2004-05-06 - 9:44 p.m.

May 5

Awhile back, Brad called me crazy for wanting to walk over the Ben Franklin bridge. I can't really dispute that, but there are OTHER CRAZY PEOPLE LIKE ME and they have organized a WALKING TOUR that involves going over the bridge in a group. I am SO going!! WOOHOO!!!!

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Awhile back, some friends of mine were talking about a concept of attraction to people. The idea was that attraction could be based solely on a person's mind, and that their outside appearance would not affect the attraction one way or the other. (It has a name, but I forget what it was.) I was thinking about whether I was capable of that.

Through LJ, I know that I can get to like people a great deal without ever having spoken to them in person. I've met at least 20 people from LJ, and so far, liking someone online has translated to liking them in real life. I've never met someone and found them impossible to get along with once real-life interaction happens.

I don't know if this could be extended to sexual attraction though. Probably the most important factor in me being attracted to someone is EXPRESSIVENESS. So it doesn't matter so much what a person looks like, but their demeanor matters. A very aesthetically pleasant man who is incredibly funny and interesting but who has a stoneface will become less attractive to me after interacting with him. OTOH, a plain-looking man (is Ewan McGregor actually "handsome"?) who is expressive and smiley and funny is more likely to make my heart go pit-a-pat.

I got lucky, though -- I've got a pretty-boy husband with a face so expressive people compare him to Jim Carrey. :)

May 6

EEEEEEEEEEE!! I walked across the bridge!!!

I wrote about it last night, and uploaded the pictures this morning.

It was SO MUCH FUN! We walked for two and a half hours with no real rest breaks, just stopping to admire the view or some architecture. It was FABULOUS. I should feel exhausted after walking at least five miles, but I'm still energized. My feet feel a bit sore, though.

We started out at the base of the bridge. The guide talked a bit about the bridge. He mentioned that the pedestrian walkway was closed during the Korean War, and sometime after that a group of people tried to get the Port Authority to open it again. The Port Authority balked, citing concerns about suicides. The "open the walkway" people decided to do some research into the suicides, and discovered that in every suicide off that bridge involved someone DRIVING to the middle, parking the car, and then jumping off.

At this point I laughed inappropriately loudly while everyone else gave a quiet chuckle. Oops.

Anyway, here we go. This is the beginning of the pedestrian walkway. There is another on on the other side of the bridge, but it's closed at the moment. We are on a level with the cars here, but as you continue the walkway rises to about one story above the roadway.

The walkway itself is set outside the suspension cables, so you have an unobstructed view all the way across. If you look down below and just outside the walkway, you can see the PATCO rail bed:

It is very exciting when the train goes by and you can feel it rumbling underneath. One of the guys on the tour, who looked like Ken Olin if he were latin, said that the bridge actually lowers itself a few inches and leans when the train goes by. I didn't have something to give me the right perspective to see this happening, unfortunately -- the horizon was too big.

Check out the beginning of the suspension cable holder thingie:

Here's me holding a cable (I needed some perspective, so there's my hand).

And the skyline view from the middle of the bridge. Beautiful. It was clearing up west of the city, but raining where I was standing.

When we got to the other side, we were in Camden. As could tell you, Camden sucks. They are trying to revitalize it, and the waterfront has a lot of touristy shit (a stadium, concert venue, and aquarium) and a pretty college campus, but as an actual city, a place to live, it is DEAD. DEAD. Look:

See? Pretty, but dead. There are no people. There are no stores. There aren't even stores catering to the college kids. The campus was dead, too -- I guess it shuts down after 5pm. The whole area feels like a perfectly preserved ghost town. I'm skeptical that the waterfront is going to save the city, especially since the waterfront itself is separated from the "downtown" by a sea of parking lots.

Then we wandered down to the waterfront. It was really boring. It was like a suburban business campus. I was irritated about having to walk through it. The trip was made worthwhile, however, when I encountered MAN IN KILT!!!

He was so nice. I told him, "My girlfriend and I love men in kilts so I can't pass up an opportunity to take a photo with one." He's part of a band that does parades and stuff so I'll have to go watch them in NJ sometime.

Next we headed into a residential neighborhood. It was about 60% vacant lots. Half the houses that remained were abandoned. The rest had people in them, and they were all sitting out on the stoops, watching the kids play and looking amused to see all the white dorky architecture geeks walking by.

One of the abandoned houses actually had a tree growing out of the brick. I couldn't believe it. See:

There were two blocks that I saw that had actually been restored and looked lovely, but they were surrounded by blight so it was hard to see the point of doing this. Here's one of them:

Finally, we hopped on the PATCO "high speed line" and went home to Philadelphia. The driver is smushed into the left third of the front car, leaving the middle and right side of seats with unobstructed views of the subway tunnels in front. That was KEW-ELL!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a three-year-old boy sometimes. It also gave us a good view of the setting sun over Philadelphia:

The people who were on the tour with me were a hoot. They were all very friendly city/architecture/landscaping geeks, and everybody knew a lot of interesting bits of trivia, so people were always making interesting comments. One woman was a tree geek and pointed out an elm (I didn't realize there were ANY left, really) and a horse chestnut tree in bloom.

The funny thing was that I was the youngest woman in the group by at least 20 years, possibly more. There were some women in that group that I could swear were over 75. Damn, when I am 75 I am still going to be taking walking tours, you hear me?

Still May 6

Background: Y'know, I do not consider myself the most beautiful woman in the world by any means, but apparently I'm attractive enough that I've gotten my share of being hit on. Yesterday was no exception -- after exchanging about two sentences with me, one of other the architecture geeks about my age said, "If you weren't married I'd ask you out!" I said "Oh, thank you!" and then was speechless for a bit, not sure whether to apologize for being married or what. (Somebody help me come up with a *nice*, pithy reply that doesn't suggest I'm up for an affair, please?) He even mentioned later to one of the other people that he was sorry I was married. I find this incredibly flattering and yet somewhat embarrassing at the same time, so I try to avoid this kind of attention.

Evelynne: You know, I deliberately dressed up grungy yetserday [as opposed to the tarty outfits I like to wear] to try to discourage male attention.
Evelynne: Apparently it didn't do a bit of good.
Poindexter: Nope.
Poindexter: I told ya.
Evelynne: Well, it's gotta help a LITTLE.
Evelynne: In a general sense. Perhaps not with architecture geeks.
Evelynne: The architecture geeks would like me regardless bcause I am cute and share an interest.
Poindexter: lol
Poindexter: and you have a pulse.
Evelynne: HAHAHAHA
Evelynne: So it's not that I'm cute, it's that I'm female?
Poindexter: YOU'RE CUTE!!! GODDAMNIT! IN ANY OUTFIT!
Poindexter: pain.
Evelynne: That's my version of the "does this outfit make me look fat" question.
Poindexter: Hmph.

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