Swoop

I was going to take bridge pictures for you today, my darlings, but I just. didn't. want. to. stop.

Yeah, I remembered the camera. It wasn't raining (for once). I was heading for home and could have. But I couldn't.

There's this thing that happens with a fixed-gear bicycle, you see. What happens is that you never want to stop pedaling. It just feels too good. And with the new bottom bracket, well, if I may quote one of the redheads (the really young, really cute one), "Every pedal stroke is like making sweet, sweet love."

He ain't wrong. Not that I would know, at the moment, what the latter is like, but I can dimly remember. Suffice it to say that every time I reach my front door, I am always, but always, reluctant to get off the bike. No matter how long and hard I've already ridden that day (and it was a long, fast, hard day in crazy Manhattan traffic this afternoon), I just wish I could keep pedaling.

So you see, there is a certain difficulty in taking bridge pictures for you. Have no fear, though, I will continue to carry the pocket cam in the bike bag until I have managed to pull over (kicking and screaming) and take some pics for you. Because, well, it is a neat view - Manhattan spread out below you, the Empire State poking like a fist into the sky, the water surprisingly blue, and the East River factories below, smokestacks and that Save Domino Sugar sign looming up on the left as you slide down the bridge in a blur - bump, bump, swoop, and the rattling chain against your left thigh.

"It's good to be the King," says Mel Brooks on TV just now. And he ain't wrong.