[Written Thursday.]

With a little more distance from what happened on Tuesday night, I feel like I can do a better job of writing about it. I’m feeling my usual self today, except for being sore and tired.

It was scary. My previous crash was solo; the only impact was me and the ground. Actually having someone else hit me was frightening. The fact that I didn’t lose consciousness this time (in retrospect, having experienced this, I think I must have last time) in a way made it even more scary, because in the tenths of a second that encompass the impacts I got not only “Oh shit, I’m going to fall” but “Oh shit I just hit my head on the pavement this can’t be good”, followed quickly by “I have to get up and get out of the road.” It seems strange describing my thoughts that way because at the time I wasn’t thinking in words. I think I don’t usually anyway, but the words usually come right after the thought so that I don’t notice the distinction as much.

I know I saw him before he hit me, but I didn’t realize that he was heading for me. But something must have made me turn around because otherwise I would have fallen on my side. Did I just realize he was too close? I don’t know. Getting up, I felt at several removes from the world. I remember being asked if I was okay and saying “I think so”. My head felt terrible, really banged on. M helped me up. There was a homeless guy who kept trying to lead me over to the side of the road, which wasn’t really all that helpful or charming to start with, but it got worse when he then was insistently asking for money. I just hit my head on the pavement, for goodness’ sake. Go away.

The biker introduced himself as Patrick. (By the way, if you are Patrick, please contact me.) Strangely, we shook hands and he offered to buy me a drink. Tip to people who hit other people in traffic and injure them: this is not a good tactic. If I’d been 100% mentally agile at the time I would have told him to bug off, what a stupid thing to offer to do, I don’t need a drink, I need medical attention. Instead, offer your contact information (because they’re hurt and might forget to ask for it) and ask if you can get them some water or call the police or ambulance. I didn’t need an ambulance, but the police would have been handy, although on my own account I decided I’d rather get to sleep sooner than call them.

I didn’t realize I was actually bleeding until we were walking back to the car, although it wasn’t exactly surprising, and it wasn’t much. It’s just never fun to put your hand to your head and have it come away with blood on it. When we got back I washed my head and slept very carefully. There are few times in my life I’ve been so glad to sleep.

I thought this post might have some jokes in it, but it doesn’t. It sucks to get hit in the street by someone violating traffic laws. It hurts, it makes you feel scared later (I yelled at a cyclist in Menlo Park to get off the sidewalk so loudly and far in advance that he actually did, which was a good thing because I was highly upset). For me, it’s made it impossible to ride this week because my head hurts too much. As of today (Sunday) the scab seems to be gone, but my head is still very tender. Officially, the x-ray was normal, so I guess it’s just bruising. I’ve been really exhausted too. I slept 12 hours Friday and 10 hours last night and at least 8 on all the other intervening nights, and I’m still tired and I didn’t even do anything today.

In other news, Comcast sucks. You can sign up for new services on the website, but not cancel your old ones. Do they think it’s not completely obvious that this is a scam to get more money from you?