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08/08/2005: "Lights Out!"

So last night I went up to North York. My friend Jen is in Hong Kong and her mom misses her and her friends so she made us a big dinner and tested out desserts is using for an upcoming wedding. I took my bike up on the subway and rode to their place from Sheppard station. But I decided I wanted to ride all the way home -- it is more downhill, but far enough away for a good workout after a monstrous dinner.

The place is near Bayview and the 401 about 14 kilometres away. I took busy streets like Bayview and Lawrence for the suburban part of the jaunt, and when I got near Yonge and Eglinton I took the sideroads mostly. When I was going through Forest Hill the power in the neighbourhood suddenly went out. Ffffoomp! (that's what it sounded like when it went pitch black). I couldn't see any of the street signs and the cars were the only source of light. I crossed Eglinton and headed south but somehow got twisted around in a winding set of streets and found myself at Eglinton about 5 minutes later. I turned around and decided to take the Beltline Trail cuz it goes east-west. I took it for awhile it the absolute pitch dark. No power from the houses surrounding the path, and the overgrown trees made it almost entirely black. I could see a light ahead where the path ended but that' was it. It felt like a weird sensory depravation experiment where I had to trust that the path did not have huge potholes or that a stranger was going to jump out and grab me.

After taking it for 5 or 6 mintues I could see someone with a bike light behind me, about 100 metres. They were gaining on me quick. Somehow this kinda spooked me, and I kept looking behind to see how close they were getting -- maybe 40 metres away at this point. I saw a staircase leading out of the path 50 metres ahead and decided I was going to take that. A few feet from the staircase I looked back and the person and the light were gone -- -which was really weird since there were no exits for them to take except for the one I was about to traverse. This spooked me more.

So I get up on to the main street, and I "recognize" where I am and head south. But in actuality, I have headed east instead of west. The lights are still out everywhere. While I'm heading "south", I'm really going north, so when I turned "west" I'm actually going east, and I end back where I was 8 minutes eariler. So I have now spent nearly 20 mintues in a part of town that should have taken me 5 to go through.

I try to navigate the streets and figure out WHERE THE FUCK I AM. I end up crossing Eglinton again, and then crossing Avenue (I thought it was supposed to Bathurst!). I have now crossed Chaplin Ave. four times in the last 10 minutes. At this point I'm so disoriented, with Forest Hill's diagonal and slightly twisting streets, that I have to call my friend Trev to act as my electronic-sherpa. But his directions take me back through the thick of the blackout area and I almost get lost again.

With no visual touchstones to see I was a moron lost in my own city. I was embarassed when I got home, so I looked at a map and tried to figure out where it all went wrong. I still have no idea. Welcome to bike flaneurie.