A Dog or A Blog

My friend got a dog. My friend lost ten pounds. All of a sudden I wanted a dog too. Vanity motivates me to an embarrassing degree.

There I am, running through the woods in slow motion, smiling. Dog turns his big furry head and I can read his mind, “This is fun, let’s run together forever.” I think, “Yes, Dog, let’s run free forever." A glistening touch of perspiration on my brow refracts rainbows of light into the camera. Dog starts to do something strange with his backside, kind of hunkering down and quivering. Cut! I have to pick up warm fresh trailside deposits.

So, I hadn’t yet gone to the pound to find my own live-in personal trainer. I was innocently traipsing through the woods with my steadfast hiking buddy Tara. “You should write a blog, Annie,” she said. The topic of conversation previous to this frightening turn had been my speculative career as a writer. She said the words "write a blog” with apparent sincerity and a complete lack of malice.

I believe I stopped in my tracks. “No way. I would never blog."

Apparently this response angered my Muse. From that moment, I was a cursed with a cascade of ideas for a hiking blog. I found myself waking before dawn to jot down the most outlandish things. I was inflicted with an incessant infection of ideas. After a few months I would have surrendered but before that could happen I willingly turned traitor. What was the tipping point? I realized if I had a blog, I wouldn't need a dog. To write about hiking, I'd have to hike.

To kick it all off, I’ll be blogging daily for one week after which I will plug away like the literal girl I am. The Sunday Hiker will be updated on Sundays.

Stay tuned this week as I give an illicit identification of a common moth and dazzle you with the fairytale recount of my first trail trip. And in case you get the hiking bug too, I’ll be offering sage advice on what to wear. I may get a dog someday, but for now I'm all blog.