I do a lot of wandering when left to my own devices; I like the random chance of choosing a path at semi-random, as I did this day. Walked from one district in Tokyo to another, through the old Imperial gardens (I think; The big park between Shinjuku and Shibuya). This was the first part of that walk; the gardens get their own post.
I have to admire people like Craig Mod (second link is to his walking newsletter) who not only walk much farther than I do, but who can distill a day into a single image. I’m not sure I could, even if you held a gun to my head. Or maybe I could, and I’m being lazy? This is the internet tho, world of infinite bandwidth, and people like more pictures. There’s something very haute and designer-y about only putting out what you want to, and not what people ask for. It’s saying, ‘I know better than the people that want a lot of photos,’ and the damming thing is it might be right.
Speaking of walking: I’ve had a string of bad luck with my right ankle, stemming from an injury all the way back in 2003, when I was a college freshman. I got what I thought was a bad sprain, was off it for 6 weeks or so, and then thought nothing of it again. Then, a couple weeks ago, while walking around at the bouldering gym, I rolled it a little and it hurt a bit and swelled up a little, so I iced it and babied it for maybe a week, and it seemed to be better.
Then the Mormons went and had their open house; probably more walking than I’ve done at a stretch in quite a while. The next day, I had to drive back from the south bay for [unrelated]. Driving is a load-bearing exercise, and it kinda made it worse, such that when I got back I went immediately to the first clinic I found with an X-ray, to see what kind of damage I’d done. They were largely useless, didn’t even send me home with a splint.
So I went to Webster Ortho Urgent Care. They were great; really from beginning to end great care. Shot some more X-rays, assessed the joint by hand, and then went over the films with me about what they were seeing. Apparently, the old injury probably wasn’t just a sprain; from 16 years later, it’s difficult to tell, of course, but the way my bones had grown indicated something might be wrong. So later this week I’m getting an MRI and a consult with a surgeon, and maybe my ankle will be stabilized after all this.
Right now, I’m confined to a walking boot, as tolerated, which isn’t a ton. Mostly sat around all weekend. It’s possible the 10000mph summer has gone down a couple orders of magnitude, which kinda sucks. When your body says slow down this clearly though, it’s really imperative to listen.
