The Social Porcupine

I went on an indefinite road trip mid September, my main destination: Vermont . After packing up camp and taking a quick detour to New Hampshire, I drove to some friends' farm in New York.  "I'm thinking about going to the city," I'd told them.  "Well, you can't go without us ," they told me.  "Fine. But I have things I want to do. You don't have to do them with me, but I will be doing them." "Alright."  And so the three of us girls, barely knowing each other in real life, drove for the city, their boyfriends freaking. "We're not sure you should be traveling with this crazy girl. We heard she doesn't wear shoes or a seatbelt."  "Don't worry. She's not so crazy in real life."   We didn't want to drive into the city tired, so I pulled off at a rest stop about forty-five minutes outside of the city. We piled all of our luggage on the front seats then stretched out side-by-side in the back o...

A month of not wearing shoes is pure happiness. It started out rather accidentally. Several days into July I realized, "I haven't worn shoes this month. I wonder, could I make it the rest of the month?" Because I wasn't about to put myself through any pain for some whim of pride, I kept a pair of flip-flops in my purse. Eventually, I gave in to pride and threw the flip-flops in the back of my car. One of my clients asked me, "But don't you ever step on painful stuff?" Hesitating, wanting to only share how grand it had been, I finally said, "Yeah. A lot. There is a lot of pain. But maybe that is why I'm able to better appreciate all the other beautiful textures of Earth." Yes. There's been pain... so what? A friend and I were talking about how love for adventure often conflicts with fear of people. I said, "Yeah, I guess most people think people are scary and hurt others. Guess what? People are scary and ...