Walk

I couldn't spend one more day sitting at the table studying. I had to get outside today. I mean, I studied, but then around 6 pm I went outside and walked. It was a slow, ordinary walk, not some mad Olympic track and field race. I just cruised along. I passed my neighbors' PVC fence with the rails that are always falling down. I passed some bamboo that has rapidly raced through the area and is threatening my own neighborhood.

I don't know who the idiot who planted that crap is, but if I find them I'm going to stab them to death with bamboo!

I passed the neighbor with the dogs that always leap through their barbed wire fence and chase me when I jog. And I noticed that the pretense of fence was gone - no posts and no barbed wire - and so were the dogs.

I passed the neighbor who owns about 5 acres and saw him and his 2 dogs walking around in his garage. His German shepherd usually comes out and runs along with me when I'm jogging past, or biking. He loves to have someone to chase. And as long as the batteries in his shock collar keep him from actually getting at me I'm fine with that. He never barks and looks mean. He just seems terribly excited to chase me. I even speed up sometimes just to make it more fun for both of us.

I passed the bridge where trashy people go to dump their garbage into the stream. There was furniture down there. And a gigantic bag of some sort. Petroleum was leaking from the bag in a rainbow-colored wisp that flowed from it. I don't know what was in the bag, but it was doing a bang-up job of polluting the crap out of the stream. The obligatory truck tires were in the water. I walked on.

I came to a smaller bridge and stopped to look into the water before turning around. Someone had dumped things here, too. There was a head gasket for a car engine with 4 distinct cylinders. There was a digital ignition box halfway in the water. And there was a truck axle. What the heck?? This was a low bridge. The water wasn't deep. From the top of the bridge to the bottom of the little stream probably wasn't 3 feet. But somehow someone had managed to dump all their spare parts here from a truck they had either totaled or rebuilt, I don't know which.

At this point I turned back and walked on home. I wasn't in a hurry. I took my time. By the time I reached home I think I had walked about 4 miles at the most.

But my legs felt weak and tired, as if I had run those 4 miles instead of cruising along at a leisurely walk.

I am in TERRIBLE shape.