The thing I like second most about my bike – the first being how comfortable it is to ride – is how simple it is. For starters, it has no cables of any kind on it. Not for the brakes, and not for the gears, of which it also has none.

It has a very simple set of ball bearings in the pedals, and one in the headstock. The rear wheel is the most complicated part of the whole bike because the brake is incorporated into the hub. It’s called a coaster brake, and it’s often maligned by elitist bike snobs.

I love this bike. I’ve had it for 13 years, and like a modern bike of Theseus, I’ve replaced every piece of it in that time. Well, not every piece. The frame is still original; otherwise, I wouldn’t consider it the same bike.

Last year, I had to replace my rear hub, and while it isn’t totally fucked like it was a year ago, I think I might replace it again this year because my rear wheel is bent to shit the hub is a little grindy. I find that tends to happen over time. I also need new tires, and it wouldn’t hurt to replace my bearings.

But that’s all going to have to wait because I don’t have any of that stuff on me right now, so this afternoon, I did a little alignment and some tightening, and got through my whole ride with no problems.

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I don’t know about all that, but what I know is that the weather today was absolutely beautiful, and if it could just stay this way always, I would love it.

And can we take a second to acknowledge ya boy’s skills? Taking a selfie while riding a bike? I mean, come on.

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The other one was a fucking tool. He had been a custodian, just like me, until he was promoted to a supervisorial role, and I think his promotion was shortly before I was transferred to his school. He had the swagger of someone who had been a nobody his whole life, and now he had a little bit of authority and he was going to let everyone know about it.

One of my duties was to clean the boy’s bathroom. This was at a junior high school. The walls in the bathroom were tiled, floor to ceiling, with 5 or 6 inch white tiles. There were four sinks along one wall with a hand dryer on either side. One day, my boss comes up to me and says, “Now, Richard, normally the average custodian uses about 10 bottles of soap per week, but you’re well below that. Are you not filling the soap dispensers?”

“No, the kids don’t use soap.”

“The kids aren’t washing their hands?”

“No, the kids aren’t using the soap.”

“ ”

“Soooo, the kids aren’t washing their hands?”

“No, the kids aren’t using the soap. They get their hands wet, but they aren’t using the soap.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The wall under the hand dryers is dirty.”

“ ”

“Come here, let me show you.”

I take him into the bathroom and I show him the wall underneath the hand dryer that I, unfortunately, had just cleaned, but the grout was still dirty enough to convey my point. “See, the wall under the hand dryers is dirty.”

“ . What does that mean?”

“The kids come in here with dirty hands, they run their dirty hands under the faucet, get them wet, and then dry them off at the hand dryers. The air from the hand dryers blows the dirty water off of their hands, and onto the white tiled wall.”

“ . Oh, so you think the kids aren’t using the soap?”

No shit, that was an actual conversation that I had with this fucking guy.

To say that we didn’t understand each other is an understatement. At the time, I still had my own carpet cleaning business, but I was working for the school district as a substitute custodian to make some extra money. I very much saw my custodian job as a side hustle, but when the opportunity to apply for a full-time position came up, I decided to take it because it paid more and came with benefits. That was a mistake, and I should have just kept my substitute position.

When I was a substitute, nobody gave a shit what I did. I could come and go as I pleased, which worked out nicely because I couldn’t always get to work on time when my carpet cleaning jobs ran late. When I took the full-time position, and started working for the tool, my being late became a problem. For whatever reason, he thought it was paramount that I be at work at 3:30 p.m. on the dot, just in case he needed to relay information to me. Why he couldn’t leave me a note or call me is anyone’s guess.

We came to blows about it one afternoon, and explained to him for about the third time that my priority was always going to be my own business, not my nighttime custodian job. This came as a huge shock to him. He said, “I thought your carpet cleaning business was just a side job.”

“No,” I said, emphatically, “This is my side job.”

I don’t know how he didn’t get it when I pulled into the parking lot every afternoon in a $50,000 box van, but he didn’t. Parking the van in the school parking lot became a problem, too. Various staff would see it parked out there and think it was another Oklahoma City Bombing waiting to happen, so I started riding my bike to work. Riding my bike to and from that job was what planted the seed of a car-free lifestyle in my mind. I loved riding home from work at night. The air was cool, the streets were empty, and I just felt free.

Riding my bike to work also helped to plant another seed, that I’m probably lucky didn’t take root: drinking at work. I worked at night, and I worked alone. There was another custodian, but our paths very rarely crossed. He cleaned one half of the school, and I cleaned the other. One Friday night, he called in sick, which meant I had the whole campus to myself.

I went home for dinner, and I had a few drinks. Then, I went back to work with a flask of Southern Comfort. On my way back to work, I stopped by 7-11 and bought a Double-Gulp of Coke. I dumped in my Southern Comfort, and went to work. The second half of my night was the most enjoyable four hours of my working life.

I can see how people slip into a life of alcoholism. I loved being drunk at work. Plus, who would want to be sober and clean bloody shit off toilets and walls. The following pictures are all from my time at that school, but they are different incidents.

I’m surprised every custodian isn’t drunk at work. Years earlier, I had heard about a district custodian who used to drink on the job and he too would put his booze in a 7-11 cup, which is where I got the idea in the first place. His mistake, though, was that he left his cup on a teacher’s desk and she found it the next morning and reported it to the principal.

I can see how easily something like that could happen to someone who is drunk on the job. That night was the first and last time I ever drank on the job, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about that night often. I didn’t stay at that job very long after that either. I had a big carpet cleaning job coming up that was going to take two days, and pay me more than I made in a month as a custodian, so I quit.

From time to time, I see my old boss around town and I’m always on my bike. Whenever I see him, he always looks bemused and seems to pity me. So, it was funny to see him riding his bike home from work today.

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Bonnie and I wrapped the day with a bike ride.

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To add another layer of confusion to this whole thing, I thought to myself while I was watching the sunset that I should take a picture of this sunset so I’ll at least have one picture for the first day of the new year and then, I did nothing. I just watched the sun sink into the ocean.

After the last little spark of sunlight disappeared behind the waves, Bonnie suggested we go for a ride along the beach. As we began our ride, I thought about how it was too late now to get a good picture. That bummed me out. It would have been so easy to snap a picture of that beautiful sunset, but I let the opportunity pass me by.

But then, the horizon turned the most vibrant scarlet-orange gradient, and a crescent moon sat just above it. It was even more stunning than the sunset 30 minutes earlier.

So, that’s one down, 364 to go. Thank the lord for that L.A. smog.

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