Where did you go barefoot today?

I went for a rare barefoot run last night. Most of the route consisted of pavement, but I jogged on one or two neighbors lawns also. And other than a sore left buttock, I'm proud to report the rest of my body feels pretty good. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it again tonight.

 

barefoot whilst grocery shopping, but they're used to me by now

 

For the second time in as many nights Yours truly went for a barefoot run. I think it's going to take a while before I can run a mile or so barefoot. So for the time being I'll settle for jogging down the odd street or neighbors lawn barefoot and do my best to build up a tollerance in that manner.

 

LOL, yeah, I think I'm the same way. I had a couple of encounters with grocery store employees last year so I wrote to the corporate headquarters. It came back that there wasn't a corporate footwear requirement for customers. Either that got communicated or the employees got tired of pushing the issue, but I've had no problems since.

 

We are learning this choreographed dance to the song Proud (the theme song to The Biggest Loser) in choir for the homecoming coronation at my high school (as if she couldn't have picked a more well-known and appropriate song?...). I wore flip-flops to school, and decided they would be too awkward to dance in, so I took them off and, along with about a half-dozen of my peers, danced barefoot.

Our teacher then proceeded to give us the rap about how we could pick up athlete's foot from the stage (lolwut? Didn't know there was a shower onstage) or step on a nail and get tetanus (oh, and a (non-set) construction project too?), because as she said, she had to get "4 tetanus shots once." However, she is known for fibbing, and I'm sure she was just saying it to get her point across.

Stupidity aside, I had great fun dancing barefoot, as did my fellow barefoot choir members. None of us got foot fungus, no one stepped on a nail. It was just liberating.

Blech. I hate uneducated people.

 

bizarely when I was in the dance studio the other day barefeet seemed to be the norm.

 

barefoot in woodchips, i got a splinter :/

 

Well, yesterday (Sept. 22), I spent a great deal of time soaking up some sunlight on a nicely warm Indian Summer day, barefoot in the park, sitting on a blanket and reading Robert Wolff's Original Wisdom (a nice read not only for barefooters). The walk around the park was enjoyable, with first fallen leaves on the grass, which felt nicely soft and still wet from morning dew in the shaded parts of the park and dry and warm in the sunlit spaces...

Today (Sept. 23) was the urban counterpart with a barefoot walk over the ped-zone in our town's center, sitting down for the usual cappucino and soda in the outdoor seating area of a small café and later a little grocery shopping at the mall, with all the usual occurrences of "The Look"®.

Even though the sunny and almost summerly warm days have come to an end (some rain has begun just as I am writing this), I am delighted at the prospect of walking barefoot in the rain and feeling wet soil and grass and puddles underfoot.

Wiggling bare toes happily during my barefoot leave,

~*Ganesha*~

 

Today, I went to the liquor store, a clothes reuse centre for Kids, and my local Walmart.

With the new sales starting this week, there were Mgrs, Asst. Mgrs and CSRs all over the place stocking shelves, cleaning, etc.

Entered with no problem at Walmart. In the soda pop aisle, one lady said quite aloud, "Aren't you wearing any shoes?" This was heard by a CSR that was cleaning. I looked back at her and shook my head and said, "Tough economy. I had to sell my sandals to pay for all this stuff."

She said, "I'd be worried about stepping on broken glass." I replied, "I look better at where I'm stepping without them."

"Good Point", she said.

 

I had to chuckle at this one. I had a lot of teachers, especially in elementary school, who would say outrageous things to try to scare us into doing whatever he/she wanted. It worked up until about the 4th or 5th grade when we started becoming independent thinkers and didn't take everything spoken by an adult as unquestionable truth. I'm not sure 4 tetanus shots would do you any better than a single shot, and 4 might even have a detrimental effect.

 

That's exactly what it reminded me of when it happened! It makes sense, though; she taught elementary school music before becoming a choir teacher. Come to think of it, every aspect of her teaching reminds me of elementary school: she is obsessive about people not speaking when she's speaking (the opposite of my calculus teacher ), she doesn't seem to really enjoy what she's doing, she tells lies about how much better the other choir period is than us (when they aren't), and she's rather condescending most of the time.

I was telling my mom about this absurdity (she's mostly supportive of my barefooting, just not in stores) and she said that there's no way they'd give you 4 tetanus shots for that. I think she actually had it confused with rabies, where you have to get something like 4 shots in the stomach.

 

to a festival. for the record, bricks get way hotter than asphault it seems.

 

I got bit by a kitten while rescuing it from the rear axle of a car at a red light. she bit me on the meaty part of the palm. I got the rabies shots as a precaution, they were given in a circular pattern around the bite area. HURT like a bitch. it turned out the kitten was fine. she was adopted by the lady chasing her.

 

Went through a corn maze today. The heavily trampled mud ground made my feet quite a dirty brown.

 

Love the feeling of walking around in mud.

 

Kia Ora Ni Hao!

Thrift store. I don't think I have ever had a problem in a thrift store.

Cheers!

