June 5, 2007
Hit the Diagonal
So, thanks to the poll recently taken about what you are most afeared of weather-wise, we've come to some conclusions:
• Furry things with teeth are scary, and it is really scary when it rains them.
• Scattered Showers frighten the very meek.
• Despite the fact that a Tornado changed Dorothy's life for the better, people still hate and despise them.
• Nighttime does count as weather, since I'm in charge here, so therefore you may be frightened of it.
• Finally, we are reminded that weather is not just an outdoors phenomenon. Know how the door sometimes slams in the other room? Very frightening. Who knows if it is the cross draft or not, maybe it is dead Uncle Sally and he's very very pissed. Just hope that he slammed the door leaving the room, not coming in.
The weather here remains calm, despite forecasts of thunderstorms. It was a beautiful evening to walk to the gym from work and as I was doing so, I fell into a game I sometimes play. A very very tall woman with long dark hair and a flower-print dress left the building just before me. She seemed to be headed in the same direction so I decided to race her. I do this from time to time, since it is fun proving to myself that by crossing the streets and intersections at angles I can shave several minutes off my walk. If I have a "patsy" to compare my progress to, all the better. But as I crossed East 26th street, at a diagonal, I noticed that the woman had done the same thing, but at a shallower angle, thus pulling ahead. I quickened my pace.
Up ahead was the first of the big challenges: crossing 5th Avenue next to Madison Square Park. Here there are a series of oddly shaped intersections, confused by the merging of 5th, Broadway as they cross 23rd street practically overlapping. On the right day, if the lights are with you, you can cross at such an extreme angle as to save two or three minutes at this one crossing alone. The woman was walking straight down 5th (rookie) and the light was with me, I cut a steep diagonal across 5th, keeping an eye out for right turning vehicles coming from 26th. No sooner had I stepped into the street than the woman darted out and crossed at an diagonal parallel to my own. She wasn't pulling ahead anymore, but I wasn't catching up either. A bus passed behind me and as I reached the other side and prepared to cross 25th, at an angle, it also turned the corner onto 25th, and cut off my progress. The woman, just in front of me had beat the bus and disappeared from sight. I swore an oath. Darn Thee! And cut my angle behind the bus. In my sights again, she made a mistake. She rounded the unfortunately placed grave of General William Jenkins Worth* and as she approached Broadway she was foolish enough to check for oncoming cars. Fool! I took the opportunity and cut across Broadway diagonally from the corner of 25th to the corner of 24th, the perfect cross. I was steps behind her now, and she sensed it. She quickened her pace. It either occurred to her that she had met her diagonal crossing match, or that an unshaven lanky man had been following her since she left work, and was gaining. Either way, she attempted to lose me. She feigned a cross to the south side of the street as we headed east down 24th, but juked north again, back onto the sidewalk, as a tangle of parked taxis and vans tried to pass each other directly in front of us. I fell for her feint, and and found myself crossing in the middle of the street as the van reversed with several cabs zooming around to avoid it, and me. The reverse signal was not the usual beeping, but a little girl's voice saying "Excuse me, I'm backing up". Disturbed but undaunted I finally made it across but as I reached the other side I saw that I'd lost too much ground. The woman was 20 yards further down the sidewalk having hit a perfect 45er after the traffic jam. That's 45º for you unmathamaticalled. I doubled my pace. Sensing this, perhaps, she ducked into a Thai restaurant for safety. Ha! Double Fool! I roared by her, even thinking she was going so far as to cut through the restaurant to the other side of the block. At 6th Ave the lights favored me again, not a car on the road as I sauntered a victory lap, diagonally, down the Avenue of the Americas.
Being as I'd cut several minutes off my usual time, I had to wait for M to join me before we proceeded to the gym. I kept an eye on the corner of 6th and 23rd for my defeated opponent. I was hoping she had cut through the restaurant, as I felt a little bad for winning by frightening her off the track. Soon I saw M's head bobbing up and down in a river of pedestrians.
But, before she could reach me, who should appear from between two parked cars, having hit a near perfect diagonal from the corner of 24th street? My opponent brushed past me in a rustle of flower pattern. As she did so I realized that she had to have been at least three inches taller than me. I no longer felt sorry I'd scared her since she clearly could have given me a beating.
Just not where it counted; in the game of Hit the Diagonal.
Here is a map of the course taken, my route in red.
* General William Jenkins Worth is for some reason buried at this intersection, next to a water treatment facility I might add. It is unclear how he got the distinction of being buried essentially in the middle of the street, but you can try to figure it out here if interested:
http://www.aztecclub.com/bios/worth.htm
Actually they don't even mention that he's buried there, scumbags, try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Worth