Please take a moment to locate the 22 nearest you. Keep in mind, it may be behind you.
April 23, 2025
Today I’d like to draw your attention to the number 22. And with that attention you’ll start to notice 22s all around you. They’ve been there all along but you haven’t really seen them, until now. Yesterday was April 22. But that was so six hours ago. That two-two is behind you.
Fire Station 22 is on Roanoke. Which is right on my line when I ride my bike to work because the trains are jacked. And a couple weeks ago I spotted Engine 22, which resides at Station 22. It was parked at Urban Horticulture on a non-emergency sightseeing mission.
Two-Two to you two too.
I live way down by Fire Station 33. And the less-train more-bike to work for the past 10 days has been a real Phantom Nostalgia Tour of Seattle for me. Remembering yesteryear, the good old daze. When Capitol Hill was home.
Slowly rolling past the places I used to live. Two of them are long gone, two of them are still there but I’m sure the rent is three or four times what I paid.
My commute seemingly takes forever on a bike. It’s actually just a bit longer but I’ve grown soft over the years on my daily slack jaw zombie train rides with a book or the New Yorker or Wordle and Spelling Bee.
4070 is the PLU number for celery. It’s also the PO Box number for the department of Intercollegiate Athletics at a large state university on the Montlake Cut that’s now in the Big Ten conference. You might know of it. Last week this rubber band ended up on my arm and it reminded me of Cat and her encyclopedic knowledge of PLU #s. So I sent her this photo and she guessed “broccoli?”
In our very brief texts she explained her “knack for numbers” has fallen into the background since she’s had kids. I believe if she was thrown back into that number salad her recall would quickly return.
Bike messengers’ brains grow in a special place to accommodate numbers, street addresses, suite numbers, messenger numbers, times, dates and all kinds of random numerical shit. Just as barista brains grow to accommodate non fat decaf extra hot iced white hemp milk mochas with half vanilla half pumpkin spice moo moo choo choo foo foo horseshit coffee drinks.
That messenger part of my brain glommed right on to the number casserole in my current place of employment. There are a lot of numbers floating around.
9410 forwards to 4943 which forwards to 8051
4990 used to forward to 4950 but now 4400 forwards to 4990 so don’t fuck it up
5320 and 5325 go to 1800 and so does 1812
5915 goes to 1635
Most of the mail for 3903 Brooklyn Ave NE doesn’t go to 5667 the department in there, it goes to 4969 which used to be at that address before it moved to 4300 Roosevelt but now it’s at 4328 Brooklyn NE
regurgitated
reiterated
renumerated
two actuaries
walk into a bar
play it again
numerology
numerals
numbers
taxonomy
codification
nomenclature
jargon
lingo
language
meaningless
gibberish
out of context
room numbers
street addresses
zip codes
post office
box numbers
hand delivered
analog
analogy
number salad
route the route
run the numbers
don’t fuck it up
1150
1202
1207
1248
1210
1230
1237
1242
1243
1244
1245
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1270
1271
1277
1310
1410
1525
1550
1560
1570
1580
1610
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1640
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1700
1750
1800
1812
5200
5320
5325
5720
5726
5730
5734
5740
these are the box numbers on my morning route but I'm not necessarily hitting them in this order
we can talk about street addresses too as much as you'd like to
we can also talk about the afternoon routes and their box numbers and street addresses some other time
One day among the days that all seem to blend together in the daze that blends it all together, I was on the loading dock that’s spitting distance from the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network HQ loading and unloading Amazon boxes from the electric ass bathtub I was Mr McFeely-hamster-wheelie-final-fifty-fucking-feeting.
Some people call that loading dock 3920 Okanogan Lane NE. Some people call me Maurice. I call that loading dock MOLES with a side of ATG.
One of the PNSN guys was loading up his truck with what I like to think of as Sasquatch Surveillance equipment. If anyone is going to spot Bigfoot out there in situ, those guys are. As I was getting back on the bathtub the PNSN guy said “LoLo” and I guess he was speaking in my direction. But I was all the way down Okanogan Lane before I realized what he was talking about. I chuckled to myself thinking maybe someday I can talk Zero-Sevens with that guy. I’m surprised he could read the digits on my hand from 15 feet away.
When I got the tattoo, Joe Who the tattoo guru said “don’t you just want to go with 707? You know, LOL?” I said “no. no I don’t”
Lolo is a badass in the movie "Joy Ride" and you can google L-o-L-o and make it mean whatever you want it to mean. But the tattoo is no no LoLo bro.
