Here Are My Wings . . . Please Clip Them

This is just to say: I am an impatient, overly aggressive and just plain bad bicyclist, and the best thing about the transit strike ending is that I am off the road.

So in a sort of holiday spirit, I would like to take the opportunity to apologize to several pedestrians whom I scolded or cursed at. (NB: This in no way releases you from what at the time were obvious, inexcusable transgressions — it’s just to admit that my response was perhaps excessive.) Please note the following:

• To the middle-aged woman in the black overcoat at 60th Street and Park Avenue on the morning of December 21, 2005 at whom I yelled “Lady, get out of the way!” — I’m sorry, I really should have just slowed down and allowed you to cross against the light; and being stressed out that morning still does not excuse me from sneering “Hey, Lady” at you.
• To the middle-aged gentleman at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue on the evening of December 21, 2005 — “Get the fuck out of the way!” was perhaps an overly aggressive way to express what I really felt, which was something more along the lines of, “Please take care not to walk directly in front of a long line of bicyclists trying to cross the street, particularly when you are walking against the light.”
• To the group of three pedestrians at 60th Street and Park Avenue on the morning of December 22, 2005 at whom I yelled, “Get out of the way!” — while actually speeding up — I apologize; even though (again) you were crossing the street against the light, in speeding up to almost hit you I was perhaps acting too aggressively.
• Finally, to the near-elderly woman in the black fur coat at 59th Street and Third Avenue on the evening of December 22, 2005 who was crossing against the light — the one at whom I yelled “Lady, get out of the way” and who snapped something indecipherable at me — I am sorry for making the extra effort to turn around while I was almost through the intersection and yelling “fuck you”; yelling “fuck you” is probably never justified, especially when I wasn’t exactly sure what you said, and especially because yelling obscenities at the elderly is rude, unseemly behavior.

That said, I am emphatically unapologetic about flipping off the idiot in the blue minivan who drove right in front of me at 45th Avenue and 23rd Street in Queens. In fact, I would have yelled, too, were it not for the fact that he could not hear me. To you, Sir — Watch out for bicyclists, you stupid moron.