One of the things I love about being back in the city is being able to walk everywhere. I almost always try to walk home from work, even in cold weather like tonight (23 degrees according to weather.com right now) or misty yucky weather like yesterday.

It’s just little over a mile, which goes by really quickly when I have some good tunes on my iPod (lately it’s M.I.A.) which I can strut to like I’m on America’s Next Top Model (at least in my mind).

In the suburbs this is just something you can’t do (the walking everywhere I mean; you can strut wherever you want, if you want to look like a loon). Besides the fact that everything is far apart and separated by, sometimes, scary highways, it’s just looked upon as strange. If you’re out walking, then you’re “taking a walk.” In other words, you’re walking without purpose.

In the city wherever you walk, there are infinite possible purposes. Shopping shopping and more shopping, eating, imbibing, people watching. I feel like most of the weird shit I see is on my walks home. A segue and this very patriotic dog and cat are just two examples. Yesterday I saw a poor guy in a wheelchair trapped in the middle of the street after the light had changed. I could lament about how no one stopped to help, but I didn’t stop to help either.

When you walk the same route regularly, you get to know the landscape. Back in my college days, I’d sometimes walk back to my dorm on 116th Street from my internship in midtown west, and over those summer months, I got to know every homeless person, every bump in the sidewalk, every cheap burger place.

Now I’ve come know my new almost-daily route like the back of my hand. For instance did you know that at the Buttercup Bake Shop on 50th and 2nd you can get two-for-one breakfast items after 5 PM? That’s two good-sized muffins for a buck 50. Now I stop there every Friday night for my weekend morning repast.

I know that it gets very crowded right around Queensboro bridge on 2nd Avenue, as well as around Bloomingdale’s on 3rd, and that right after for both the sidewalks clear right up. I know that the curbside right around 60th and 2nd turns into a bottomless pit of slush, dirt, and God know what else when it snows.

And I know that I’ll probably see, like I do almost every night, the 50ish white guy sitting in the coffee shop on 70-something and 3rd with his laptop and earpiece, seemingly very important - on a call with Tokyo? checking his 89 voicemail messages? on a conference call with the CEO? - but how important can he be if I find him sitting in the coffee shop every night at just half past 5?

My walk home has replaced my suburban commute, which used to be my time to think about day - or more likely not think about my day - daydream, listen to my iPod. Of course there are things I can’t do walking that I could do sitting on a train. Reading for one. But a walk does a better job to clear my head, even when it’s 23 degrees out.

Related posts:

1. National Walk of Shame Day
2. Visit Whole Foods, get a free ride home…sort of
3. Why do I walk to work on days like this?
4. Going Wee-Wee-Wee all the way home…
5. Catch the ebb tide at the Met; Learn to walk