It’s 07:07
just last night I added a couple surplus address number 7s to that road sign with spray adhesive, giving it a touch of 07:07
got my hands on some fresh black paint and some kick ass spray adhesive and now Bret’s crows from ABQ are once again popping up on projects and postcards and flying into zipcodes here & there
The other other day I showed that urinal photo to a UW plumber on the train ride home in a have-you-ever-seen-such-a-sight-in-your-life kind of way. It’s the Schmitz Hall 2nd floor men’s room by the way. He laughed and quoted me building code center-to-center urinal installation measurements. That Schmitz setup is a joke, like a bad piss joke punchline. As we were talking urinals, the 5 Point periscope came up and another train passenger jumped right in telling us he replaced the roof on the 5 Point many years ago and earned free meals for a long while as interest payments on his delayed roofing job payments. The 5 Point is legit real deal Seattle history and this guy let me know it all the way to Beacon Hill.
no eyed deer
I only visited The 5 Point a few times. But it brings up a certain memory that lingers somewhere in my phantom nostalgia syndrome, all these years later. The lingering memory does not surprise me. But I’m amazed I was able to find these photos to back it up.
I was just beginning my morning routine of legal messenger deliveries at 2101 4th. When these two crusty old messengers were strolling south through Bell Town after opening The 5 Point. Or maybe they closed it at 2am and opened it again at 6am. Either way they definitely opened it and were carrying on with their day. We chatted briefly and I snapped a few shots on my digital camera.
The plus or minus 1.67mm of Rainier Can protruding wrapping enveloping circulating cascading visibly is no sloppy oversight. It’s out there to let you know that I know that you know that I shimmed it out with a beer can.
this Ritchey Force stem brings me joy NITTO going forth with whatever handlebar needs that need to be handled
bringing even more joy than the Ritchey Logic cranks which we can talk about on another day
As I’ve ridden this SHOGUN to work for two days in a row now onto day three. On an odometer that’s like 9 miles. As the crow flies with the bike along for all the train rides, that’s like 90 miles. Either way. Anyway. It’s a lugged steel single speed circa 1987. As heavy as the day is long. Cadillac smooth 27” wheels on the downhills. Cadillac heavy everything adding up on the uphills.
Herb Alpert wasn’t really playing in the garage but it could have been in my mind as Moon (the cat) was supervising a Saturday 27” tire-swap test ride while his brother Cosmo was around somewhere but couldn’t care less about bike tires or anything much at all except his next nap.
I finally got my hands on a pair of 27” tires that don’t suck and now maybe I’ll ride this bike more often…
The other-other day I was delivering mail when a busted chunk of a NO BICYCLES sign caught my eye. So I stopped and scooped it up. Later when I took a moment to take a closer look I decided to complete the loop and look for the remainder of the sign. When I found it I could see the spot on the wall where it resided for the past 30 to 50 years until sometime very recently when somebody decided to rip it down, bust it in half and chuck it on the ground.
Cue the electric ass bathtub mailman, stage left.
The sign was hanging just above a very large bike rack on the water side of the South Campus Center. Just a stone's throw from the corner of San Juan Road NE and NE San Juan Road. I’m not making this shit up. See red arrows on campus map above.
That sign, not that sign, that sign was painted by hand as you can see the brushstrokes are visible but confident and experienced. A textbook example of hand painted letters. I like to think of a UW sign painter in the 70’s earning a living wage in an affordable city enjoying their work while they smoked their cigarettes. No need to take “smoke breaks” because there were ashtrays everywhere all around all the time.
An article in the 01/02/1972 issue of the Seattle Times said of this new South Campus Center: “June tentatively is the time set for beginning construction of a $3.5 million south campus center on the shores of Portage Bay. It will be built under financing of special student fees. The center, to serve students and others in field of fisheries, oceanography and health sciences, will be between the Harris Hydraulics Building and the old Oceanography Building. There will be food service for 750 persons and recreational, meeting and lounge areas, including a multipurpose room for 200. Unlike the Student Union Building, the new center is not designed as a facility for student government. Services in the center planned are a branch of the University BookStore a barbershop, check-cashing facilities and a postal substation. There also is space for a future tavern, should the legislature permit it. The Bumgardner Partnership designed the center to contrast with the other south-campus structures ‘so that members of the community will be drawn to it’ in moments of escape from their work and study areas. A large terrace shielded by glass skylights cuts into the building mass and opens to the south for sun and view. A sloping lawn with perimeter stairs links the major social spaces with a campus road and the bay, The buff-colored reinforced concrete structure will have a total area of 71,500 square feet. Occupancy is expected in the fall of 1973.” (See Julie Emery, "U.W. beginning last big year of rapid capital expansion," Seattle Times, 01/02/1972, p, F2.)
Please observe no smoking areas and get your goddamn bicycles off my lawn.
Standing on a crowded train near my bike on the hook staring off into space, glazed over, when the couple in the jumpseat asks me what the toptube pad says, what it means, what it’s all about?...
