People are starting to visit my site now – which is mega cool – but it's making me feel a bit self conscience.  Is my site interesting enough?  More importantly, does it look cool?  These are the thoughts that concern me this fine evening...

First off, I'm not sure about the name of this site.  I've called it, hold on to your hats: "A Walking Blog".  Whoa, man, whoa. Now as awesome as that title is, I kind of want something more catchy, funny, and (especially) sexy. Yet for some strange reason, I can not make "walking" seem/sound sexy. 

Why is this? 

You say, "he drives a sports car" and people will picture a man in a sleek suit behind the wheel of a shiny red vehicle.  And of course ladies just love to drape themselves, in a half naked manner, around nice cars. Now say, "he walks everywhere" and people will picture a hippie.  Or perhaps a homeless man.  

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of our largest obstacles.  Walking lacks sex appeal.  We should change this!  I'm thinking that instead of the usual "no car day" we should do a "walking is sexy too day" where everyone gets to walk around in their hottest outfits.  Who wouldn't be up for that?    

Anyways, if any of you have any ideas that would help me pump up my site, I would be happy to hear them.

PS: For the record, I do think hippies are sexy. 

       
     

I'm doing some reading for class.  Well, I'm trying to do some reading.  My roommates - yay Craig's list! - are a couple and they're presently working out a disagreement.  Loudly.

So I can't concentrate.  But, this one reading is pretty interesting, and since it mentions walking I thought I'd share it.  It's by my professor, R. W. Morris, and the article is called "Beyond Body-Spirit Dualism" (2001).  Here are a few segments:

"The automobile, which Borgmann (1992) aptly refers to as the 'vehicle of modernism' (p.58), has gone a long way in replacing the bicycle and walking – two modes of transportation that put us in direct contact with our bodies and the outside world.  Walking activates all the senses.  It allows us to slow down long enough to see, hear, smell, touch and sometimes even taste.  The car and its supporting cast of gadgets, furthermore, has rendered the body almost superfluous (Le Breton, 200, p.13)..."

"...Even a mundane technology like the automatic garage door opener radically severs the possibility of an embodied relationship with nature.  The price 'is any real relationship to the physical world.  If you live in a suburban home and commute to a parking garage somewhere, that ten seconds opening the garage door might be nearly the only rain you ever feel' (p. 247).  In northern countries like Canada the growing popularity of the remote car starter means that the ten seconds it takes to walk from your home or place of work to your car might be the only cold you ever feel..."

"...The fitness revolution is largely rooted in our ever-increasing preoccupation with the appearance of our bodies.  Taken at face value, this phenomenon seems to indicate an attitude of wonder and care for the human body.  A closer look, however, reveals a new attempt to escape our moral, corruptible and imperfect bodies.  Here our bodies are objects, 'commodious surfaces', to be altered, enhanced, perfected and make forever youthful.  The body is not a friend but rather an enemy to be defeated."

So, let's make friends with our bodies and take them for a walk! 

As well, if you are interested in the topic of body/mind separation, you should check this out:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
It's a lecture by Ken Robinson about schools killing creativity and educating from the head up "and slightly to one side".  A super good talk, funny too. 

(P.S., TED.com is an awesome site) 

My roommates aren't fighting anymore.  They have the music turned up and one of them is singing loudly.  Off tune.      

I just finished writing the research essay that never ends never endingly (Martlet, 2008).  If that sentence made sense to you, good.  That's about the level of brilliance I could muster up for that paper.  

I should try to walk out my "essay butt", but it's pretty late.  Instead I'll write about walking, which is really not the same thing at all but I'm too tired to go to bed. 

Also! I really want to answer my first comment.  Bryce wanted to start a conversation about "how towns are set up for the convenience of cars over that of walkers" (Bryce, 2009). 

I totally see where he's coming from. I think this is especially evident during construction when the construction workers take over the sidewalk instead of the road.  Us poor, freezing pedestrians have to wait for a light, cross the street, wait for a light, cross the street, and finally, wait for a light and cross the street. Aww, look at us, being all cold and having to walk more in the wind and rain while the drivers are not inconvenienced at all...

...but, on the upside, think of the hot leg muscles we're developing with all the extra walking! 

Hey, something cool happened to me when I was going to school today.  This random girl gave me a huge pink rose and said "have a nice day".  Then she walked away.  So I carried the rose from class to class, reveling in the fact that all my classmates thought it was my birthday or something. 

Carrying a rose all day without crushing it is a huge responsibility.  You will be happy to know that the rose survived.  When I finally got home, I put it in water in a tall beer glass (I have no vase.  Classy, I know).  It looks very nice on the table (Murphy, 2009).

Take that, car drivers!  I bet you didn't get a random rose on the street!   
  

   

 

Sunday was a pretty awful day.  I had to make one of those big questionable, life-changing decisions. I made it and ... I felt shitty.  So I was doing the "I feel shitty" walk, which consists of me walking and walking and walking until I feel better (or get hungry).

I was walking in the hope that something would come along and cheer me up, and Montreal, you did not disappoint! 

