Here comes the sun, and with it an overwhelming sense of obligation

Um, in case you haven't heard...Christopher McDougall is coming to the store this Friday to sign. Not only is this the best book for locomotion-motivation, it is also the perfect warm up read for the Boston Marathon. I cannot overstate how enthralling and fascinating this book is. My good-lord if you run (or walk) or shuffle even, this book is for you. So come in and meet the super cool Mr. Mc-D and his crazy amphiby-feet that have taken the running world by storm.

Running and reading share a similar place in my life. I feel sick when I don't practice them regularly, but I feel resentful sometimes they they are the world's best medicine. Have you ever regretted time you spent running or reading? Probably not (unless it was from the cops or the romance section.)

On a particularly pretty day like today, I always feel like an ass when I fail to jog, or pull out whatever I'm reading and sit outside. Nothing makes me feel more like I belong to the world like resonating with a killer collection of poems, good story, or an easy run. *Yet* how quickly we forget how simple little things like reading and running can entertain, fulfill, and even heal any ills you may be tending.

So- let's get out from behind our respective screens, strap on our sports bras and/or happy pants, and go for a run...and if we aren't up for that, let's read about the Ultra marathoners that do. For roughly 150 miles.

Fall. Gather your nuts.

So, If you're like me...and I can only assume you are...

you are getting

very excited

about fall.

Enough of this "beach reading sunny happy sweaty shavey shorty sunscreeny" business. Finally we can get back to sleeping without swimming in our own fluids. We can get back to being maudlin and autumnal and avuncular and no more pastels!

(avuncular?)

It is time for sad literature. It is time for literature. and turtlenecks. and run-on sentence fragments. And overcrowded Targets and too many reasonably priced Tupperware storage solutions!

Peanut butter and apple cidery-whiskey burned leafs and early bedtimes and temporal INSECTICIDE.

Per Peterson overtakes Stieg Larsson. Welcome back H.P. Lovecraft over Eckhart Tolle. Eat Pray Love bends to Tolstoy.

I cease freckle acquisition, and begin the hunt for a good Trapper-keeper.

Fall means rebirth of the interior.

Time to find a good book to beat you up.

Going Without

I want to be Amish. I want to add spice to my traveling routine by alternating between a bicycle and a scooter. I want to have a little girl-- and not worry about what TV personality is telling her she's too fat, she's too poor. I want to work with my hands and make bread, grow herbs, brush horses, nail boards. I would love to live this way for--oh let's say...a weekend.










Then I want cable. I want heated water and the warming blue-glow of the Internet Explorer. I want to blow dry the kink out of my bangs. I want to let my fancy toothbrush do its fine job. I want to fall asleep to the sweet white noise of the cartoon network.



The Amish I creepily stalked this weekend in Intercourse/ Bird in Hand Pennsylvania were a thing of majesty to me. I crept up beside a gaggle of teens in three buggies parked at Costco...and took photos of their cavity filled horses. I scanned the internet looking for information on the oh-so exotic sounding "Rumpsringa"---or the Amish answer to the middle-class "undergraduate experience." http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/amish/





I guess we all want to get out of wherever we are for a bit. We count down the days till the arrival of whatever our employer deems to be our Sabbath. It is easy to romanticize the idea of reading by candlelight in a dress you know will fit, and not having to think about how it looks.

Then remember how delicious it is to choose what you are reading, where you are reading, and why. I curled up last night with a copy of "Fancy Beasts" (a challenging and brisssssk poetry collection by Alex Lemon) http://www.brooklinebooksmith-shop.com/search/apachesolr_search/fancy+beasts and my energy efficient light bulb. I cranked on my energy-saver air conditioning and drifted off into a comfortable, modern, convenient sleep.

the new in the old

twinned body language reveals a long pairing,

circling the tables without looking, holding out
a book the other receives without looking

circling and returning
to peer over,
or around

"which one is that now?"
"this, i heard good things about it"
"yes, i've read that, i remember he's mute, i think"
"you've read it?"
"that's right. you don't know what i'm reading anymore,

because it's all electronic."