I’ve gotta tell you, I’m sick of hearing people whine about gas prices, when all I see on my bike commute to Back Bay from Dot is big-ass SUVs with one person in ‘em, backed up for miles along Mass Ave.

The thing that’s vexed me for years is the trend, after 9/11, to buy huge, gas-guzzlin SUVs, in absolute defiance of common sense. News Flash, bitches: driving a gas-guzzler is no one’s God-given right.

Having said that, I can’t see cycling really catching on as a widespread alternative to driving in the States. Even a compact city, like Boston, where every effort should be made to make cycling everywhere more viable, is doing next to nothing to encourage alternative transportation.

There is an infrastructure issue here, but there is a larger impediment to alternative transport, and it is purely psychological. We have built our environment around the car, and now we have a culture that can’t conceive of life without it.

It still cracks me up that people are genuinely puzzled about skyrocketing obesity rates. People are on the move, sure, but they, themselves, are hardly moving. You go to a shopping center and watch people circle around for half an hour so they can get a prime parking spot ten feet from the shop. Heaven forbid they have to walk twenty. I’ll say it again: We are a sad, fat nation in denial.

I can’t say I’d want too many more cyclists on the street, though, the streets here being what they are. It would be even harder to get around than it already is. And cyclists–myself included–are not too keen on following the rules of the road, which makes it difficult to predict what they’re going to do when you encounter them. I will say this: I understand now that I have been cycling in the city for a couple weeks why cyclists act like they do. You wouldn’t get anywhere in Boston if you obeyed the rules. You have to be an aggressive rider to get anywhere.

Back at Bates today.

Mohamed, my friend in the army jacket is back, too, of course. Mohamed is his Muslim prison name, as it turns out. His real name is Jimmy. Master Bates just showed up and is arranging and rearranging his wads of newspaper. Feels like home.

Usually people leave Mohamed alone. His barricade is a formidable barrier, signaling his desire for isolation. The tables in Bates Hall are able to accommodate eight, but, as in any public space, people find ways to spread out and mark their borders. I do it, too. Like most people I take up two spots—one for my junk (no, not that junk, silly—get your mind out of the gutter!) and one for my self. I would move my junk if it got crowded, but if it’s not crowded and someone were to—somewhat inconceivably—ask me to move it, I would probably “mean mug” them, and hope that I was better armed than they were (I have my bicycle seat, which I suppose could be used as a weapon in a pinch).

Americans, even the skinny ones, seem to have the sense to sit at least a seat apart, whenever space permits. It’s because of our super-size auras, I guess.

Anyway, yesterday, some middle-aged guy had the gall to sit at the other end of the table where Mohamed was sitting. And Mohamed expressed his displeasure by taking one of the super-size books he’s barricaded himself in with and slamming it down on the table. The thud thus produced was of Biblical proportions, echoing through the cavernous hall, causing everyone to look up, and the poor guy at Mohamed’s table to look around nervously.

No one was sure if Mohamed had been provoked by the man’s innocent incursion, or was just being schizoid, as usual. We all went back to work. The man got up, leaving his jacket on his chair, and went off to look for a reference book. When he came back, there was no doubt about Mohamed’s displeasure. He banged the book on the tabletop again, without looking up, but this time the irritation was visible on his furrowed brow. And he shifted suddenly, so that he was turned resolutely away from the interloper.

But, lest you think Mohamed is the exception, I have a story, again from my personal diary, from December of 2004. I was at the library because my roommate was having a little afternoon “play date” back at the apartment. (You’re going to start thinking I’m Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man if I keep quoting my diary, if you don’t already.)

3:29. I’m in the reading room at the Boston Public Library. It’s absolutely packed—students from the area colleges. It was hard to find a spot, and when I did and started to take my coat off this blonde sitting catty-corner says to me, “oh, my friend’s coming back any minute.”

The seat across from hers was free and two seats beside it, and two seats beside her.

I nodded and smiled. I said, “great,” and made to sit down in the farthest seat from her that was free.

She said, “well, he’s got a lot of stuff—he kinda likes to spread out.”

I’m like, “great, thanks for the head’s-up,” and sat down.

She huffed and rolled her eyes at me.

A quarter of an hour later, and her little friend still hasn’t shown up. I want to tell her I freakin own this reading room. I was reading in this reading room when she was in her training bra. The nerve.

4:22. Every once in a while Heather looks over at me, thinking I’m looking over at her when I’m looking at my notes. Almost an hour has passed, and still no sign of her imaginary friend. She apparently feels she is entitled to six spaces. There are eight per table. She has no books open, or papers spread about—she’s typing away on her laptop—but she has thrown her handbag over to the side, in front of the seat next to hers, and has tossed a couple of decoy notebooks out in front of the seat across from her (and sort of spilling over to the seat next to it) to make it look to the casual observer that they are taken. But it doesn’t take freakin Nancy Drew to see that the bottoms of the notebooks are facing her, rather than the seat across from her, as would likely be the case if they belonged to someone sitting there.

The thing that gets me is that I didn’t try to sit across from her, or beside her, but across from her, three seats down from her, when she tried to dissuade me. It’s like on the T—people generally don’t sit right next to one another, rump to rump. If I have the choice of sitting right between two people or standing, usually I stand. I understand people sort of claiming the space on either side of them, when space allows, but you can’t claim two spaces or three spaces either side of you when it’s packed in like this, and why on earth would you need to? I mean, if you want that kind of space, rent a freakin room.

Opa! she just flipped her long, curly locks, in a rather dramatic gesture—maybe that’s what she needs all that space for.

5:19. Nearly two hours. Gathering up my stuff.

Before I go I ask her, “where’d your friend run off to? Maybe he’s in danger. You should go after him!”

She just snarls in reply.

“Grrr!” I growl back.

But how pathetic is that? When you get stood up by even your imaginary friends?

So, everybody does it, some are just more artful about it than others. I can actually relate to Mohamed better than Heather. This is probably the one place he can hang out and do his thing and not have to worry about people really hassling him. But Heather? That’s just your garden-variety entitlement mentality taken to its logical extreme. Although, she wouldn’t have been here at all if there hadn’t been plenty of other people around to snarl at and deny seatage to. Because what are eight seats to yourself worth when there’s a whole roomful or carful of ‘em? Know what I’m sayin?