Rain check
On walking without a destination, and what the city looks like when you stop optimizing the route.
Walked for two hours tonight without a destination. Rain had just stopped; the streets were doing that thing where every surface becomes a second city, upside down and better lit.
I used to treat walks as transport with extra steps. Now I think they're the only meetings I never want to cancel — one attendee, no agenda, minutes kept badly.
Passed the corner store cat again. We have an understanding: I stop, it ignores me with intention. There's a drawing of it in the sketchbook now, which means it's permanent staff.
Somewhere around the second hour, the problem I'd been stuck on all week — the scheduler design, the one with the ugly edge cases — quietly rearranged itself into something obvious. I didn't think about it once. That's the trick, apparently. The thinking happens when you leave the room.
Note to self: the best debugging tool I own is a pair of shoes.