It seems like all I shoot these days is the sun setting. And since fotolog is doing its typical unreliable thing and not allowing uploads, I'll post it here. This is from the West Side of Manhattan, around 60th St.

6:38 P.M.

I was heading to what I'm hoping is my last Critical Mass, New York or otherwise. I wasn't really in the mood to go. I've pretty much had it with New York and I'm ready to leave in general. Notice how I say "New York" when I'm living in New Jersey. New Jersey is not even a consideration. It's a nice place to visit a family, but I wouldn't want to live here.

Anyway, I went to Critical Mass telling myself I would leave as soon as I wasn't into it, and that point came about an hour into it when the cops blocked off some streets causing a confusion that sent cyclists into a panic. The ride was peaceful until then and the cops cooperated and even provided corking for the riders, ostensibly to try to better relations and public image after last months' arbitrary military-style crackdown in order to show Republicans that New York's Finest "know" how to handle dissent.

I place the blame for the confusion squarely on the cops and Mayor Bloomberg who has been creating a hostile atmosphere against cyclists and Critical Mass, and all it took was the blocking off of a street for something as benign as traffic control to send a thousand cyclists scrambling. It was fun for the five minutes I zipped through traffic and a parking garage to avoid the pigs, but that's all.

I took off for the riverside path and headed uptown, thinking how civil San Francisco seems compared to New York (knowing full well that it isn't - just smaller), and then to make the San Francisco nostalgia worse, I stopped off at a place called "Burritoville". If that is what New Yorkers consider a burrito, I feel sorry for them. Folks, I know burritos, I've worked with burritos, some of my closest friends are burritos, and that was no burrito.

New Yorkers are so provincial in their cosmopolity. Is that a word? It is now.