I was on Rue Saint Laurent, one of the hip-happenen streets in Montreal, and I hear this dance music.  I'm tempted to call it techno, but I'm not sure.  Whatever it was, it was rock'n stuff and I liked it.  I looked around to see what bar the music was coming from and, to my surprise, I saw that it was coming from a bike!  This bike was totally tricked out.  It was covered in lights and on the back there was a fancy speaker blasting out tunes. 

The best part about it all was that the bike was not being ridden by some hipster kid – no - it was controlled by a very normal looking, older gentleman.  Grinning from ear to ear, he just drifted up and down the street, sharing his love of techno to the world.

I felt better.  

It reminded me of this guy I occasionally see when I walk to school.  He's a tough looking kid with a stereo backpack that pumps out rap music.  Whenever I'm behind him, I can't help but to fantasize about sneaking some Jewel music onto his playlist.  Perhaps a little Sarah McLaughlin.  

This post is getting long, but I just want to say that I'm super excited because I got my very first comment!  Thank you, Bryce, for making my day.  I do have a few thoughts on that issue and I will respond!  Maybe even tomorrow (if I can finish my school essay...sigh...).

I was going to get groceries the other day and I passed this man playing the accordion.  I like buskers, they make the streets happy (or romantic, or interesting, or whatever depending on what music they're playing).  So, I threw some coins into his case and struck up a conversation. 

You see, I used to play the accordion.  Well, I used to TRY to play the accordion.  It's a hard instrument!  I was inspired to take it up after being in Argentina.  Buenos Aires has a huge tango scene and tango, I discovered, is a super cool and sexy dance.  I took a few lessons and our instructor said that tango is a walking dance: if you can walk, you can dance tango. 

Here's a video to demonstrate the coolness of tango: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E4mBoGX6Dw&feature=related

So I asked the accordion player if he knew any tango songs, and he played one for me!  And then he followed it with a French song, which was so beautiful it made me want to practice the accordion again.
    

    

Yesterday I bumped into a cute guy.

Ahhhh-yahhhh.

I was walking up to an intersection and I see this guy dressed like a pink bunny.  He was clearly quite drunk and, did I mention, very pink.  It was also the middle of the day. 

His friends were egging him on and I thought, "hey it must be a bachelor party." 

So here I am, innocently waiting for my light to cross the street when one of his friends (a rather hot looking fellow) comes up to me and reads some phrase in French.  It had something to do with pants and I'm pretty sure it was sexual in some way.  My French is bad at the best of times, but when faced with a cute guy reading a sexual phrase in French, I can get pretty confused. 

That's, um, pretty much the whole story.  We chatted and I wished him luck on his mission to intoxicate his friend.  The morel of this story: walking = the possibly of chatting with interesting people (who happen to be hot guys).  

Every week (ahum, or two weeks or so...) I do my laundry.  I don't have a washing machine but the people in the apartment above me do.  They brag about this fact by overloading their machine and flooding our kitchen.  I'm not bitter. 

Anyways, I have to go to the laundromat.  This is where the walking part comes in handy.  I fill a garbage bag full of smelly clothes (right hand) and bring detergent and study notes (left hand) and my purse (shoulder), and then I trek the many blocks to the hot house of weird flowery smells (aka the laundromat).

Today, as I was walking with my arms full of laundry things, a man laughed at me.  Like, really laughed.  At me.  I felt like that dog my brother and I once laughed at because it was ugly to the extreme (the poor thing looked sad and turned it's back on us. I learned that day that laughing at dogs is mean).  I just smiled at the guy and kept walking.  Then I karma hexed him. 

My last laundry adventure was not so much fun either.  For some dumb reason, I let my purse (which should be on my shoulder) slip down to my right wrist.  Then, without me realizing it, the purse dropped onto the cement and I merrily walked away without it. 

Upon arriving at the laundromat, I quickly discovered that my purse was missing.  Dumping my clothes, I raced up and down the streets in a great search.  No purse.  I gave up and hauled my clothes back home (the lady at the laundromat thought I was strange). 

BUT, when I got home I got a phone call from the nice Montreal police.  The day was saved!  My purse had been rescued!  I hurried to their station and learned that Montreal police are nice, as well as very good looking.  Very good looking.     

Okay, so I haven't been so good at this blogging thing.  This is a new/strange concept for me; writing about myself.  Well, I don't really want to write about myself, I want to write about walking.  So I stare at the blank blog screen and think...left...right...left...right.  Which no one wants to read.  (Although, I may resort to that when I run out of things to say).  I really just want to get people walking by showing them that life without a car is interesting and possible (and exciting, and scary, and weird, and safe, and world-saving).   

I was walking the other day and I saw a grown man in a suit intentionally crunching through the leaves on the edge of the sidewalk.  He was by himself, just stamping along, his face a mixture of happy and troublemaker.  When I see interesting people like that I always wonder what it'd be like to visit their home.  What does the home of a suit-wearing leaf cruncher look like?  I bet it's painted yellow.   
    

Hello everyone!

This is my first post, so I'll just say hi.  I hope you all have comfortable walking shoes.