Attitude by Razel613 on Flickr.

Spent the night in Forest Park and this morning while driving east on Chicago Ave, I spotted this sign near Central (5500W, South Austin neighborhood).

The other side says “I live in a nice community.” Something about it struck me. Maybe because I don’t have the media and politicians telling me I live where no one else wants to, where barely anyone else wants to invest their time or energy.

I had to find a picture of this sign to show my friend who was driving and missed it. Thank you Google Street View being connected to Flickr.

From Niall on The Chainlink forum:

I read that resurrected thread about the Humboldt Park attacks for the first time only yesterday, and , since I live in HP and it seems like you have to go through a violent neighborhood to get anywhere in Chicago by bike, resolved to buy some pepper spray.  I spent much of yesterday wondering what I’d do in that situation, so my immediate reaction to the guy running onto Adams, holding what looked like a chair like a baseball bat, was you have got to be kidding… (continued)

Some of my cycling friends mock me for NOT wanting to ride through the West Side or around certain parts of Humboldt Park. But every time I hear about an attack like this, I am fucking happy to be a paranoid female who isn’t blind to the violence that does exist in our city. (With or without the hipster presence, you fucking hipsters.)

In fact, when I moved to the city in ‘05 after coming back from U of I, it took me some time to start cycling on city streets regularly. Not because I was uncomfortable on a bike (I’ve been on a bike since before I can remember) but because I was fearful of the exposure to elements beyond my control — whether it was batshit crazy drivers and their unpredictable reactions or actually getting the living shit kicked out of you. Irrational? Probably. Paranoid? Sure. But it’s my irrational paranoia that has kept me safe since my teenage years of drinking, drugs, etc. 

My parents still hate that I bike around Chicago, especially at night. All I can say is that my senses are somehow heightened while riding, I’m always looking ahead, and I always have my lights and helmet (ok, so maybe 2% of the time I don’t wear my helmet during the day on sidestreets, I’m bad and they don’t need to know that part).

Be safe out there, biking buddies.

(Thanks to Leah on Twitter for posting a link to this guys story)