EXTREME, I say, it’s a road sign, highly reflective. Which leads to an exchange of bike things, bike stories, bike experience, bike wisdom. Some of which was lost in the heavy tunnel train noise. But here’s the gist of it:
-Yes that’s my bike, I tell them
-Oh we ride bikes too — 50,000 miles together ridden on our tandem
-Wow, I say. I thought tandems made people split up, driving them to divorce?
-No, tandems just accelerate the direction the relationship is already headed in. We’ve been together for 40 years.
-Right on, I say. That explains it well
Then they got off the train
I’m not a tandem guy. No thanks. I’ve been passed by tandems bombing downhill at 53 mph in the middle of Iowa. I’ve passed tandems grinding uphill at 7 mph in the middle of Iowa. I see plenty of fair-weather tandems on the Burke-Gilman trail.
I’ve seen entire families on bicycles built for 4 with a trailer for the littlest little kid in the back. A parent-child tandem ride brings a smile to my face.
I have a lot of respect for the frame builders of tandems and the mechanics that maintain them. But I have no interest in riding one. Even if the stoker is a teddy bear or a zombie or an olympic athlete or an inflatable doll on RAGBRAI.
My relationships are already moving in the direction they’re headed, they need no extra push, no extra pressure. I like to ride bikes to get away from horseshit. An escape. I don’t need a bike to accelerate my personal relationship horseshit one way or another.
Ride on
Rock on
that happy 50,000 mile tandem couple inspired this one-of-a-kind tandem postcard
Same crows, different day. Atmospheric Sciences looking for a snack from the electric ass mailman’s bike around 9:22 am. While waiting, one of the crows took a shit. As you can see. It’s right where the offramp from Exit 169 off northbound I-5 feeds into 7th Ave NE just south of 45th. In line with the scale of the map this turd is the size of a small apartment building.
Neither here nor there. Everywhere. All around. ONEWAY or another.
A little. A sprinkle. A dash. A skosh. Kinda sorta. Hinting.
A lot. A load. A fuckton. A metric fuck ton. Full-on. All the way.
I’m a little bit country.
I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll.
I’m a little autistic.
I’m a little alcoholic.
I'm a little bit of a slouch.
“Don't sell yourself short, you're a tremendous slouch.”
like Ty Webb said in Caddyshack
We’re all somewhere along the spectrum. Some of us are further along than others.
This little quiz will sum up your Autism Spectrum Quotient…
Here are a couple statements I plucked from the list and my answers expanded upon:
I notice patterns in things all the time.
—I strongly agree. I’m rolling around paying attention to things that a lot of people never notice. Patterns. Rhymes. Repetitions. Clockwork. Habits. From the static patterns emerge.
I am fascinated by numbers.
—I agree. I like numbers. But not all numbers. Fascination may be too strong of a word. Some numbers get my attention and stick with me. Street addresses, phone numbers, analog watches, digital clocks, VCR clocks blinking 12:00, zip codes, PO Box numbers, messenger numbers, hospital room numbers, coffee shop customer numbers, Lawrence Taylor's jersey number, dates and any palindromic numbers. Please note that up to this moment I’ve refrained from saying anything about 3.14159 this Pi Day.
I still remember the license plate on my mom’s 1971 Monte Carlo: CPJ 895. She sold that car in 1985. I remember the phone number we had as a kid for our yellow rotary phone: 328-2952. I remember my grandma’s old phone number too: 325-1209. Grandma had a wall mount beige rotary in the hallway with an extra long handset cord so she could pace around and talk on the phone for hours. Those were hard-hard wired land lines in the 509 of course.
I enjoy social chit-chat.
—I STRONGLY DISAGREE. I fucking hate chit chat. Can’t do it. Find ways to avoid it or I just walk away. It bothers me. I do not pretend to care about things that I don’t give a shit about. I’m not interested in what you did over the weekend. If I was, I'd ask you about it. But I’m not.
Sometimes when people are talking to me, I glaze over and stare off into space over their shoulder, then they turn and look around, wondering what the hell I’m looking at while they’re trying to tell me something important.
Before I answered the questions, I had an idea of what my score would be and it was spot-on. I have an idea of what some of my friends and coworkers’ scores might be too. There are a couple guys on my mail routes that would crush this thing. Outta the park. Off the charts. I wouldn’t want to see things from their perspective, because I can guess what it’s like. But I’m curious to learn more and I’m not just talking shit. This little quizlet has already helped me laugh at my own habits and anxieties. And I think it will help me see things differently, to walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. Let them try to walk a mile in my blown out Sambas.
Please take 90 seconds and complete the 50 questions. Upon conclusion there will be no opportunities to enter your email and win a $2 Starbucks gift card. Your score is not important, it's just a place to start the conversation. It's not a pass-fail. It's a dipstick. But it is what it is. You can't add to it, or run low. You are you. You are here. You don’t have to share your score. You can share your score if you want. Or share it anonymously. You can tell me someday and buy me a beer. Then I’ll tell you my score and buy you a beer.
