walking conscious

If I ever find a serious job, I think I'll have to get it written into my contract that I can't be held responsible for any tardiness, absenteeism or poor job performance caused by the sleep I've lost from viewing the Wire. As an addict would say, I'm powerless to fight it. I just started re-watching it online - at sidereel.com - and ever since, I've been crashing later and later and even getting up super early every morning to check the next episode (you know, cause Megavideo understands the Wire's potency and only allows you to watch it in 72-minute intervals. It makes you confront reality for at least 30 minutes before letting you jump back in again.) Even though I know Kima's going to get shot or Wallace is on his way back to the West Side pit, I can't help sitting through it and that pushes my departure time from the apartment back further and further every morning.

On Friday, I pushed it the furthest I have yet. I didn't even notice what time it was when the episode ended and so when I saw it was 9:40, I nearly lost my shit. I've got a 35-minute walk to work and I was still laying in bed. So I hustle-bustled and was out the door in my gigantic winter coat, forgetting of course that it had rained the entire day previously, meaning it was like +5C and Montreal was a gigantic puddle concealing a sheet of ice.

Being late, I sped-walked to work, but any time I thought I'd save and all the effort I was exerting was wasted on a decision I made to cut through Parc Lafontaine. Terrible idea. The 'snow' was ice, covered with slush and water. It was messy and the sidewalks and paths are all 'code level: orange' dangerous, in Homeland Security talk.

I'm kind of frustrated because I'm late and I'm sliding all over the place like Bambi learning to walk on ice. (obscure reference?) I'm rushing and slipping and worrying about whether today would be the day I caught shit from my superiors, Ervin Burrell-style, but every step I take flushes those thoughts away because the ground is so awkward and potentially hazardous that I have to concentrate on where to drop my feet to make sure I don't fall.

It's really odd to be conscious of walking. It really is. It's something that I take for granted. Each step put me on precarious ground, so I had to use all my conscious thought to carefully navigate each stride. But after a while, I came to the realization that I didn't know how that would help, since I could predict where my foot would land, but there was no way to know exactly how it would feel once it went down and how that would affect my balance. It was like I was trying to be conscious of something that I still wasn't completely in control of because my body was going to self-adjust regardless of what I did intentionally.

It was a bizarre distraction, that I forgot immediately once I got to the thawed and cleared sidewalks.

I can see now though why those robotics engineers have so much trouble creating robots that can walk, because they have to calculate each variable and adjust for that and it's something that's programmed into us without us even being completely aware.

Anyways, I got to work and went from walking on ice to walking on eggshells. No one seemed to know I was late and so I guess I'll be pushing the limit again on Monday.