27 August 2004
Mass, and Matt
Ert and I went to Critical Mass tonight—her first time—and she was all atwitter: "This is so much fun! This is the best bike ride ever!" And indeed it was pretty fun! This was an unusually challenging ride; someone thought it might be fun to climb to the top of Russian Hill and bike down the curvy part of Lombard Street. So many squealing bike-brakes! The Lombard Street gardener was alternately watering the flowerbeds and the hot, sweaty cyclists. Whee!
Apparently the New York City Critical Mass was not as fun as ours. According to the New York Time and Newsday, the ride swelled to several times its usual size due to the Republican National Convention, and over 100 riders were arrested. Rumor has it that an SUV plowed into the crowd, running over seven people. Dang, dude. And just the other night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart said, "Hey Republicans: why New York City? Was San Francisco all booked up?"
We split off from our very fun mass around 7:45 and pedalled toward Zeitgeist, where our friends were already gathered. But there was a tremendous line outside (?!), so we went one block further to Ert's apartment. As we were lounging around with glasses of cool water, Allison messaged me from the bar: "boyfriend matt is here"! Ert and I exchanged glances. To Zeitgeist!
Our pretend boyfriend, President of the Board of Supervisors Matt Gonzalez, was hanging out at our favorite biker bar! San Francisco sure rules! As we were waiting in that long, slow line, Matt emerged. "It's our favorite supervisor!" I exclaimed. Matt turned his head in passing and said cheerfully, "Hey!" Aw, he said hey to me. I feel like a very special constituent of District 5.