A Woman On The Margins

Much of both The Odd Woman and the City and Fierce Attachments take place on your long walks throughout New York City. Can you describe your walking style?
For many years I did a twenty-minute mile.

Do you put on sneakers?
Yeah, yeah. I’ve never strolled. I never set out to encounter, I set out to walk. I set out to dispel daily depression. Every afternoon I get low-spirited, and one day I discovered the walk. I had some place to go on the Upper East Side, and I lived downtown on 12th Street. I decided to walk on impulse and it was three miles and it took an hour and I thought, “Oh, this is great, I feel so much better.” Lots of people know this, but I never knew it until I just stumbled on it. And then I began to make deliberate use of it. So I am always walking somewhere. I set myself a destination, and then things happen in the street.

Do you pity the person who walks around with headphones in?
I don’t pity, but I dislike intensely what’s happened, that everyone is walking around with a cell phone or texting or using earplugs. It’s really so shocking to me because they don’t hear anything. It seems very dangerous.

There are some particularly good points in this interview with Vivian Gornick — I like the part where she says that she “didn’t give a shit about women’s sexuality” because she “had orgasms easily” because, like, girl, get it — but I am mostly thinking about how much I’m trying to walk before it gets really, really hot out. Today is nice and cool and I’m going to take advantage with a long walk to the bookstore to get a copy of The Odd Woman and the City! Wish I had worn sneakers and will absolutely be blasting music over the bridge but besides that I will really do anything Vivian Gornick tells me to do.