"I, in perfect health except for a slight cold"

I exposed myself to a surfeit of Whitman. I read too much of and about ol' Walt yesterday and became crabby.
STOP insisting on the glory of grass, WW, of glistening sweat, of gelatinous gaps...

Reading him makes me want to sit slumped in a corner and glower and point out how UNCOMFORTABLE nature is, treacherous, and rocky underfoot.
Have you ever been camping in a rainstorm?
Have you ever inhaled days-old urine striking through cotton trousers?

Well, yes, I gather he went out and about all the time (Nature!), and talked to everyone. 

He was the sort of guy who reveled in it.
The odor of feet.
The feel of hail on your face!
Doesn't it make you feel ALIVE?!

No, it makes me want to go inside.

Really, some of his stuff is great. I love the lines of "Song of Myself" recited in Nine Days.
A little is enough. Walt is so relentless, so insistent, I want to punch him.
Back off!

He invites parody.
I couldn't write it . . . and I don't have to:
E. B. White wrote a send-up of the Classics Book Club in the style of WW, "A Classic Waits for Me".

Unlike Walt, though, he kept it short: a page long.
Here are a few lines:

"I to the classics devoted, brother of rough mechanics, beauty-parlor technicians, spot welders, radio-program directors
(It is not necessary to have a higher education to appreciate these books),
I, connoisseur of good reading, friend of connoisseurs of good reading everywhere,
I, not obligated to take any specific number of books, free to reject any volume, perfectly free to reject Montaigne, Erasmus, Milton,
I, in perfect health except for a slight cold, pressed for time, having only a few more years to live,
Now celebrate this opportunity."

_______________

"To my other favorite W.W." Walt Whitman’s poetic influence on Breaking Bad"--article in Medium

Here's an interesting connection---Whitman's poetry features in Breaking Bad--the TV show about Walter White, a man living his as his freest, most intense, truest self––as a meth making, dealing, murdering bastard.

The contradictions in the worship of freedom, of self. "If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body."

I didn't like Breaking Bad, but Marz did, and she showed me clips of the highlights.
Like the ending:

"I did it for me," Walter White says. "I liked it. I was good at it. It made me feel alive."

Oh, Walt!
_____________

I actually do have a slight cold.
But my knee continues to improve, and since it's supposed to be almost hot–– sunny and 45º––this afternoon I will try walking with a cane to the park, half a mile away. Or at least around the block.

I bet I will see someone in shorts. (A man.)

The body exposed! The milk white legs!