Well, friends, it's been a while, hasn't it! I've had a crazy couple of weeks resulting in not a lot of walking and a LOT of eating, which in turn translated to not a lot of blogging. But I'm BACK.
I'm having a hard time with this "spending money" part of the 3-Day. I know, I know, I need good shoes, I need a good pack, I apparently need some schmancy socks, and I DEFINITELY need a lot of sunscreen. Unfortunately, the combination of my less-than-desirable income and my more-than-expensive city makes this a liiiittle difficult to rationalize. This results in me spending about 8.5 hours of my 9 hour work day shopping online for said items, only to succumb to either my frugality or my indecisiveness (or both!) and give up. I want to make sure I have the absolutely definitely totally completely PERFECT items, because I can't afford to try them all out until I find the lumbar pack of my dreams. I was so thrilled when @the3day retweeted my plea for lumbar pack advice, but then it ended up confusing me more!! I think I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and make decisions and just deal with it...but not before I ask my fellow walkers for their advice this weekend. We're doing a 16 miler from Penn Station to Brooklyn and back on Saturday! Holla!
After a few rough waking-up mornings I'm back to walking to work, which is delightful. I stopped and got some fruit on my walk this morning, and discovered not one, but TWO free sample stands - one for Simply Orange OJ (my fav!) and one for some Quaker cereal something (they gave me four boxes. Hey free breakfast for days!). As I stood there debating my chances of successfully stealing a bottle of OJ, I looked up and discovered this:
So apparently this artist, Kate Gilmore, was commissioned to create this piece of art, entitled Walk the Walk. It consists of exactly what you see: a yellow box with 10 women on top - not actresses, not models, just women - walking around for 10 hours per day. I am obsessed. I usually get annoyed with artsy fartsy stuff like this, but it was kind of amazing to see these women walking around on this platform, emanating exactly what was going on around them...tons and tons of women, myself included, walking to work wearing some variation of this exact outfit and expression. As the article states, the "performers" stomp and march at will and do not speak, but rather express themselves in their walking patterns. More than watching the performers, though, I relished in watching the people watching the performers. From the hipsters standing and nodding knowingly in their skinny jeans to the tourists shaking their heads and saying "only in new york" to the hardcore New Yorkers determined to ignore it to prove their indifference...it was fascinating. I like to think I was a combination of all three. I chuckled knowingly, snapped a pic on my BlackBerry, then continued walking to work.
I discover beauty on every single walk I take in this city, whether it's in art, nature, or another human. That's pretty sweet.
Speaking of beauty, Chicago theatre lost an amazing actor today in Guy Adkins. I didn't know him as many of my friends did, but I was lucky enough to grow up watching his performances. He was and will continue to be an inspiration.
LOVE and art,
KFine
P.S. I am SO CLOSE to 50%! Time to step it UP! http://www.the3day.org/goto/kafine
You certainly don't need to spend that much money on a pack! My teammate a few years ago bought an Eddie Bauer pack from Target for less than $20 and she loved it. It was roomy and comfortable and didn't give her any problems. I've also seen Camelbak style packs at Filene's basement for about $20 as well. But don't skimp on the sneakers. Those are important.
ReplyDeleteI love hearing about your walks through NYC. It makes me feel like I'm there!
~ Kristen