All right, so now I have to navigate this thing, the Mass Ave underpass, every morning. In my old commute to Cambridge I'd bypass this on the way to banging a left on Mass Ave from Comm Ave. I used to see a few brave souls (including my friend JW) take the underpass and have secret feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. The bravery! The daring! The aplomb!....But now I have to put those childish feelings away and put on my adult diaper and take the Underpass Plunge myself. I could wuss out and just cross Mass Ave via Comm. No. I rode The Cheese Grater. I will not back down. No. I will go, one hand on the bars, one hand on the camera. The thing that really sucks about this is that there's a light about 1/2 a block before, and you have to be first out of the gate so that you can assert yourself in the sea of cars to make it known that you, the cyclist, are taking the Plunge.
One last comment for this evening: I've decided that the Brookline to South End commute is far more dangerous that the old Brookline to Cambridge. SAPs and POPs abound in profusion, Copley is a hellacious nightmare at night, the outbound merge from Comm Ave into Kenmore is particularly bracing since you've got the Beacon Street traffic coming in from your left, and the list goes on....On the plus side, though, is the digital camera. Look at the detail. Everything looks so much crisper than pics taken with the Pocket PC. Look at the glacial ice by the side of Comm Ave, look at the ass-end of the cab that honked at me, look at the white crap leaking out of the Mass Ave overpass (what the hell is that?? how can an overpass leak?), look at the Prudential and the Hancock...it's all so beautiful.
The weather continues to be outstanding even though it has rained quite a bit - temp today is 63 degrees - warm enough to ride in a t-shirt. The two pictures are of Comm Ave - a typical high-speed tight squeeze. The white van was backing up, but then began pulling out of a parking space and didn't see me. I slipped between him and the black SUV with inches to spare. And all one-handed. 
Drive. 
Jeez, the weather has gotten really cold. I finally broke out the gloves - too cold to ride without them. A friend of mine just got doored last night. The attached picture is of the victim. Thankfully, she's OK. In case you're not familiar with the phenomenon, being "doored" is when someone in a parked car whips open their door right as you're approaching, or passing the car. It can be fatal, or can involve everything that comes before "fatal" (broken bones etc etc). She was lucky and got away with scratches and bruises. I was doored once, but I was going so slowly at the time that it was more of a Three Stooges move. Here's a good piece from Common Ground mag about being doored.