 

i went everywhere but work BF 2day

 

I went to a friend's house to pick him up, a couple playgrounds (including one which I show my friends because it's impossible to have fun on it), and an entire trail around a local lake.

Oh, and I don't go to playgrounds because I'm a pedophile, but because they are fun places to climb around and chat with friends.

[/unnecessary defensiveness]

 

Kia Ora Ni Hao!

I went to the repair shop again. I was there the other week and the guy said that he thought I was maybe from Africa because I went in barefoot.

Cheers!

 

Sept. 28, 2010 - Why I love rainy days...
(or: a cool barefoot walk in a wet and misty park)

With continuing trademark fall weather and a pause in the constant rain, I decided to let my bare feet feel different textures and surfaces with some extra softness provided by the constant rain that had fallen the day before. As I left my apartment house, I stepped out into a slight drizzle, which felt more like walking through mist than real rain. The general feeling underfoot was cool and wet, starting on pavement and cobblestones at the entrance of my usual favourite park.

The sensation then changed to the almost beachy feeling of the sand and small gravel paths in the park, together with the extra delight of puddles, interrupted by short walks on grass, which felt like walking on a green and wet sponge.

Quite different from the bright and sunny postcard motive of the park, the overall mood of the park was misty and gloomy - normally a sight to make people sad or depressed, telling the tale of summer ending and moving towards a cold and wet winter season. But such a misty setting also tells me the tale of wet grass and soft soil giving way under my soles, water and mud trickling up between my toes and the grass clippings, left from the last mowing clinging to my wet bare feet.

And then there's even more textures and tactile sensations to discover which are unique and only found in the fall season, such as chestnuts and their peels, fallen leaves, acorns or wet wood mulch...

Even though a rainy day and the cool temperatures do feel like saying farewell to summer, I did not feel sad or depressed, but rather happy - feeling all there is to feel underfoot and sometimes even filled with wonder at things only visible in fall... such as a large mushroom with a bell 10 inches in diameter, which might easily serve as a comfortable stool for some fairy or a hookah- smoking giant caterpillar.



But since the house built by Mother Nature this magic stool was standing in lacked a roof, neither fairy nor caterpillar were sitting there to greet me.




Leaving summer on bare feet - earth-colored - for misty fall days to come...


... but still enjoying my pedal nudity, with all its pleasures in the rain.

I'm still wondering, whether that dome of twigs above that mushroom was constructed by human beings, or has grown that way by Mother Nature's doing alone. I prefer thinking it was the latter, with Her plan to drop a few fallen leaves on top to provide a roof, too, so that either fairy or caterpillar will return to sit there.

(This report with a total of 18 pictures - including me barefooting the textures written about - is also on my barefoot diary page.)

Sept. 27, 2010 - Teenage curiosity on public transport.

The second half of my two weeks of leave and therefore barefoot freedom has started today with truly fall weather - constant rain and only about 12°C. Such weather conditions are a certain guarantee to make me the only barefoot person in town. However, at first I spent the gloomy-looking day in a way most people would have preferred - mostly in bed. While some people have coined laziness as an undesirable thing and Christian mythology even defines it as one of the so-called seven deadly sins (there known as sloth), it can also serve as a very powerful anti-stress measure and a means of healing.

Nevertheless, I had to leave the wonderfully warm and comfy cocoon of my bed to replenish some supplies... an empty fridge can overcome the urge to stay in bed all the time, and so I got ready to get into the town center for a quick urban barefoot visit to the mall to see the tobacconist and the usual supermarket for grocery shopping. Since the weather had not changed, it was a cool sensation to my bare feet to feel wet pavement underfoot, splashing through puddles. And since walking barefoot is an unlikely thing for the mainstream "normal" people on such a day, "The Look"® from car drivers waiting at red light was occurring more often than usual, as I was waiting for the tram to take me into town.

After entering the tram, finding a seat and sitting there with my usual anti-comment equipment activated (a book and my MP3 player), I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder, and saw a teenage girl smiling at me, so I took out my earphones, and she asked whether I smoke (which I do), and if I had one or ideally two cigarettes for her and her friend... a friendly approach to bum a smoke. After giving her what she asked for, she then asked me, if I always walk barefoot even in rain like this - which I affirmed. I told her, that I am always barefoot as long as there is no frost. She was intrigued and then asked me how many pairs of shoes I own... I thought about it for a moment and then said, that if I counted my flip-flops as shoes (which they are, technically), that'd make two pairs. I also told her about the health benefits I draw from walking barefoot, stating wellness as my main reason for barefooting. I guess elaborating on possible spiritual reasons would have befuddled her even more, so I left those out.

Now, there's a sure recipe to really puzzle a girl or young woman: telling her that you own just two pairs of shoes, since you only wear them at work or in too cold weather. The only kind of girl or woman not puzzled by that would be a fellow barefooter, I guess. At least this teenager confirmed my status as the local man famous for being barefoot by saying "I think, I've never seen you wearing shoes...". And I think she and all the others will see more of my bare feet in the days and weeks to come, before winter sets in full-throttle (which is a thing that doesn't need to happen soon or at all, really).

Wiggling bare toes,

~*Ganesha*~