The reason I love maps of public transportation isn’t that I get lost a lot (which I do). Or that the public transportation in the particular town I live in is particularly useful to me (it isn’t; although I’ve started braving the bus).

Maps lay things out in bright lines, with little reassuring circles for stops. The big picture on a fold-out piece of paper.

I’m not a born leader; I hate being responsible for others. Neither am I a “joiner”; I don’t even like group therapy, let alone clubs and social organizations. Maybe I’m a follower after all . . . I like tracing the paths, reading the station names, savoring theme like exotic spices. Places I’ve never been, may never be, but visit in my dreams as I slide along the desire lines to a clearly labeled destination.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing half the time, or where I’m going.

So maybe that’s why I love this book of transportation maps so much.

As a lot of you know, I’ve been teeter-tottering on the diet fence these days. I’ve read a lot of books about fat acceptance, and about the flawed science behind the so-called Obesity Epidemic.

But my cholesterol is over 230, and I’m (only) 30 years old, with no strong family history indicators that I would have high cholesterol. I’m pretty damn sure the culprits are that eat crap almost all day, every day, and rarely get any exercise. And maybe I do still buy in a teensy bit to the Fantasy of Being Thin, I’m not going to let myself off the hook there; but much more central to my concerns are that walking a mile and a half exhausts me, I’m tired all the time, and I’m a malnourished overeater. Bleh. What to do?

I’m contemplating setting up a separate blog for focusing on lifestyle change. “Healthy lifestyle” is generally ill-disguised code for “diet,” but I’m hoping to go for something much more holistic. I do want to drop a few pounds. (There, I said it.) But the major focus will be on bringing down my cholesterol to below 200 and hopefully training for a 10K in early 2008. I feel like maybe some folks who have been reading this blog might feel betrayed if I start focusing on that stuff here, especially those who have found this site through the fantastic Shapely Prose. I know that Mo Pie, one of main contributors of Big Fat Deal, maintains a separate site for her diet and fitness interests, and in a way that might be a good compromise for me as well at this point.

I really do still believe that abandoning the quest for perfection is probably the best thing we can do for ourselves. So I’m not aiming for perfection; I’m aiming for energy and nourishment, to the best of my abilities. I’ll definitely let you know if I do set up a separate blog for that, or if I decide to write about nutrition and fitness on this site, or privately, or not at all.

I had to run for the bus today. With a huge backpack on my back. I felt like I was in middle school again.

This morning I did my first trial run of taking the bus to work. I’m trying to avoid driving the ever-unpredictable Great White except on Mondays (when I have my lunchtime therapy appointment). Anyway, it’s a 1.5 mile walk from my apartment to the closest bus stop (I calculated this very precisely on MapMyRun).

So I said to myself quite optimistically, “Surely that won’t take me more than thirty minutes to walk.”

Hah! Hah! Hah!

Fast-forward thirty minutes to me panting up a huge hill, pounding down the other side of it like a madwoman, and dashing across the intersection with a scant minute to spare. I hate running in work pants. At least I was wearing my awesome running shoes.

As faithful readers know, I get bright red when I do any form of aerobic activity. So I was still a lovely shade of lobster even after forty minutes of resting (read: drooling exhaustedly) on the bus. When I walked into work, my co-worker said euphemistically, “You look a little flushed.”

“Meh,” I said.

“But you have a healthy glow!”

Healthy glow, my ass. I’ll definitely be budgeting more time for that morning walk from now on.

As promised, I am posting my magnificently rendered original Microsoft Paint drawings of Why I Hate the Bus.

I’m actually a huge fan of public transportation—I get so frustrated with my temperamental car, I hate driving in rush hour, and I loathe parallel parking. But everyone has a few pet peeves and when it comes to taking the city bus, these are my biggest two:

1. Students with backpacks approximately the size of the Himalayas who blithely knock innocent bystanders over as they make their way down the length of the bus. (That’s supposed to be me lying in the aisle there, by the way.)

2. Guys who splay their legs open and take up two seats when they sit down, as if to make the point that their dick is so goddamn huge! That it needs a whole seat to itself! God damn! I hate those guys. (That’s me frowning in disapproval.)

Rachel at The F-Word issued the following optional assignment to readers of her blog:

My challenge is for you to write your own story of your body. Where would you begin? Where would you end? Is yours a work-in-progress? Is your saga a tragedy or a comedy? Does it have a happy ending or an ambiguous legacy?

I’d like to make an online archive of these stories; if you’d like to be included, please email me your stories, or, if it’s brief (a couple paragraphs or less) post it in the comments below. Please also include your name or screen name, website if applicable, and a valid email address. I’ve posted my story below, after the jump.

Rachel’s story is incredibly well-written and honest, and I read it (dare I say?) hungrily, before jumping on the task and hastily typing up a three-page story of my own body to email her. It’s pretty damn personal, but I wanted to post it here (after the jump) for you guys, in case anyone is feeling alone, or like others don’t struggle with these issues.

[”New Brainland” by Unit Seven; full-size image here]

Do you think people with higher IQs tend to be unhappier than those with lower IQs?

I don’t know. I’m smart, and it feels really uncomfortable saying that. I would feel much safer enumerating my many imperfections. But amidst the detritus of my personhood, there is: intelligence. I’ve also struggled with acute bouts of misery for many years.

Sometimes it seems like most of the people I know with clinical mood disorders or addictions are (or, in their lifetime, were) quite unhappy.

That’s all purely anecdotal, of course, although there are a number of articles on the subject. Who knows.

Do intelligent people think themselves into depression? A blessing turned into a curse? Dr. H has also pointed out that when you are a precocious child (e.g., intent on memorizing Hamlet’s soliloquy at age ten) with a large vocabulary, adults tend to mistake that for emotional maturity and a preparedness to take on adult responsibilities that in reality you are just not ready for. The internal and external pressure to live up to those duties can be crushing.

Thinking about this makes me grateful for the great diversity of human beings. As a species, I daresay we’d be paralyzed if we possessed on the whole too much or too little intelligence, too much or too little melancholy.

Agatha Christie puts it more neatly (and much more amusingly) than I do in the Poirot mystery Dead Man’s Folly:

Alex Legge remained serious. “I should like to see every feeble-minded person put out—right out! Don’t let them breed. If, for one generation, only the intelligent were allowed to breed, think what the result would be!”

“A very large increase of patients in the psychiatric wards, perhaps,” said Poirot drily. “One needs roots as well as flowers on a plant, Mr. Legge. However large and beautiful the flowers, if the earthy roots are destroyed there will be no more flowers.”