Personal Pollution Problem.

This is yet another case of lemming behaviour for me I’m afraid. I am really going all out to prove that even though the Darwin awards are for feats of spectacular stupidity, it may be still possible to be eligible for one through sheer bloody minded persistence and consistent striving towards idiot-hood…

The air in this city is making me dizzy – literally. I have been feeling dizzy for a seriously long time. I kept wondering what on earth was wrong with me. I would get to work in the morning feeling ill and disorientated and with my balance shot to pieces… it was kind of frightening really. And it lasted all day. And yet I couldn’t find a cause for it. My diet was good, I was walking regularly both to and from work, and I hadn’t been overdoing it on the turps, so I really had no clue. It’s not as if I’m totally unfit either. I walked all around Paris and Amsterdam without ill effect… well, except for my feet… but I wasn’t then walking along a main road with constant traffic beside me at all times.

Recently, due to the damage I caused my feet in Amsterdam, I took the bus for a few days to alleviate the pain… and the dizziness went away. But did I notice? No. When my feet recovered, I dutifully recommenced walking to work every day, rain hail or shine, and … got dizzy again.

Then around the time of the Paris trip, I got sick, and so I caught the bus again for a period of time, and lo and behold, I wasn’t dizzy. I was coughing up a lung and felt like death warmed up, but I wasn’t dizzy. But when I recovered I went back to walking, albeit with the beginnings of a suspicion in the back of my mind that even though I was doing something healthy, it wasn’t as good for me as it should have been. The lemming behaviour kept asserting itself.

At the end of last week, I was feeling seriously sick. By the time I got into work in the mornings when I walked, I felt like vomiting. This really set the alarm bells ringing and so I finally paid some attention to my suspicions.

So this week, I have been conducting an experiment. I have been walking half-way to work and catching the bus the rest of the way one day, and then catching the bus the whole way on the other. I thought that I could get away with some exercise and yet avoid the most polluted part of the city – but when I walk I still feel off kilter. However, when I catch the bus the whole way, I am fine.

Finally it dawned on me this morning that I have to stop walking to work. This is really bloody annoying, because I like walking, I need the exercise, I like waking up slowly and the walk to and from work gives me all this. But the carbon monoxide from all those vehicles is making me sick.

Damn. And yet, you can bet, I’m going to continue to walk every so often. It’s almost a compulsion – one that drives me to behaviour which is not only counter intuitive but destructive to my health. Why, why, why am I so driven? I don’t want to become a lemming, nor less a Darwin award recipient. But I like walking… I just can’t help myself.

Silly girl.