Bokononist on Brooklyn Bridge

Busy busy busy, with an undetermined but rapidly expanding number of editing jobs. Will the brave forester and the cowardly doctor become zombies? Stay tuned!

To take a break from the travails of our heroes, I imagine myself on the Brooklyn Bridge. Walked across it just yesterday, dodging tourists' photo shoots (how many pictures feature me, I wonder, couched in foreign albums) and the occasional bicycle, marveling again that more careless pedestrians don't get mown down. They're everywhere! Took C.—, formerly self-described tourist, with me on a walk across the bridge a few weeks ago; by the time we were done, he didn't feel like one anymore. Countless people standing scenically and obliviously in the bike lane (that is I guess the optimum place to get a picture of yourself beskylined) can do that for you.

Astonishingly, I never thought to walk across the bridge until M.— came to visit the summer after our sophomore year. Ever since, I've used it often. It helps that a couple of jobs I've had are right on the Brooklyn side; also helps, now, that my primary employer is just a few blocks away. On lunch hour I've even been known to make it to Brooklyn, touch down, and return just a hair before 2.

I like walking across the bridge in rain or cold (or both!) to avoid the flocks of people that cover it on nicer days. I try to be patient with them, though; they don't have the luxury of walking it whenever they want, the way I do. And if I'm too fed up, there's always the Manhattan or, dangerous in a different way (a story for another time, perhaps), the Williamsburg. One day I will walk across all three of them. Maybe when this spate of books has passed.