’t flame people, people flame people. It’s not my fault you seem unable to stop reading my blog, now, is it? Whose fault is it, Douchebag? I think you know. Own it, babe. You can’t move on without owning it.

I want you to reflect on what you wrote and why. It might help you to understand why you feel you have no control over the things you yourself initiate and do. And then why you lash out at others who have not had anything to do with you or your lonely inner life. I’m here to help, but I can only help you if you will help yourself.

If I can lend you one piece of advice (and it is a bit selfish, I’ll admit): I think a good first step would be for you to not read the blog, Douchebag. Go cold turkey. It will be hard, but I think you need to see that what it is that causes you to act like this is inside you. It’s not the blog, Douchebag, it’s you.

I’ll wrap up with a friendly reminder to all: I am not responsible for your personal limitations, and you are not responsible for mine. If you want to spew yours out, get your own blog. Or get a therapist. I’m all set on both counts.

Thank you, and please read responsibly.

There was recently a story in the New York Times about problems along the Hudson River bike path. Letters to the editor illustrate what I was saying the other day about the three-way war amongst motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists (whew, Boston, you are not alone):

To the Editor:

Re “When the Bike Path Crosses the Drivers’ Path” (news article, June 28):

I commute to work using the Hudson River Park bicycle path. I am well acquainted with the dangers posed by vehicles crossing the path, and although I obey all traffic signals, I have had several close calls myself.

In designing the path, officials apparently tried to have it both ways: to accommodate bicyclists while not inconveniencing drivers.

There are a number of ways that the path could be made far safer for cyclists, but each solution requires a fundamental reordering of priorities.

The safety of cyclists — who, after all, are using the cleanest and most sustainable form of transportation available — would have to come first, while the “needs” of motorists to get where they are going as fast as possible would no longer be pre-eminent.

Elizabeth Oram
New York, June 28, 2006

•

To the Editor:

Bicyclists make their own major contribution to the perils of New York City.

As a dedicated walker in Central Park, I can assure you that it is rare for a cyclist to stop at a crosswalk when the light is red against him. Many whiz through, as if they were competing in the Tour de France, and pedestrians cross at their peril, even people pushing baby strollers.

In contrast, cars in Central Park almost always obey the rules of the road.

Until bicyclists follow the law and decent behavior, they are in a poor position to complain.

Richard H. Levenson
New York, June 28, 2006

•

To the Editor:

The joggers and pedestrians who clog the Hudson River Park bike path, despite their own, much wider designated path just feet away, are arguably more dangerous than the relatively few car crossings.

It is confounding why, despite all the signs saying the bike path is for cyclists and skaters only, strollers and joggers choose to risk life and limb in the bike path.

Parents pushing strollers risk cyclists crashing into their babies. Dogwalkers with 10-foot leashes blithely block both lanes.

Pedestrians in the bike lane are more dangerous to both themselves and cyclists than the relatively few car crossings are to anyone.

How about some enforcement of the existing regulations, Parks Department?

Alan McCutchan
New York, June 29, 2006

What a pleasant surprise.

National holidays. Gotta love ‘em.

I have always had a–let’s call it a “nontraditional” schedule. I’m not interested in working nine to five, in the whole TGIF routine, in going shopping on Saturdays, to mass on Sundays, and so on. I am especially not interested in taking my vacations with hordes of other vacationers. Isn’t the point to “get away”? Or did I miss something? I mean, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go to, say, the Cape this weekend. Half of Boston is there. What are you getting away from? Hmm, well, the other half, I guess.

It could be enough to be able to say, on the fifth, at the water cooler, or whatever: “yeah, I went down to the Cape last weekend.” That way, if nothing else, people know you weren’t forced to tough it out here in Boston with the prolies. I mean, lining up on Storrow Drive to watch the fireworks. How working class is that?

Personally, I’m all for fireworks. In my neighborhood they’ve been shooting them off pretty much nonstop every night for a month already. Every night’s the 4th of July here in Dot! As long as it means you can shoot something off, blow something up, or light something (or someone) on fire! ¡Viva América!

But if you want to know the truth, I never really got into national holidays. They always seem like an accident waiting to happen. I mean, masses of people with nothing to do all day. You got ‘em gathering with no supervision. And we all know that crowds are just mobs that haven’t been incited yet.

And the fourth is not one of those holidays where people are getting or giving gifts, or hunting for eggs or going door to door begging for candy, either. You’re just sitting around eating hotdogs and drinking beer all day. It’s inevitable that by the end of it all people are going to want to blow shit up, just out of sheer boredom.

That’s why the state sponsors all these fireworks. Because, can you imagine if they didn’t?

Still, I’m sorry, but I just don’t like crowds. And I don’t like crowds because I don’t trust crowds. And I don’t trust crowds because you can’t trust crowds. I don’t care how well-intentioned they are. One-on-one a person can’t stampede you to death. In a crowd, they’ll do it gladly.

