Today’s ride took me down the hill for my last shuttle ride to campus for the fall semester. I love the last day of classes almost as much as the first, but I’m a little bit distracted right now, so I wasn’t totally on my game. The thing about teaching, though, is that just a few minutes with students and the distraction was gone, replaced by a sweet recognition that I’m pretty flipping lucky to have a job that lets me take the long way to work, and that the work is largely me having interesting conversations with other people about interesting things. And then class ended early, because it’s the last day, and I was back on the shuttle bus to fetch my bike to head up to meet N. for a celebratory beer and cheese plate. I took a lazy route home, mostly walking, because in my distraction I’d left my safety lights at home. I snapped this picture of Catherine Pugh’s Mount Vernon campaign headquarters, lots of those popping up these days. I wonder what sort of person wants to be mayor, given how much cash you have to throw down to make it happen and how many favors you end up owing. I saw Nick Mosby, another guy running for mayor, at the Monument Lighting last week. We were both shoving ourselves through the narrow peoplechute going south from the east side of the park, and I said, “Hey, you’re going to be our next mayor!” He chuckled, “I will if you vote for me,” and then he lamented that he was going to be late for a meeting. I suggested that was pretty bad scheduling, and he nodded firmly, “But it was important for me to be here.” I could practically see the gears turning, don’t act like a meeting’s more important than this community event, this was the right choice, grind grind grind, and I thought wow, he’s going to be on display and calculating his every move for a very, very long time. I bet that just becomes normal at a certain point for those politicians. And then I ran into J., had a quick drink with him and R., and got back on my bike to home. I love that I live in a town small enough to run into everyone like that.