Walker

If you ask me to take a walk with you, 99.999% of the time, that is, unless I have somehow shattered every bone in each leg, I will say, "Yeah! Sure! Okay!" Then, as you are finishing your first blink since my answer, I will reappear in front of you dressed in my walking clothes, limbered up and ready to go. I will also have on my spectacular-looking Nike running shoes. Although these shoes are officially for runners, I bought them anyway since they look so good.

Please do not think that as we walk, I will deign to wait for you if you dilly dally. When I say I am a walker, I do not mean stroller, ambler, meanderer. My arms swing, my legs stretch, and I GO. It is my primary form of exercise and it feels so good, that even when my big toe begins to hurt or a blister forms, I do not stop nor slow down. If you want stimulating conversation while we walk, you may have to have it out of breath; I ain't no sissy walker and neither will you be when I am done with you.

One spring morning in 2001 I was walking through my new neighborhood. We had bought our house in Berwyn and I was booking down the streets, checking out my new surroundings. I heard the ticking of a ten-speed bike behind me. I didn't look back though I moved to the right so the biker could pass. At the same time the ticking came upon me, there was a hand on my ass, squeezing it. As the offender passed, I pushed him as hard as I could, trying to knock him down, but only succeeding in helping him to go even faster. When I got home I called the police and one came right over, took a report. As far as I know the big jerk is probably still grabbing asses all over the Chicagoland area.

Not long after that, while the streets of Berwyn were in various states of tear-up, waiting for their new pipes or whatever, I leaped across a gravelly ditch trying to make it across the street without disrupting my serious gait. It was damp outside from a previous rain and I slipped, falling into the ditch and banging up my legs quite severely. I bled all the way home, had to pick rocks out of my shins, and still suffer the scars today.

When I am walking east in the early evening and the sun is casting my shadow in front of me, I am entranced. I enjoy the statuesque me, eight feet tall, 125 pounds, slimly curvaceous. But when the sun does its opposite trick and I become squat: 2'1" and 369 pounds, that is fun to see, too.

So, let's take a walk some time. I am always looking for company.