i didn't document what i saw before the walk. i just stood there helpless kind of praying over a fellow cyclist and neighbor struck down in the exact spot i was assaulted by an autopilot who threatened me in her car and then got out and knocked my glasses off when i kicked her car. i don't know what the proper response to such a threat is, but i have to respond, though often it's just someone not really mentally present or careful driving a deadly weapon. still the air of menace is in the street everywhere. and the barriers they placed at intersections just make a bottleneck that makes cyclists even more vulnerable. i saw this guy laying on the street in combat fatigues, very still, his face to the pavement, then in spasms, trying to move or convulsing, putting his face on the shoes of a woman stopped to help. i was still shaking when i got mister and hugged him. when something tragic happens we reach for someone and give thanks we're ok. there's no safety or peace in the human world. the air of threat is omnipresent. so we come to harold park and look in the kiddie park to see the circle where the play ship was removed, and leaving i see an old menace, the tennis menace who took me to court when i stopped a dog attacking barney and he verbally attacked me from the tennis court. this was years ago. he had a small mob and he threatened to beat me with his raised metal tennis racket. i was so intimidated i didn't even raise counter-charges. this is part of our vulnerability. people of no understanding siccing the law. one cop this morning started bullying a woman helping the cyclist and threatening to arrest her if she didn't leave. she said i'm not leaving and i said she's helping! you can't arrest someone for helping someone! but i was getting late for mister. so back to the tennis menace, i was still shaking, and he was looking at me again with menace, the only way he'll ever look. i was waiting for him to say something and he did, he said don't take my picture, which i had not thought of, but when he said that he did, on instinct, because if he assaulted me i wanted to have a record. so that's a block of words and you have enough to read and think about but i'm mainly saying this to collect myself and my thoughts and go on trying to walk in peace in an increasingly insane and menacing world. sometimes i want to disappear, and i go home between walks to decompress. the air is so heavy with traffic and gentrification and the building human threat out there.