I walk weird.

Ask anyone I know and they'll confirm it. My legs are bowed out and my feet bowed in. 

I think it's from sitting funny growing up. Take this anecdote as scientific evidence:

Future duck trainee.

I was in 3rd grade working in the hallway on a coloring project, or cutting project. Some crafty thing elementary kids busy themselves with while their parents are spending their lives away at their office jobs trying to afford the Kraft Mac and Cheese to put on their kids' plastic Pocahantes themed plates. Anyways, I was sitting funny at the time. Like, reverse Indian Style. Instead of my legs behind folded towards eachother, they were folded out. Imagine sitting with your inner thigh and your inner calf and your inner foot all touching the ground with your legs making a sort of "M" if you were too look at them from above. That was how I sat. A lot.

I remember this distinctly and it haunts me for one very specific reason.

Amanda Moran. She was cool, I thought. She was always really tan and had excellent bone structure. (I often cite people's excellent bone structure, even to this day. That is the biggest compliment I can give to someone. "You have excellent bone structure.") Anyways, sassy sharp-faced Amanda Moran came up to me and said, "You shouldn't sit like that. It'll make you walk like this." And then she proceeded to walk bow legged with her feet turned in, like a duck might walk after horseback riding. See where I'm going with this?

Anyways, I couldn't let the 8 year old Angelina Jolie/Pocohantas girl tell me how to sit, so I ignored her. In fact, I probably said something sassy to her back like a big, "Ha, you're SOOOO wrong! I'll do what I want!" But obviously her words haunt me to this day. Maybe I should have listened to that excellently structured face. Damn her. Damn her and her high cheekbones.

One day I will get over it, but I know I am not over it yet. If I think other people are looking at me walk (even if they are not being judgmental, and even if they are looking at me for a good reason, maybe thinking "daaayum she got a ghetto booty!"), I start walking funnier. It's like it flips a switch in my cylon brain (Re: Battlestar Galactica), and I suddenly lose control over my legs. They just sort of flop and feel like they aren't my legs all of the sudden. I imagine when this cylon switch is flipped I must really look like a duck walking to the pond after riding the horse back to the stable. I'm too scared to ask anyone or take a video of it. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, despite what I may preach.

But even still, I always make a conscious effort when I walk. If I am walking, there's a 75% chance I am thinking about controlling my walking. If you come up to me when I am walking and ask me a question- you probably just interrupted my thinking about walking. How rude. If I ever look pensive when I am walking, I doubt I am thinking about my day or where I am going; I am probably thinking about walking heel-toe with a full straightening of my leg while kicking my feet slightly out at each step. Sound complicated? Well it isn't. I've been thinking about how I walk a lot since 10th grade when it was first pointed out to me by Dary Medina that I walk funny. She tried to help me learn to fix it, but we never fixed it. So that's almost 8 years of thinking about walking. That's a lot. If you see me checking myself out in a mirror/shopping window, don't think I'm being narcissistic; I'm probably just trying to see how funky my legs are looking while I walk. Okay, I may be admiring my ghetto booty.

But I walk less these days. 

That is the ultimate point of this blog.

Up until the summer of 2011, I was POWER walking from rowing practice to class to class to class to rowing practice to work to home every single day for four years. I was always running late so I was always walking realllllly fast, if not running. I know how the professors loved me. I walked in late and thus had to sit in the front row where I then proceeded to fall asleep two feet in front of them while they lectured. This infamous bad habit even led a professor to lecture about not falling asleep as I fought to keep my eyes open... she was standing so close to me I could of held her hand to apologize. ANYWAYS, that is beside the point. But all that power walking to be late to my classroom naps was in addition to working out 1-4 hours 5-6 days a week for 4 years. My breakfast consisted of 4 scrambled eggs, 4 pieces of toast drenched in vegan butter, and a huge bowl of oatmeal saturated with so much sugar it'd kill a diabetic. Or, an entire box of waffles and half a container of syrup, (but real maple syrup, to be healthy of course). Or 3 bowls of cereal.

I could eat.

Now I sit.

