Well I'm walkin'...

...yes indeed, and I'm talkin' about my shoes and me, and I'm hopin' that it'll all come back to me...

Walked from the Transbay Terminal down to the Embarcadero and along the waterfront this morning, the first extended stroll I've taken since my attempt to burrow into the earth with my right hip. It was a glorious morning--runners streaking by, seagulls screaming overhead, commuters carrying paper coffee cups and talking on cell phones--and I felt truly blessed. I still feel a little weakness in my hip and my quad, but am very close to healed.

I swam after work yesterday and was pleased to realize that since all I could do was the crawl (no breastroke--too hard on the hips), I had to do the crawl the whole time. And I could do it! Evidently my endurance capacity has stayed reasonably high during this down time. Not long ago I couldn't do the crawl for very long without alternating some other, easier stroke because I just got too worn out. But not last night. Yes I was slow, but did swim (crawl) for 25 minutes straight.

I just looked up crawl on Merriam-Webster online to make sure I had the right stroke in mind, and here's what I found:

1 a : the act or action of crawling b : slow or laborious progress c chiefly British : a going from one pub to another; 2 : a prone speed swimming stroke consisting of alternating overarm strokes and a flutter kick.

I wasn't in a pub (mighta wanted to be), and the going was slow but not laborious, so that leaves definition #2. I'll take it. Even though it says "speed."

Tonight I'm planning to try a short run on a cushioned track. Oh, the excitement.

One not-so-exciting fact is that I have definitely gained three pounds over the last two and a half weeks. Ouch. I felt in need of comfort, so when the donuts called, I answered, come on in, honey. Time to get back on the healthy eating train. Sigh. If I feel less than motivated, I plan to re-read Mark Morford's column from this morning (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?). I often get very uncomfortable reading him, and don't make it to the end. What he writes can be so painfully true, and he often is unbearably smug in his glimmerless pessimism. But today I paid attention. Especially to the part where, in pondering why we as a nation are so fat, he writes this:

I know it is related, furthermore, to the ridiculous American idea of excess and entitlement and supersizing, of deep-fried everything, of a savage detachment from our bodies and the ingredients in our foods, a sort of willful ignorance, all coupled with a voracious hunger for something we've lost, a spiritual vacuity, a lack of true nourishment even as we stuff ourselves to death. I know.

How to fill that spiritual vacuity? Would that I knew. In my left coast mind, of course, I would say the answer is to reconnect with the earth and every living being upon it. Ommm.

Hey, have a great day. Move around a bit and, oh, try not to fall.