Taking the dog for a walk and others

It seems being positive for a week can sustain a couple of months worth of bitter, lonely, small cynicism.
And taking a dog for a walk is something inately positive that all can do. Someone wrote recently about their perplexedness that someone could actually like dogs at the expense of cats and vice versa. And I must admit it does seem like their could be room for both. Correlation vs causation maybe.
One thing I've never heard of anyone doing is taking a cat for a walk. Taking a dog for a walk though is something that whilst it seems like a pain in the arse sometimes, like when its raining is something you can get over.
Because dog's are animals, and they don't particularly give a shit about rain when they get to pretend to be hunting.
I've always had a weak sense of smell, a key difference betwixt me and my aspergher's "suffering" brother. So the idea that a dog gets more out of being walked than just plain exercise, but is actually looking for some stimulation for their keen nostril pallet I find really novel.
One day I would like to go walkabout with a dog as company, though I imagine this is severely environmentally degrading. But you know walking a dog is probably the nicest thing you can easily do for another living being. They love it more than taking your grandma out for tea and crumpets, and you can do the same shit every day. You'll never see such enthusiasm.

Another thing I realised from mr.john's comments is that cycling culture isn't universal. He is indeed right, as a cyclist one is foolish to trust humanity in Australia and I imagine much of southeast asia.
But not so in Netherlands, and probably Denmark when you go there. And I should say on the positive side that you may if you look carefully have noticed that the stretch of road between Melbourne University and RMIT Swanston st in Melbourne has been restructured to be 'Copenhagen' style or indeed 'Entire Netherlands' style bike roads. This consists of moving the parking spaces out from the curb and putting the bike lane inside (as opposed to on top of or outside of) the parking lane.
And while I don't think people are really clued into the purpose of this not insignificant development, I can tell you, even when pedestrians used to 'normal' roads step into my path without looking on this stretch of road, I as a cyclist don't consider this a failed council initiative at all.
Because plain and true I would rather slam into a pedestrian at 40km an hour on my bike than into a car door at 40km an hour on my bike.
That sounds negative, but coming back to John's comments, indeed when I got into a car last night to drive to the supermarket (to buy food for my poor neglected dog) I realised that I was driving the car like I was still on a bicycle.
This manifests in several ways, for one I think 40km an hour is plenty fast enough. I rarely jumped out of third gear. I probably stopped at many yellow lights that I should have run and gunned. Furthermore I was freaking out at having to constantly adjust my depth perception to approximate how close I was to hitting something with my bulky car exterior.
And I think this serves to highlight just how different the cyclist mind developes from the car driving mind.
I think I forget when I run a red light on my bicycle, or cruise down studdly park road, or ride along the tranquil yarra trail, or climb studley park road in my big gear that people aren't actually jealous of my lifestyle. I assume they are. I forget that many people haven't ridden a bike in years, or tens of years, and many that do have ridden a bike only in the context of 'spinning' and fail to realise, that riding a bike is really fun.
Yes, I do believe people should be jealous of my being able to ride a bike everywhere. But I forget that people are looking at me from car windows in the rain and thinking 'that must be really miserable' and on the upside maybe appreciate having a car a bit more. But they can't possibly realise that the only thing that makes rain unpleasant for a cyclist, is not riding. Or in other words, standing still at the lights. Apart from that you aren't particularly cold, because of the exercise and the streets actually look a lot better wet.
I mean maybe this isn't a positive message, but Melbourne Council plans to make the CBD cyclist and pedestrian exclusive, cycling is fun. It's much more fun being the engine than riding the engine. You shouldn't feel sorry for cyclists. Cyclings the fucking best, I am convinced that eventually in cities at least a critical mass will be reached in Australia that people start to view cycling as I do.
It's when I assume they do already, and aren't completely ignorant of how great cycling is, that I get pissed off at their stupidity. But really I don't think I can justifiably get angry when people haven't experienced themselves sitting in a car and longing to be free of the enormous ineffecient weight of chasis and combustion engine and get on a lightweight compact bicycle and ride free.
So do yourself a favor, yes you have to constantly be alert for every kind of conceivable way a pedestrian or driver might inadvertantly kill you, or at least make you do a face plant in the asphalt, but once you get that juggling act down, it really is just plain fun.
When's the last time you had fun driving to work?