During full rush hour, the sidewalk is also full of motorbikes. Really. Anyway, crossing the street in three easy steps:
1) Step into the road.
2) Walk at an easy, predictable pace.
3) Do not hesitate, weave, avoid, shy, juke, or twist. DO NOT STOP.
After a few seconds of forward motion, during which motorcycles will part around you like a school of fish, you will be across the street and ready for a drink. At least the first few times.
Actually, I omitted the real first step, which I learned entirely on my own:
0.5) understand the pedestrian's place in the hierarchy.
- Motorcycles will part around you.
- Cars might go around you, conditional on them having space to do so (and the inclination).
- Buses do not go around you. That is not what they do. Buses go straight. They are Being-Unto-Drive-Straight. Going around you, or even slowing slightly, would cause existential crisis.
8 comments:
hey patrick!
graduating from college is a little like feeling traffic part around you; somehow you have narrowly avoided disaster, and it is an inextricable mix of your own minimal and unworthy, yet confident-enough effort and the cooperation of some ineffable body of dangers which would all just rather you be come out okay, even if only for the sake of their own convenience.
i dunno, i entered the simile blindly and then i had to make it work. point is, i miss you man, wish i had seen you during the academic year, as it were for us both. short version: i don't know what i'm doing.
keep posting, i will keep reading and commenting. going on tour in july, our 2nd album just came out yesterday...that's about it for now.
I disagree with Jeff completely. I am not going on tour and I am not releasing an album.
love,
pat b. resing
p.s.
blog comments are supposed to be contentious, right?
I can't believe Jeff graduated already. Crazy.
dude i know. any advice? i'm already expecting a facetious/brutal reply, so try to be original. or helpful even.
patrick ur totaly wrong and plus this is not the forum 4 attaking my personal hcaracter u jerk.
that was my best attempt at a contentious blog comment in what i understand to be the proper mode of engagement.
i smell official s[(m)um]mer '03 blog thread. tara ahmadinejad just graduated too by the way.
Guys! Calm down, please. Can't we have a reasoned discussion without being at each other's throats?
Patrick, nice work having a nonfiction blog. I look forward to your next post. Also, good job living in Vietnam all of a sudden.
Many thanks, all, for using my blog as a forum for balanced, tasteful discussion on some of the most pressing issues facing us today, such as
-will jeff be a rockstar?
-is pat the next matthew barney?
-to what extent is jack, in fact, a fucktard?
etc
also -
new post coming soon (today, i hope) - promise. having some photo trouble.
What kind of world is it, though, where a boy can't juke? I'm all for predictability, but a full-stop on juking, that's just cold.
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