I sit all day at my job, and it's unavoidable. I hope to one day get a standing desk, but even that doesn't alleviate it all. I recently got a pedometer to see how much I move during the day. On a normal day without making any extra effort, I'd easily be under 1,000 steps. (Okay, that's a lie. I would force myself to get up from my desk as much as I could, and I still only hit this pitiful number). "They" recommend 10,000 steps, which "they" say is about 5 miles of daily walking. Walking half a mile a day? Less than that? That's two laps on a track. TWO. That's maybe 10 minutes of daily walking. TEN MINUTES. Take a moment and think about how absurd that number is.

Ask anyone that knows me and they'll tell you I'm a workout fiend. I love lifting weights. I love pushing myself. I'm pretty fit and have bigger biceps than most men in my industry who aren't overweight. I deadlift 200 lbs for five reps and hip thrust 275 for ten. I do like 8 chin-ups on a good day, (and maybe that isn't impressive to you but HEY, I'm a girl. We have longer muscles and less testosterone than you men). I like doing sprints and Tabata (google it). I like trying to be active. I am always trying to get a PR (personal record) in everything I do. I'm a stickler for good form, too, or at least I check myself now and then to make sure I'm not chasing PRs at the expense of quality lifts. (I also suck at sports, just to put things into perspective. These damn legs are uncontrollable unless they are strapped in. But we've already gone over that.)

But I also like to eat. 

Get in my belllly!

Desserts. 

This great American Independence holiday I ate: 

-Pumpkin pie (1/2 of a pie. Maybe less. Probably more). 

-Gluten free Brownies. 

-Regular brownies with chocolate chips, including one shameless brownie sandwich with marshmallow puff as the middle. 

-24 oz of crunchy raw honey, perhaps more. 

-Almost an entire big jar of marshmallow puff and semi sweet chocolate chips. 

-Mini chocolate chip cookies. 

-5 or 6 rice puff marshmallow bars. 

-Chocolate covered nut clusters. 

-I'm sure I'm missing something. This also isn't including my fruit smoothies.

Something has to give, and I don't want it to be my waistline. Working out a few times a week isn't enough to counter balance 23 hours a day of sitting/laying down. I don't care what anyone argues. I look around me and I see the gradual change people go through. How the 20-somethings look. How the 30-somethings look. How the 40-somethings look. Heart attack at 50-something.

Walking is my solution. It combines simply moving with the art of people watching. It is my goal to walk whenever and wherever I can, and to observe while I do so. So far I have found it meditative and interesting. It's conducive to conversations as well. Much better than sitting and talking. And slightly more productive than a Battlestar Galatica marathon, so frack off!

Some places I would like to walk:

An NRA convention. Or some sort of gun convention.

A nerd convention. That is free.

Outside of a Justin Beiber concert.

A hardcore vegan gathering.

Ghost hunters gathering.

Scientology museum.

Red wood forest.

San Francisco.

Wine country, with the purpose of observing Wine-os. 

Las Vegas during the day. 

Las Vegas during the night.

The desert. (The kind where you die if you get lost)

Hippie commune.

To the Hollyweird sign.

Hasidic Jew town.

Little Tokyo.

Chinatown.

Mount St. Helens.

Venice beach at night.

The creek where I grew up. (I didn't grow up in the creek, just to be clear)

Portland.

Berkeley.

My old elementary school.

My old high school.

Every farmers market in a 20 mile radius.

Malibu.

A California Republican gathering.

A Texas Democrat gathering.

A Libertarian gathering.

Some island near me where buffalos live, apparently.

Some places I have already walked since starting my journey: (and none of these are happenstance. I made some sort of effort to get in an old lady walk during each)

Cult. (to be blogged about)

Venice Beach during the day.

Venice Beach in the morning. (Both to be blogged about)

Hollyweird Blvd. collection. (To be blogged about continuously, as this is a multi-week occurrence)

Sherman oaks- "lovely" "downtown".

Santa monica- actually lovely downtown.

San Diego Zoo. (Maybe to be blogged about)

Korea town. (I want more adventures here)

Burbank.

Redondo pier.

The park by my house. (Maybe to be blogged about)

LA Fitness. (To be blogged about continuously, as this is a multi-week occurrence)

A mission in San Clemente. 

So there you go. Hopefully this holds me accountable. Hopefully this helps me see this giant city I live in. And hopefully I don't get hit by an LA driver because, well, that would sort of mess up the goal of all of this, though I'd get a nice settlement check.

Meow

Lauren

Early training years.