I’ve been riding my bicycle to The Paris Review. It’s been great. It’s the perfect distance, and I’m so happy my commute no longer involves Times Square. Canal Street, in comparison, is like a breeze. (And I always identified with the protagonist’s wife in “Netherland.” She felt a dread about commuting to Times Square after 9/11; the recent bomb attempt only makes that fear feel more real.)

Recently, I’ve been experiencing what I’ll call encounters on the Lafayette Street bike lane on my way home. The first is not worth mentioning. The second I found pretty funny.

It was late, maybe eight or eight thirty, and as I’m hauling myself up Lafayette, this white guy on a track bike with massive dreadlocks coasts next to me. “Shit,” he says to me. “It’s not raining, is it?”

I look up and see the clouds in the sky; I feel a little fuzz of rain in the air. “Think so,” I say. We’re pedaling in tandem.

“Just what I needed,” he says. Then he pulls ahead and calls out, “See you later!” He pedals off.

A little farther along, I catch up to him.

“Damn,” he says. “You’re fast on that old clunker.”

“Yeah,” I say. I laugh. It’s true–it’s a heavy bike.

“What’s your name?”

“Thessaly.”

“What?”

“Thessaly. Like with a T.”

“Thessaly. Cool. I’m _____. The famous bike messenger.” We pass Astor Place now, and some pedestrians are standing in the street. “WATCH OUT,” I scream at them. We’re moving quickly. The pedestrians jump back onto the curb, startled.

“Man,” he says. “The best is when they have shopping bags and their arms are raised, and you just go right under them and say, ‘Olé!’ They love that.”

I concede that would be a good trick. He’s got me laughing.

“Well,” I say. We’re by 10th Street. “I’m turning off soon. Nice to meet you ______ the famous bike messenger.”

“Do you live around here?”

“I do.”

“If you ever need some pot,” he says, “I do a door-to-door delivery service.” He reaches into his messenger bag. “Here,” he says, handing me a card as we’re both pedaling up Fourth Avenue. “That’s my buddy’s number but if you ask for me, he’ll be cool.”

I’m a little nervous I won’t be able to take the card as I’m pedaling–we’re both moving pretty quickly–but somehow, I manage to do it without looking like a dork. “Thanks,” I say.

“Later!” he calls, and he pushes off and bikes away.

Or rather, next, next year.

Or never!

I’ve started to use Google Wave on a daily basis, and already I have a list of complaints. I’ll probably update this, but for now:

• Notification: It’s funny, really, since Google must know that I’m not going to give up my other forms of online communication for their new tool. I am still very dependent on Gmail, chat, and Twitter. It’s annoying there is no outside-the-Wave notification system to alert me that a Wave has been updated or I have been invited to new one. So the best thing you can do is send someone an email saying, “Check your Wave.” Ultimately, someone recommended I try Waveboard, which is helpful, but it’s only available for Macs and iPhones. This is something that should be built into the system. Ideally, I’d like to be pinged by Wave.

• Linking: This builds on my first complaint. If I want someone in a Wave, I have to invite them through Wave. But because notification is only within Wave, and because, realistically, I still primarily rely on email and chat, there is no way to link a Wave to people outside it. I can’t send a chat to someone with a link to a particular Wave. In other words, say I want to alert my co-workers that I have started a new Wave to work on a project with a short deadline. I’ve already invited them, and I know they’re at their desk. They haven’t responded because maybe they’re on email or maybe they’re on the phone. Wave should allow me to have a link to a particular thread so I can chat or email someone and say, “Hey, please join this discussion. I need your input now.” Instead, as the current system works, they have to go to Wave and then find particular Wave I want them to work on, and click on it. This is inefficient!

• Read/Unread: Wave has this annoying bug/feature, where you have to click every single update in the thread before it becomes unread. That is tedious, and ignores the fact that often, when you’re catching up, you skim, since a lot of issues may be resolved by the time you jump in. As someone who is meticulous about keeping Inbox Zero, I have been forced to click “read” on every wave, even though I have already opened and scrolled through it.