Life As Performance Art 29

It is Saturday morning, 7:19, and all is quiet. The window is open, and apart from hearing someone's phone ring about a half hour ago, it is all very tranquil right now. I am going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts. The elephant upstairs is probably still asleep, and the douchebags next door are also likely sleeping it off and no one is muttering or grumbling or shouting from the pavement outside. Could it get any better? I'm not even going to turn on the radio, or not just yet. As usual, it will be CBC and I have no stomach for Sheryl McKay's boring North By Northwest program, which seems to be directed towards well-off and recently retired Boomers, which regardless of my age demographic, I am not. I have already mentioned in a previous post that I was born in 1956, making me Generation Jones, that generational gray zone between the Boomers and Gen X (the Boomers gave the world Woodstock, we gave you guys punk rock!) I am feeling well-slept, well-rested, and soon, with breakfast, I will be feeling well-fed. The air outside is a bit cool, but it is sunny today and we are promised a beautiful and slightly warmer day, and this kind of day begs to be spent outside. Being Saturday, today is Nothing Day. I have been observing and celebrating Saturday as Nothing Day for at least the past fourteen years or so, when I saw that in order to cope well with life, while working with people with mental health challenges, I would be needing a bonafide sabbath. Saturday, alone, seemed to work, being for many a day off. Sunday, not so much, since it is church day, and that means having to get social, which simply is not done during Nothing Day. This does curtail somewhat a social life, since Saturdays are often the only day that a lot of folks have available for hanging out and visiting, so it is a bit of a sacrifice. But I have found that I need this rest day of no appointments, not having to see or talk to anyone, and giving priority to rest and quiet recreation and reflection. Today, I will likely spend a lot of time walking in lovely neighbourhoods. I am not going to walk on the Arbutus Greenway, which is more or less parallel to my walking route, and largely for the same reason that I am never going to do the Grouse Grind. Those are publicly approved walking routes, which is to say, those are the places where we should feel that we are allowed to walk, as though we need civic permission. Well, I am going to walk wherever the hell I want. Not the Greenway, because, besides being butt-ugly, there are already plenty of walkers there, and they get noisy, annoying and distracting. Likewise I would prefer to do without the many bike-riders. I suspect that when Moonbeam was still mayor of my fair city, his idea for developing the Arbutus Greenway was to provide a lovely 11 kilometre route for bikes, but he also agreed that a lane should be painted in for pedestrians, just to keep us quiet (we are the Rodney Dangerfields of fitness, us pedestrians. We don't get no respect!). I also suspect that the good burghers of the wealthy neighbourhoods of Shaughnessy and Kerrisdale might have had a hand in helping to fund the Greenway as a ploy for keeping the Great Unwashed off of their precious and wealthy sidewalks. Well, too bad. I am going to stick to their precious and wealthy sidewalks, anyway, because they are quieter, more scenic, and there are lots of trees and shade along the way, not to mention lovely palatial homes sitting on money-laundered real estate and housing wealthy drug lords and other international criminals and similar scum and their various friends and relatives.