Spacekadette

Wow, so much to catch up on! I've forgotten what it's like to be journaling so much. I love it. It's driving me to write, and it's filling a void that Facebook just cannot.

Anyway... pedestrians.

The other night, while I was delivering for GrubHub, I had two very odd pedestrian experiences. You could certainly say that they weren't pedestrian at all.

1) I generally try to avoid the westside when I'm working, though I do get drawn over there from time to time. This time, I had a pickup offer at Cici's at 19th Ave and Montebello, but the delivery destination was going to take me back into uptown, so I accepted it.

I'm following Google navigation and it takes me up 7th Ave, along Solano Park. As I'm driving up 7th Ave, some young adults start to cross in front of me, so I stop. It seemed like they were headed to the park and didn't care about traffic, so ok whatever. But the initial dozen then turned into 20 or 30, and then a full-on mob. At that point I realized that they were certainly not headed to the park, but in fact were walking diagonally, towards me.

Then I noticed one young man, separate from the group, walking slowly backwards in my direction, facing the mob. He keeps walking backwards, never looking back, always facing the mob. As he continues backwards I begin to realize that he's going to back right into my car. I'm sort of frozen at this point, in drive, my foot on the brake, a car behind me, as this man walks backwards closer and closer until... he backs right onto my hood. He puts his hand back to catch himself, rolls slightly to the left to clear me, and never once looks at me or looks back. It was if I wasn't even there other than as an inconsequential object.

The mob continues to pursue him, and begins to also move past my car without much notice. Nobody looks at me, and it's such a slow-speed chase. The whole thing was surreal.

Then, at the end of the block, I see police car's light bar start up and strobing, his siren chirping. It begins heading down the street, towards the commotion, and everyone scatters. The police vehicle pulls into the park, and I pull forward a bit and park, just for a moment to catch my breath. I get out of my car, still running, headlights still on, and look at the front of my car for any damage. It's then I see all of the people on the balconies of the 2nd story apartments to my left, and hear some people directing the police where to go. I decide I can check for damage later, and continue on my way to Cici's. I pickup a meat-lovers pizza and fudge brownies.

2) Later that same night, I'm leaving Gayosso's Mexican Food on McDowell. I went to pick up food but they were closed. I'm on hold with GrubHub, waiting to speak to an agent to let them know that I could not pick up the order. I'm connected via blue-tooth, hands-free, as I drive east out of central Phoenix down McDowell in the right-hand lane.

All of sudden, there is a man in the street RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. He's not crossing the road, he's just THERE. I slam on my brakes, hard, and skid to a stop, literally feet from where he's standing. Luckily the car behind me managed to stop as well, because if it had hit me, I likely would've still hit this man.

The man looks unfazed, and steps up onto the sidewalk. We meet eyes. I'm in shock, but also angry. I yell at him, "WHAT THE FUCK?!?" and honk my horn. The moment is fleeting. As I release the brake I realize that GrubHub support has picked up and the rep has just heard my exclamation. I apologize, suddenly calm, and explain that there was just a guy in the road in front of me.

I advise him that the restaurant was closed. He puts me on hold to confirm, then cancels the order. I continue on my way.

So, I'm in the process of moving my personal writing, day-to-day life stuff, and general energy over hear to Dreamwidth. Let's see if this can become a thing.

I feel more or less invisible over on Facebook these days. I'm not sure if it's their algorithms or just my friends, or a combination of both, but it just feels like trying to talk through a dead mic in a loud room.

I'm not going to deactivate my account, but I will be reducing my engagement. I'll post and share silly stuff, memes, and the like, and I'll use the event calendar, but not much more.

And I'll share posts from Dreamwidth to there, just like I sometimes share Instagram posts to there. But, anything worth writing about should be written here first.

It'll be a transition, but it feels more easily done now than ever.

Testing, testing. Just want to see what this looks like.