City Walk

I just got back to my desk after a quick walk around the block.

There was a man washing the sidewalk in front of the Freemont Hotel. He was scraping up the gum, which made me look twice at the sidewalk as I continued on. Every square of cement looked like a leopard it was so littered with gum. Scraping it up has got to be the worst job ever.

Also, I sometimes feel like an old woman because of how I dress. Girls my age and older wear short skirts or low-cut tops or heels. I don't wear heels because my toes are deformed. I don't wear low-cut tops or short skirts because I feel like I'm not attractive enough for those clothes.

But there are people out there on the sidewalk wearing things they really shouldn't: very heavy women in very short skirts, girls wearing heels they can hardly walk in, not to mention the cornucopia of bad hair and bad outfits. I didn't pass a single person who I thought was well-dressed enough that I'd emulate them. I passed at least a dozen people that made me think, "Does this one have a mirror at home?" (my mother's favorite line when judging the fashion choices of strangers.)

So as I looped around the corner back towards my building, I thought, maybe I should be a little more adventurous with what I wear and not be so uptight that I have to cover everything all the time.

I passed the guy scraping gum. He hadn't made any visible progress.