while curses load the air he breathes

[freckles_and_doubt]

There's that annoying little intersection near our home, where there's a stop street to the access road before the main yield to the major road. I always stop at the stop street, because cars tend to peel off madly from the main road and dive diagonally into the access road in front of me without warning. So yesterday I paused in my usual restrained and law-abiding sort of fashion according to my Lawful Good, and the complete idiot in a souped-up Corolla with a black paint job and mag wheels came roaring up behind me and overtook me at the stop street as I was pulling off. I slammed on anchors enough to miss him, probably with centimetres to spare, and engaged in a few seconds of extremely unladylike behaviour during which hooting, shouted imprecations and the employment of the middle finger may have featured. (I am a little tense at the moment, because work, but also because I am not driving legally and a collision would ramify into serious nastiness).

There is a point to this anecdote other than bloody bad drivers - bloody bad drivers are a fact of life and hardly worthy of comment. The point is that I drove behind this idiot for the next five or ten minutes in traffic, addressing to him an angry monologue which cast aspersions wholesalely on his ancestry, personal hygiene, mental processes, life choices, taste and moral standing, with added hand gestures and a considerable degree of non-Wiccan-approved ill-wishing which with any luck will cause all four of his fancy tyres to explode just in time for his car to be stolen while his wife leaves him for a rally driver and the police ticket him for dangerous driving. The fun thing is that he was doing exactly the same thing to me. I could see his hands waving, and he kept glaring at me in his rear-view mirror as I lurked behind him mouthing abuse. We were having this sort of virtual, abstracted shouting match which was actually weirdly satisfying despite being completely intangible and disconnected. As road rage responses go, it was relatively non-destructive, although beautifully illustrative of that strange power-trip driver thing where it's automatically the other person's fault. (It was totally his fault. I mean, really. What was he angry about? that I stopped at a stop street? good grief.)

Work is hell, I am utterly exhausted and still somewhat husky, and I am responding to the dear gazelles by mutating into a grumpy grizzly bear. Life is full of seething hordes of people who don't read my notices, something I take personally. Even the advisors are doing it. There is frustration. But after this week things settle down and I may once again be human. librsa just gently pointed out that I'm hardly blogging and not seeing anyone, which I fear is to be expected at this time of year. I will send up flags when humanity is restored.

Comments

[carlo kruger (from livejournal.com)]

http://f.kulfoto.com/pic/0001/0027/x407026615.jpg

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Zen detachment is a useful skill in a driver. I thought this was just a London thing, but apparently not.

[veratiny.livejournal.com]

I find cycle rage intriguing...I frequent a part of the city (different to the genial, treed environment where I actually live...although given the frequency I spend there I am beginning to wonder where I do actually live!)not dissimilar to Obs--from there I cycle to work. The suburb in questions is infused with bearded (or hairy arm-pitted for the ladies), worm-farm possessing, vegetarian, bike owning free-cycle sorts...and there is often bike traffic. Up to 50 bikes at intersections...seeing bearded "lovers not fighters" getting swear-ry at each other for cutting off, failure to indicated, not like the cut of someones jib is an exhilarating way to start the day...

Much more up close and personal bike path-rage...