Over the weekend, longtime S.F. resident Hillary Lannan — who happens to be the sister of Looking creator Michael Lannan — posted this piece to Medium in order to express her rage over an incident that occurred a week ago Saturday, one block from her Mission apartment. As she begins, "I’ve stopped saying I was mugged. Because that’s not what happened."

She goes on to describe a situation that's probably sadly too familiar to many women walking alone in this city — and not unlike all the annoying, semi-threatening cat calling described by another local woman just last week in an informal, data-driven study. She had been walking home alone in the early morning hours of Saturday, October 4, and thought she'd be safe enough not to call a car since it was only a four-block walk. And, she says, before she got attacked one block from home, she'd already endured harassment from some other random guys in the previous three blocks.

The harassment happens every day and every night, but that night felt especially aggressive. A group of men near the bodega. Another group congregated on the retaining wall. A wasted crust punk wants to fist-bump me in the crosswalk. I’d had it. I thought to myself, “I wonder if I can condense my rage in to 140 characters?” Perhaps one of the more San Franciscan thoughts I’ve ever had.

And then I saw them, in the last half-second, in the last block to go before the safety of my gate. Two men running at me full speed from the side. The harassment is infuriating for all women, but this is your worst nightmare. They never said a word as they picked me up and threw me on the ground, made a half-hearted effort for my computer bag and the phone in its pocket. They didn’t even notice my jewelry. They grabbed my crotch as I was pinned on the ground then ran to a waiting car as I spewed and screamed expletives I didn’t even know I knew. (And I know a lot of expletives.) I even chased them out of pure rage and adrenaline. (Stupid, I know. Save the lecture.)

Lannan goes on to relay stories of other less violent but also unsettling incidents in the previous days, and how it can sometimes feel impossible to explain to men what such situations feel like. As she tells SFist, "I had an eye-opening conversation with one of my dearest male friends about what had happened. Our IM conversation actually served as the framework for what I ended up publishing. He just had no idea how pervasive street harassment is, what it feels like, or how women he knows have internal conversations with themselves multiple times a day about their own safety in every day situations. He had no idea that total strangers telling women to smile on the street is a thing, because it doesn't happen to him and it doesn't happen when he's around."

Lannan tells us she filed a police report and has an SVU detective assigned to her case, but she has yet to speak to this person.

It's a good read. And everybody needs to be careful out there.