And we all know it doesn’t take much to spook ‘em. They say two heads are better than one, but that applies mainly to cattle. As stupid as people act when they’re alone, they get exponentially stupider the more you put together. And people love crowds because there’s no accountability in crowds. People in a crowd will stomp you to a bloody pulp and then be like, “what?”

Thing is, I was a latchkey kid, same as every other kid in the neighborhood where I grew up. Every summer in my neighborhood was like The Lord of the Flies. No adults around ten hours a day and when they did come home, after they put out the slop and you all fed at the trough, they were finished with you. We were raised like free-range pigs. We had adult supervision for, like, twenty minutes a day, max. As long as you weren’t missing any limbs at bed-check, they considered that the supreme proof of good-parenting.

That’s where I come from.

But it wasn’t so bad. I think it was better, for me, at least, than if my every move had been micromanaged, like it seems is the case with kids nowadays. Longfellow wrote, “A boy’s will is the wind’s will,/And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” And that sums up those long, adult-free, summer days of my lost youth.

I loved my latchkey summers. I could hold my own with the kid-gangs that ruled the streets, but even at an early age I didn’t care for the flaming hoops and hierarchies that define a social life, regardless of age, color, or class. I built myself a little hobbit hutch amongst the pine trees in the back yard–my own little Walden before I’d ever heard of Henry Thoreau–and that’s where I spent most of my time, digging in the dirt, conducting my thought experiments, contemplating infinity, thinking those long, long thoughts.

So I never liked the big to-do type holidays, where you got loaded up with the rest of the family in the old station wagon, and trundled off to relatives’ or family friends’, seemingly against everyone involded’s will (and certainly against all our better judgment).

And this was especially bad in the summer. There were two criteria for family outings in the summertime: wherever we went had to have an amusement park and a major league baseball team. (These criteria might have been even further refined, but they already spelled a sort of doom and gloom for me, so I didn’t go any further into it than I had to.)

Even when I was a kid, I was never amused by amusement parks. They always seemed an utter waste of time for me. I was pretty capable of amusing myself for the most part, and didn’t see the point of having to stand in long lines in what always seemed to be oppressive heat to do something that was not really all that amusing in the first place.

But then, there’s a certain type of personage, I have gathered—my older brother was one—for whom rollercoasters are especially thrilling. Yes, speed gets the adrenaline pumping, there’s no doubt. But there are apparently people for whom that adrenaline rush is enough. Not for me. From a very early age, I was more demanding of my amusements. I needed catharsis. I never found a rollercoaster that did it for me. Descarte’s Demon at Six Flags over Cincinnati came close. The Cathartic Comet at Busch Gardens St. Louis was on the right track but disappointed on that last loop-dee-loop.

It was enough for my bro, though. He could go back to the same rollercoaster again and again. He’d wait in line forever for that three-minute frig, like an addict in search of his fix. And when it was over, what had changed? Nothing. Hmm. need another fix.

His never-ending enthusiasm was almost infectious. Once I got so infected, in fact, that I threw up on my mother, who, upon drawing the short straw, had been forced to accompany me on one of those girlie rides: the spinning teacups. Oh, goodie.

Personally, I liked the idea of teacups. The ride seemed very refined and civilized, like that Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland, and as such, somehow, potentially cathartic.

But while we sometimes confuse catharsis with throwing up, and vice-versa, I have come to understand, after ample experience with both, that they are not the same thing.

But it was enough for my brother. It’s like people for whom drunkenness is the point of being drunk. The rush was an end in itself. The thrill was the thrill. For me it was always, like, “hmm, thrilling. Is that all there is?” This question would lead down the path to despair, I knew. But there in the abyss, beyond the loop-dee-loop I would find my catharsis as well. While my brother stood in line, scratching his ass, in despair of not knowing he’s in despair. Poor sod.

But I do like hotdogs. I am a food whore. Always have been. Not gonna lie about it, try and pretty it up. Why should I? And we’re talking anything from bratwurst to beluga here. It’s all good.

I guess there’s no reason the fourth can’t be a few choice friends, good food, and fireworks. Still don’t know if I’m willing to brave the crowds down at the hatch shell, though.

I’m turning into one of those snooty cyclists. It doesn’t take long. The thing about cycling is it gives you a sort of bird’s-eye view. I might even call it “the cosmic view.” Your field of vision is longer, I guess you’d say, because you’re traveling faster than if you were walking. the pedestrian’s field of vision is reduced to next to nothing–they’re mostly shuffling along, oblivious, looking at their feet. Drivers have the opposite problem–they’re looking so far ahead that they don’t see their immediate surroundings, either.

If you cycle in the city day after day, you notice some things–I mean, you see them time and again. The first thing that blows me away on a daily basis–about motorist and pedestrians (and cyclists, too, I’m sure, although I don’t encounter as many of them)–is that they either don’t look at all when crossing the street, or they first look the wrong way, and then, once they are out in the middle of the street they glance, sort of casual-like, over their shoulder in the direction of traffic. And the fact that jaywalking is endemic to Boston doesn’t help matters.

