You've got to get up pretty early in the morning

now to take a walk and not have it be unbearably hot and humid.

That's currently not my style, getting up really early. I'm enjoying the ability to get up when I want.

Whenever I want.

However yesterday I was up earlier than most days and I decided I would brave the outdoors and take my walk.

It really wasn't bad. Actually very pleasant and no foreboding of the heat and humidity to hit later in the day.

I enjoy walking outside. It is the best therapy (and that's been proven, it's not just me saying it.)

I also enjoy making up stories about the people that pass by me. I like to profile them.

There is the young, slender girl, with a taut body and a spring in her runner's stride. Way too athletic. I have her running in the Bix. She's also on or was involved in track at college. Probably got a scholarship. It's hard to define her more because she runs past so quickly.

Then there are the older gentlemen who are out for their morning stroll. They usually say hello. They look like they have no care in the world. Retirement can do that to you.

Quite frequently I've run into this very slender man with a cloth messenger bag. He's always dressed in shorts. He always smiles and says hello. I always meet him walking the same way, it's as if he is walking to work, that's what I thought the first time. Then later that day or another I saw him in a park, just sitting on a bench. Was he homeless? And due to the over media stimulation I and everyone suffers from, I'm not wondering about his mental condition.

Yup that's how my mind works.

Yesterday I met a new guy. Large man, long hair in a ponytail, black shirt and shorts. Biker sunglasses. He just screamed of a Man-Without-Harley. I wasn't sure if he would say hello (had him profiled as not being really friendly) but I said hello anyway.

He said, "'Sup" (no smile, no nod, just the words)

That was a new one at 7:30 am, not your usual greeting on the bike path.

So my mind began to wander as to what motivated him today to get out and walk -

• bike broke down
• girlfriend threw him out
• today's as good as any to get started on an exercise plan
• he walks every day and I am never out early enough to see him
• he's home visiting his mom
• everybody else at the house had a hangover and he stayed sober last night
• he's training for the Bix at the last minute

Here's the funny part, I REALLY would like to go up and ask him what got him out here today. Just like I'd like to go up to adults sitting at a coffee shop at 11 am and ask how it is that they can be here and not working. Or what kind of job do they do that they can be at a coffee shop AND get paid.

And then I wonder, what story are they making up about me?