Stop Complaining.

     Sometimes getting out of bed in the morning is damn near impossible. There is just nothing to look forward to anymore. Was there ever? Waking up and moving to shut off the alarm clock, then downstairs to the fridge for insulin without hesitation. The sun is up. I can see it from my window. At least it's not raining. On the radio, someone is screaming about bikes in the city of Boston. They are apparently a menace to her car. She fails to explain the physics of her equation. I pour my cereal into a bowl. Measured out carefully and precisely. Two servings. Cut up a piece of fruit and dump it in, along with two servings of almond milk, same size as the cereal servings. I take more insulin, the needle sliding painlessly in and out. It's the psychological thing of sticking yourself with that needle that gets you. Every time. Eat the breakfast. Listen to the radio. Smoke a cigarette. Then back upstairs and dressed for work. 

     Downstairs and check my bag. Manifests, check. Radio, check. Lunch, check. Blood-sugar meter, check. Put on my headphones, some kind of ambient music at top volume. If I'm going to be run down by some maniac in his Cadillac, I don't want to hear it coming. I'd rather go out to the soothing sounds of Deathprod. I grab my bike, and off I go in the freezing winter wind, down Broadway to Sullivan Square, then down into scenic Charlestown. Time to call dispatch.

     The usual day. Get downtown. Pick up, drop off. Sit. Drink coffee. Pick up, drop off. Fights with taxi drivers, dirty looks from everyone. Bike messengers are menaces. Bikes are dangerous. Cars rule the roads, and you better watch out, or one might hit you because you're dangerous. Business people. Cell phones. The big empty li(f)e. I watch them run away with all the money while my stomach growls and I wonder if it's low blood sugar, a deadly condition that comes as a side-effect of trying to be my own pancreas.  The day ends. The ride home begins. The sun has set.

     Today I take the roads, rather than the long way. It is cold, and the bike path along the Charles River may be icy. Black ice - along with the automobile and the careless pedestrian - is the natural enemy of the cyclist. The roads will be better, except for the cars. I see the same moronic, dangerous habits in drivers every day. Speeding to red lights, switching lanes to get ahead one car length with no blinker, at top speed, just to slam on the brakes as a pedestrian who has also seen the opening decides to take advantage and darts out right in front of them. Fools. Ride like the invisible man. No one looks for me, so I must constantly be aware. Check over my shoulder. Thread between cars stopped in traffic. Watch all pedestrians at once. These are the only ways to survive. 

     A car cuts me off, speeding past me to make the light, which in this city means turning right on a recently turned red without stopping. He is in a pickup truck with a New England Patriots bumper sticker, so it is his right to do that, no matter that involves speeding very close to a biker, then almost plowing into groups of pedestrians. He is in a truck. 

     I turn the corner, and there he is, stopped at another red light at the end of a long line of traffic. Ride by, give him my 'amused yet disgusted' face. He doesn't notice, and within seconds, he is an afterthought, as I see the next idiot in a car do something equally as stupid. Seven out of ten people do not know how to properly operate automobiles. But it would be bad for the economy not to give them drivers' licenses. The fucking economy. I'd be pissed if it cost me eighty dollars to fill the gas tank of something I was convinced that I couldn't live without, even though it was making me fatter, and lazier and filling my environment with poison, and causing endless wars against people I've never met who never did anything to me. Talk about the real opiate of the masses. I need this but it's killing me but I need it. Nation of gasoline junkies. Meanwhile, the bicycle, and by extension, the cyclist, are demonized. We are menaces. The bike is a danger to their cars. If only it was the automobile industry saying that, instead of the automobile drivers. But it never will be.

     Home again. Everyone else is out. My hands are a bit shaky, and I feel sweaty. Low sugar. I eat a snack as I reheat pasta in the microwave. Turn the radio on. Find some classical. The microwave beeps. More insulin. Read the news on the internet. Nothing good. Never anything good. The President is a scumbag, everyone in congress is a scumbag. They are all lying essentially about everything, and most people are lapping it right up. The unemployment rate is 7.9 percent, they say. But they usually neglect to tell the reader, listener, or watcher, that that only accounts for people filing for and receiving government aid. They don't tell you about the massive number of people who have given up even looking for work, and whose checks have run out. But still, people run around saying that the economy's improving. The unemployment rate is at 7.9 percent. 

     I shut down my computer. I take a shower and wash all the filth off of myself. Even in the winter, you sweat like a pig riding the bike. The shower is the best part of my day. It relaxes my muscles. I sing. My voice sounds good to my own ears for once.