I’m not sure what, if anything, you can learn about a region, or a city, or neighborhood, from the way people cross the street. In Italian cities, where sidewalks are narrow, but woman are not, there is no question who makes way for whom. When I lived in Budapest I noticed that folks would seek out eye contact when crossing from opposite sides of the street (always using the crosswalks, mind you, and usually waiting for the light). If you made eye contact with them they would come directly at you, in a game of crosswalk chicken. It took me probably two years to learn to cross the street without incident in Budapest. The secret was to NOT make eye contact–even passively–but to barrel across the street head-first in a bee line without regard to any obstacles that might be in your way. And you would not encounter any.

It’s a little different in Boston. People aren’t really spoiling for a fight, like in Budapest. But there’s definitely a “make way for ducklings” mentality here. But it’s motivated by what seems to be an earnest belief held by all in their own unique and special superiority over everyone else. It’s no secret the entitlement thing is off the hook in our beloved city. And it has the effect of always forcing others to accommodate you. Everybody does it to everybody else, so it would seem to cancel out–I mean, every unique and special person is equally inconvenienced by every other unique and special person, so this “make way for me!” mentality doesn’t seem to make a real difference, except in accumulated frustrations. And Bostonians are legendary for their tantrums, too. But then that’s part and parcel of acting like four year olds, I guess.

And I must say I’m really always impressed by the blind faith pedestrians have that motorists will actually see them before they see the motorists. It doesn’t seem like jaywalking in this town is a calculated risk–it really does seem like a pure act of faith.

Of course, cyclists get no respect whatsoever from either side, which is why they so often turn into monsters–and badly-dressed monsters to boot. I’m not gonna get into the whole bike messenger meme–there’s some kind of goth connection, with the dyed hair and piercings, that I don’t understand, and don’t know if I care to. There was a piece about bike messengers in the Glob a couple of weeks ago–there always is in the Spring. It’s an old stand-by. Like there will be a feature about homeless people in the dead of winter. Local color.

I think pedestrians see a cyclist and think, “well, if he hits me it’ll be at least as bad for him as it is for me.” So they give you this kind of ho-hum look, when they do look, like, “yeah? And?”

Motorists in this town are among the worst in the nation, as for both skill and temperament. Driving is such a passive activity–it really is two steps back, evolutionarily speaking–that you find basically the same behavior amongst certain drivers that you’ll find in your typical armchair quarterback. They howl and scream and grumble just like when they’re watching a game on TV. And just like when they’re watching a game on TV they always know better than everyone else–they could always have done better than anyone else. This is the kind of personality the overwhelming passivity of modern life has produced. People who essentially do nothing all day and feel they are absolutely omnipotent. But whatever.

This is another reason cyclists get this sort of holier-than-thou martyr complex thing going. Because they are actually actively doing something–sounds totally anachronistic, doesn’t it? So they’re actually doing something, and yet they’re totally at the mercy of the vehicular zombies they’re forced to share the road with, who hardly have to move a muscle in order to mow them down. Just doesn’t seem right. Doesn’t seem fair.

Or maybe I’m being too harsh on motorists. They’re actually pretty skilled at multitasking. People who are so relentlessly passive get bored easily. So when they’re watching the boob tube or driving around in their big-ass SUVs they’re also stuffing their faces nonstop full of crap or yakking mindlessly into their cell phones. People who do nothing but eat, drive around, and watch TV all day keeping their loved ones abreast of the very latest eating-, driving-around-, and TV-watching-action via satellite.

So cyclists think to themselves, “here I am, actually doing something, and burning calories, not petrol, and I get no respect!” Understandably they start acting out, swerving artfully through traffic, running lights, scaring pedestrians. But they’ll never be a match for a soccer mom in a monster Escalade.

Sad.

Speaking of sad. I rode my awful little loaner bike to the South Bay Shopping Center yesterday morning. There’s a sort of back entrance to the shopping center, and as I rounded the bend, I saw that this huge party had a permanent encampment in these big bushes there. One was standing out in the middle of the street with a railroad tie he’d managed to rustle up. They were building some sort of shanty in the bushes. Later, on my way back, I saw smoke issuing from the interior.

There is such a huge disconnect between what we see in the media, and reality. The news is a highly stylized exercise, an utterly idealized daily recitation of an increasingly narrow set of norms that increasingly have no relation to actual norms, nor does the news report actual happenings so much as expectations. Look at these freaks on TV who read the news. Look at these pod people who appear on their shows. Is this who we are, or what we want to be?

They’re talking about “Nature Deficit Disorder” on The Today Show right now. Something people just used to do–catching fire-flies in a jar–you need a life coach to instruct you in now. That’s one side of the coin. The other is a dozen grown men, immigrants from God knows where, living in the bushes down the street. I mean, talk about disconnect. We’ve got Reality Deficit Disorder.