Spare Me the Suspense

I had been wondering what to do about my bag. After all, it was my first attempt, and as endearing as quirkiness may be, there were definitely flaws to be corrected in the design and execution. Still, I thought it might be a waste to basically chuck a perfectly functional bag, especially one that held such specific significance for me.

Luckily, someone else made the decision for me.

I was at the Starbucks on Union Square East and had to use the restroom. Like you do, I took off my bag. And left it.

Five minutes later, it was gone. Luckily, this time, I didn’t lose much. $19 and my camera, I think. Unfortunately, my wallet was also in there with my credit cards and driver’s license. I instantly called and canceled the cards (thanks, future!), but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be a bitch to get all that taken care of.

Also, fuck you. Sometimes, the best way to end a sentence is with a preposition.

Drive Faster

I saw something today that I do not believe I will ever see again.  Riding up 1st Avenue between 77th and 79th Streets, there were, in a row, a USPS truck, a UPS truck, and a regular delivery box truck all double parked, as per usual… but not blocking the bike lane.  As if this were not borderline impossible enough, the driver of the delivery truck did something that I had come to regard as beyond their capability: he saw me in his mirror and waited for me to pass so that he didn’t door me.

I almost crashed from shock.

Past that, I was once again only almost killed once by an idiot, although I’m not sure it was an actual idiocy or ignorance.  It was, after all, a little kid who apparently hadn’t learned to look both ways before he tried to skateboard across the street.  So really, I probably wasn’t almost killed as much as I probably almost killed someone.  On the plus side, I caused him to get yelled at by his mom, and I’m enough of a bastard for that to be funny to me.

So, guess what: this really does have a point.  The reason for my ride was to test how good the bag I made was for actual riding.

I made a bag.  I made something.  Unbelievable.

The bag itself is a bit more ambitious than I probably should have done since I hadn’t sewn anything since I made an apron out of purple fabric with a shark print on it in whatever it was they called Home Ec in sixth grade.  (I can make a run-on sentence make sense!)  Just so we’re clear, my construction now is right in line with my construction then.  Which is not a good thing.

Nevertheless, the bag worked well.  It’s not perfect; the strap is too long even at its shortest setting, which has the practical effect of making the bag sit at exactly the wrong spot on my back, both too high and too low.  Consequently, my back was hurting when I got home.  Even still, the fact that I made something is crazy.

The most important thing I learned?  Sewing is awesome.

What’s to Break

I took today to do a lot of chores (well, errands, more accurately) that had been piling up.  Going to the post office, making a few phone calls, that sort of thing.

No one cares about any of that.

Chief among those errands, however, was getting my totally sweet bicycle back in working order.

Back in October, I put new brakes on my bike.  They were, and continue to be, totally awesome.  Unfortunately, the drop on the rear brake was less than would have been preferred, and the rear brake pads rubbed the tire and sooner rather than later, you know, ruined it.  Like you would expect.

Given the particular frequency with which I had misadventures with this bike, I was very frustrated.  So this is the part where we cue up six months of me not only not riding it, but really ceasing to view it as anything other than an object in my living room.  Sure, I ordered new tires, but I didn’t put them on, and I didn’t get new tubes or get the brake situation resolved.  The weather was cold, I couldn’t ride my bike to work for lack of a place to store it, and anyway, I was getting a free MetroCard.  So the bike sat.

One of the advantages of my losing my job is that I’ve eventually come back around to my desire to make things.  The messenger bag that I designed and am in the process of building is one of the results of that inspiration.  You could say that getting my bike working again is the direct result of the bag situation; after all, what’s the point of designing a bag meant for riding if you’re never going to ride with it?  Add the fact that I don’t have access to a free MetroCard any more and it begins to make a little more sense, I think.

So: last week, I went and picked up new tubes for my tires.  I don’t own the tool necessary to remove bike tires, nor have I ever done it before.  You would think that I would have taken those two things as clues.  You would be wrong.

I went to a friend’s house and borrowed his tools to replace my tires and tubes.  My inexperience screwed me, however: I hooked one of the new tubes with the tool and ended up with a bike that was totally unrideable.  More so, even.

So that was the biggest thing I did today: get my bike in working condition.  I took it to a bike shop and had a professional replace the tube I destroyed.  I then went and got the new brake pads that my friend/enabler so graciously custom-filed for me.  I helped him install them and rode home.

Now, not having ridden in six months, one couldn’t have blamed me, I don’t think, for begging off riding the entire 10 miles and change, but to my eternal credit, I didn’t. On top of that, my brakes performed beautifully and I was only nearly killed by an idiot once.

I am excited to have my bicycle back.  I just hope it’s not bitter about being essentially ignored for six months.

Wait… now that I think about it, no one cared about all that either.

If You Can Hold On, Hold On

Last fall, I got a new messenger bag.  It was designed by a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and I got it even though I didn’t really need it.  I just liked the way it looked.

However, when I got the bag, I came to realize that it had several shortcomings.  It was a fairly cheap bag from Barnes & Noble, so obviously it wasn’t going to be, say, a Chrome or a Timbuk2.  Even still, this bag gave me inspiration to think about what I actually wanted from it.

As has been repeatedly documented, I ride my bike a lot.  Not always with success.  Shut up.  That makes a good bag more important to me, and having a bag that is less than good has forced me to make do with what I have.  So far, my workarounds have been good enough, but I want more.  So, I designed a bag.

I didn’t do much work on it over the winter.  Turns out, when I’m working, I want to spend my days off doing not a whole hell of a lot.  However, since I stopped working, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.  The first few days I had free, I played a lot of video games; I beat The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy.  Yes, I spent a lot of time playing with my Wii.

When I got done with the games, I decided to clean the house.  It had been a bit of a mess.  Now, it is less so.

Then, I was out of things to do.  Until I remembered my bag project and started working on it again.  Within a few days, I had a new pattern drawn up.  I’ve also been working on artwork for the flap.  I’ve ordered the supplies and they are en route.  It’s really about to happen.

I’m going to make something.  It freaks me out a little bit.