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Note to the World
14/6/10 08:56I read when I walk.
Not only that: I am less likely to trip when I read--perhaps because I'm always peripherally scanning as I go. I have read while I walked for most of my life--certainly when I was a teenager with a half-mile of dirt road between our house and the school bus. Certainly while going to class in college (unless I was walking with someone; that would be rude). When I lived fifteen blocks from work in Cambridge, MA--read on my way to work. And during lunch, on my way to the store my boyfriend was managing, read then, too. Walked all over New York, reading. Moved to San Francisco; read on my way to the dogpark and back; read read read. Of course it's not good for my posture.
Of course I miss the wonders of the Muni or the sunny Mission street I'm walking down, or the chance to interact with the dog (who never gets any interaction, not one little smidge, cause she is soooo unloved). But I read and get my exercise, which you'd think would be all virtuous and full of win.
And people I walk past, or who pass me in cars, seem moved to comment. "Hey lady, you're reading!" has been yelled at me more than once, as if this behavior is something I simply hadn't noticed in myself. Some people ask, with false admiration, "don't you ever bump in to things?" (Less than when I don't have a book, thanks.) And some people scold me--a 56-year-old woman with all the markers of middle-class respectability about me--with real distress, as if I were not picking up after the dog or slashing someone's tires.
I guess what I'm wondering is why this fairly innocuous activity makes other people so anxious that they have to address a complete stranger? Is it really so sinister? le sigh.
Not only that: I am less likely to trip when I read--perhaps because I'm always peripherally scanning as I go. I have read while I walked for most of my life--certainly when I was a teenager with a half-mile of dirt road between our house and the school bus. Certainly while going to class in college (unless I was walking with someone; that would be rude). When I lived fifteen blocks from work in Cambridge, MA--read on my way to work. And during lunch, on my way to the store my boyfriend was managing, read then, too. Walked all over New York, reading. Moved to San Francisco; read on my way to the dogpark and back; read read read. Of course it's not good for my posture.
Of course I miss the wonders of the Muni or the sunny Mission street I'm walking down, or the chance to interact with the dog (who never gets any interaction, not one little smidge, cause she is soooo unloved). But I read and get my exercise, which you'd think would be all virtuous and full of win.
And people I walk past, or who pass me in cars, seem moved to comment. "Hey lady, you're reading!" has been yelled at me more than once, as if this behavior is something I simply hadn't noticed in myself. Some people ask, with false admiration, "don't you ever bump in to things?" (Less than when I don't have a book, thanks.) And some people scold me--a 56-year-old woman with all the markers of middle-class respectability about me--with real distress, as if I were not picking up after the dog or slashing someone's tires.
I guess what I'm wondering is why this fairly innocuous activity makes other people so anxious that they have to address a complete stranger? Is it really so sinister? le sigh.
