Just got back and cracked a Revolver Blood and Honey, mildy erasing any gains. But damn it’s good.
Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
My step count has increased, no longer confined to a daily 10k, my goal became the five mile mark which roughly ends up being about 11,610 of my steps.
Hooking a left, heading east down a street that I only recently discovered that it did not have a streetlight. My street is a network of streets that have only one streetlight per block. Somehow there should be more, but we’re not affluent enough to justify it.
Heading south into the light industrial park, the rigs line up waiting to unload. With no sidewalks and rigs lining both sides of the road, my walking space is compressed, and I find myself ready to dive under a trailer should an approaching car round the curve.
Back west again, I cross the main road, past some more light industrial past the three story “Apartment Homes” with sagging fences and trash strewn around. Actually that’s a lot of my city, there’s a lot of trash. Now I understand why people think it’s a dirty city, and it kind of is I suppose. It’s a city stuck between two bigger cities that overexpanded leaving a lot of empty lots open ….. that collect trash.
Past the second three story “Apartment Homes”. These are nicer. The security fences are straight up and down vertical, there’s a dog park and a path that winds around the perimeter. I’m still outside the fence though. My ex and daughter lived there for a spell, so I know what the insides are like, nice, but not super nice.
Doglegged it north again, past the empty field and the also empty call center that Chase used to employ a few hundred collections agents.
South again, I change direction after I see some youths (“yutes”) coming at me from the north. Less intimidation, I’m my own man when it comes to walking. If I want to go south….damn it, I go south.
Loop back East again, behind the car dealership where they’re blasting music and the sales force is goofing around in the lot. The mechanics are calling it a day and walking out with me. In a feat to impress me (I think) one of them smokes his mustang’s tires which leaves a huge cloud near the dealership. There’s another field, except it’s got cars lined up in it. Rows and rows of new cars in this field. I quick counted around 20 chargers. I wonder who watches that field at night?
Because of the winding road, I’m more or less back at the apartments. I head East, past the barber shop that I occasionally go to. He’s got a small farm, moved there before any subdivisions had been created around him. His plots of land were surrounded but he didn’t give up. I don’t go there much, but it’s a timing thing rather than any lack of ability.
In I go to the local Shell. I’m palest of pale and I get the feeling that everyone scopes me out when I walk in, but my shoulders are square and I’m standing up straight. I buy my gatorade and walk out, back into the neighborhood.
When I first started walking, I realized how little people walk any more. My city is not necessarily “dangerous” although for some reason it has that repuatation. The people that I walk by are just as wary of me as I am of them. A nod of the head, a “hey”, and we move on out of each others lives.
I need a dog to walk with me.
