Yes, I shouldn't be out on Shattuck Ave. at 12:30 am, but what's it to you?

Feeling a tad restless tonight within the confines of my home here on good ol' Bateman Street, I decided to go out on a night stroll at 12:30 a.m. In fact, I just got home a bit ago. I really should head off to bed, but the cold night air kind of woke me up.

I had my ipod on while rambling along. Oh, for reference, the ipod is a good device when you want to go out on a night stroll in a place like Berkeley. You just have to be careful not to turn it up too loudly. You need to be able to hear if someone is creeping up behind you. In Berkeley, that WILL happen, you can count on it, actually. Which is a good segway to recent happenings on Shattuck Avenue.

Shattuck is a commercial street, and at night it can be kind of sparse down there. A couple times, coming from behind me, I heard some terrible squeaking noise. Here was my dilemma: Joanna Newsom was playing so I didn't want to turn down the volume immediately to catch what it was. Also, it could have feasibly been Joanna's voice that was squeaking (she has kind of a quirky sound like that). So I continue walking, and then I begin to hear someone across the street kind of hollering out. Soon I realize that someone is following me on a crappy ass bicycle. The squeaking noise was coming from his brakes which he seemed to really like to manipulate for no reason.

People like that are so strange. I wonder if they are just lonely? I cannot think of any circumstances under which I would begin to follow a stranger in the dead of night on my bicycle, squeaking my breaks, and trying to get their attention. It is quite absurd. And the persistence! This guy must have followed me from 61st Street to the first street north of Alcatraz, which is kind of a ways. I was glad he left me around Prince Street, because that is where I turn right to head home. I didn't really want to bring him back to Bateman Street if at all possible. Bateman is a special place, afterall.