To the fellow who was crossing the street yesterday evening around nine PM:

It is true, I was turning left as you were crossing the street. However, I did see you. I was turning left quite slowly, as traffic was a bit thick and the only reason I could turn was that a nice person in a black BMW had stopped to allow me that chance. I saw you as I started the turn, which is why I was turning slowly; at no point did I touch you, or even come close to you.

At least, not until after you had started yelling "whoa, whoa, whoa!" and glaring at me. And even then I did try to let you know I had seen you, and had been in the process of stopping. You were, after all, crossing the street from right to left; you were most of the way across the lane into which I had to place my car, so I assumed you would be out of it shortly. Therefore I was turning left slowly, and would have stopped if you had still been in that lane - or would have rolled through slowly if you kept moving.

But you insisted on yelling at me, and when I answered that I had seen you, you started screaming "Oh, you saw me? You SAW me?" and getting very angry indeed. I believe I called out that I would have stopped, but you were starting to scare me. I had my driver's side window open and did not wish to find out exactly how scary you were, so I kept rolling rather than trying to explain or answer or defend myself. The fact that you slammed your hand down on the roof of my car hard enough for me to feel as I went past did absolutely nothing for my impression of you as a human being who was safe enough to shout an explanation to.

I freely admit that on the remaining half-mile of the journey home I got sufficiently angry and upset at you that I randomly slammed on my brakes, but I made sure that no one was in front of me, behind me, or anywhere near me first. I did it for but a moment, and I did it alone. I put no one in danger and did not act aggressively towards anyone by so doing, and I felt guilty immediately afterwards. I drove the rest of the way home with a willful, concentrated effort at remaining calm and aware of my surroundings.

I hope you enjoyed your moment of pedestrian road rage, because you scared the hell out of me. For your sake I hope you never have to walk anywhere in Manhattan.

*pant pant pant* *phew*

Opened web email box.

$5 off coupon for yesasia.com - fair, I filled out their survey last week, they said they'd send it.
Welcome to citibank.com - also fair, I just re-registered my credit card so I can pay my Visa bill online; I had an online payment arrangement with them before but have forgotten the password.
We've received Once A Thief, rate it now - that's fine, Netflix does that.
Alaska Airlines - Important Schedule Change Notification - aaaaaack!

Turned out not to be a change in day or a cancellation of flight. It was Alaska Air saying that my flight home would be leaving Fairbanks later than previously scheduled. Which is okay, because that means I don't have to be at Fairbanks International Airport at a truly obscene hour, just a moderately disgusting one. I just tend to get freaked out easily by travel arrangements; until I am ACTUALLY ON THE LAST PLANE OF THE JOURNEY I am never entirely certain that I am going to get to where I need to be. I'm not afraid of flying - I'm afraid of being told "oh yes! you're going to Iowa!" when I've bought a ticket for Texas, or something similar. Hence the Red Cross Alaska Disaster nightmare.

I feel better now.

This was supposed to be a writing exercise,

but I wound up unable to start it the way I was supposed to. Just consider this a clip from the hard SF stuff I'm working on - and a way of warding off the occasional mood swings I get when I don't do anything properly creative.

( The main character and his best friend just set off a model rocket that exploded Real Damn Good. No, it's not supposed to make sense on its own - I wrote this more for me than anything else. )