Two nights of recent subway interference...

...and their consequences:

1) One night after a shift at my one assisted living client's with disabilities, the trains going my way aren't picking up at the stops near me, instead you have to go northbound to the end-of-the-line and *then* head south, which isn't a good idea because of crime there at that time of night.

So, I check out one of those docked rental bikes that they have in cities now, and I enjoy a leisurely bike ride to like 8 or 10 subway stops south, to pick up the train there.

After like half a mile, a (young) (biracial?) girl who's biking without a helmet cuts in to the lane next to me, and she has this great music playing on her big speaker that's attached to the side of her bike bag.

So, when we're stopped at a light, I compliment her on her music and ask her what the last two songs were, and she tells me, and she says that the second song is a deep house cut.

"Speakers are better than headphones," she was like, "You have more conversations that way."

We then talk for the rest of the ride, until we have to split off in different directions at where our road hits a T, and at that point she gives me a pointer about how I can connect up with another major north-south road that will get me to the subway station that I need to get to.

2) For like a week after my shifts at the resthome, the trains going my way aren't picking up at the stop by work and the stop just south of that, so I have to check out one of those docked rental bikes that they have in cities now, and bike to like three stops south to pick up the train there.

One night, I *just* can see a train a ways ahead, and I realize I'm going to miss it at the stop up ahead, so since the night out is so nice, I decide to leisurely bike down another stop, just for the hell of it, so I can enjoy a night ride some before waiting for another train at the different stop one stop up ahead.

Then, after I pass the stop I was originally going to and as I'm going to the next one, I see the train crawling through the section of tracks parallel to me, and suddenly I remember that it does that for a bit due to another section of construction, and I wonder if I can beat it to the next stop, so I bust ass peddling for block after block after block, and though I'm out of breath, I finally dock the bike at a rack at the station and I run into the station and I get to the platform just as the train is pulling in.  I make it!

Like two days later, too, the same thing happens with timing, only now I know that I can beat the train to the next stop, so I bust ass as soon as I see the train a ways ahead, and I get to the next stop with like a couple minutes to spare until the train pulls into the platform.

Racing the subway trains on a bicycle on a quiet city evening...  As a young person, I don't think that I could ever have thought that my life would be like that, one day.