I went to the doctor recently for a general checkup. Collarbones are straight, no weird bumps or growths, I can cough properly with my head turned either direction, and my heartbeat is as steady as it should be. Everything was fine. It had just been ages (the early summer before spending a week at Triple R Ranch when I was twelve or thirteen, I think), so I figured that having health insurance was a good enough reason. (Next up: tooth cleaning and an eye exam. If you know of other fun things to do with insurance that pays at 100%, I'd welcome your suggestions. Just, please, no more tetanus boosters.) Regarding my exercise and diet, Dr. Carr was really happy to hear that I walk back and forth to work just about every day. It's only a mile and a half, and it only takes about a relaxed twenty minutes, but he was satisfied and said he wished more people would do it. It almost makes me want to reacquire a taste for the unhealthy things I was eating a few years ago.
We moved to Redmond on September 28th, a few days after selling my car and dropping our insurance premium by nearly half. We showed up with about a quarter tank of gas, and just yesterday, we filled up for the third time since moving here. That works out to a tank of gas about every three-odd weeks.
I used to work at an advertising company in Lynchburg. It was only for a few months, actually, but every morning when I got up to be there by 8 AM, I thought about the Classic American Workday and how it was only right and proper. So right, in fact, and so proper, that "the 9 to 5" is a euphemism for pretty much any job that doesn't pay by the hour. It was irritating to be forced into an 8 to 5 arrangement, even though tons of people do it and not every job looks like Rob Petrie's. I arrived bleary-eyed and half asleep every morning a few minutes before eight and waited in the hallway until a few minutes after eight when the first person with a key showed up to let me in. What I needed was not a 15-minute drive with BBC cricket scores confusing me to death. I needed a twenty-minute walk in the grey morning air, past the stretch that is particularly redolent of pine, to my cup of green tea and bowl of cereal. (I keep a bag of Life or granola or whatever on my bookshelf at work and take advantage of the free milk and bowls and spoons every morning.) It's refreshing, and it makes me feel awake and capable of thought.
An interesting thing about this walk is the opportunity to see a limited cross section of my Redmond neighbors. I say "neighbors" in a very large sense, of course, and "cross section" in a very small one. Some of the more noticeable items:
- Everyone who is anyone runs red lights at this intersection,
and if you don't, then you're out of the club. That is Redmond Way/E. Lake Sammamish Pkwy./180th Ave. It's a weird intersection with long red lights, so when people get a green, they get impatient and run through it on yellow as well as the first couple of cars after red. Keep your eyes open and you're fine, but if you trust the little white "Walk" symbol and charge out into the intersection as soon as it turns, you will be clipped off at the knees by an Audi or limited edition BMW, or at the hips by a foreign-made SUV. And then you can sue for the down payment value of a house around here. - The short Hispanic guy in the bright orange rain coat. I like that coat. And not in an it-looks-terrible-and-makes-me-laugh way, either. I genuinely think it's cool.
- The Hispanic-looking lady waiting for the school bus with the Asian-looking kindergarten/possibly first grade student, who looks as eager as she does sleepy. Maybe he goes to Einstein Elementary...
- All of the other normal people that I can figure out are either running late or early based on where I pass them on my walk. And of course, sometimes I'm a minute or two ahead of or behind schedule. I like seeing how variable it is.
But it is number five that really has my attention and makes me think I am possibly a creepy person. Oh, number five (except Blogger made it say "1" instead)!
- The tall, very casually dressed and cheerful-looking employee of somewhere close by.
I have to tell you about this guy. I'm going to say 6-foot-4. He always has on a navy blue hoodie and a blank navy blue baseball cap. And the most memorable thing is that out from under this blank navy blue baseball cap is (not peeking out, but exploding) a mass of the most curly and thick black hair I have ever seen on a caucasian. It's his defining feature.
Now, I could pass someone like this once, and be like, "Nice hair..." and have that be the end of it. But for some reason, because I pass this guy, about my age, moving about as quickly, looking about as pleased to be walking, every morning, I think, every time I do, "Where are you off to, guy that would likely be my friend if we worked together or took a class together or something?" And that gives me suspicions about my creepiness. And then I think, "I must find out." And that confirms my suspicions. All I need to do is just go and see this guy putting pizzas out for sale at Whole Foods or grinding beans at Peet's Coffee, and that would be it. "I know where he works, I know where he's headed when I'm going to work. I can move on," I would say. Maybe he works underground. Maybe he's a window washer that was laid off months ago but has an obsessive compulsion to wash the same window every day and they don't want to harm his fragile psyche, so they let him. Maybe his great-grandfather invented the Barc-a-lounger. Maybe he's a professional cheese taster. Maybe he holds the world record for longest continuous kite flying from a seafaring vessel. Do I need to know any of this? No. (Although it is cool that any individual person has wacky, unique stories or traits like this.) I just want to know where the guy's headed, that's all. I am far too curious. I will not will not will not follow him around to find out, either. Except if I pass him on a Saturday when I'm not expected at work, I probably will. (To unsubscribe from this blog, just don't read it anymore.)
I have an excessive back log of material that needs to be mentioned here as soon as possible (I've written this bit here over a period of several days in between other stuff), so stay tuned for Puget Sound maps, musical research, Thanksgiving reporting, and other things that are silly and unnecessary.
Kent
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