Turning Pages

Yesterday I went out with Bess again.  This time Dave and I drove to the St. Mark’s Trail, which was much more my speed: flat and away from cars. We went for about 12 miles, 3 miles further than the day before (with far fewer breaks in between). It seems that I actually have pretty good leg strength; it’s my arm and back muscles that are weak.  But they’ll get there.  And I am far less sore today from yesterday’s ride than I was after Thursday’s ride. So I’m already improving (even if only slightly). Today’s a break day and then hopefully I’ll hit the pavement again tomorrow.

Yesterday night I finished the fun-read book I allowed myself as an end-of-the-semester treat: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This had been on my to-read list for months and I was even considering it for my dissertation, but now that I’m done with it, I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I love the premise of it, even just the feel of it (does that make sense, the feel of a book?  I think if you’re a book lover it does). But I’m not sure the logistics of it worked entirely.  Sometimes the writing techniques got in the way of the writing for me.  And yet I think that Foer’s presentation of a 9/11 story was the perfect way to tell the story, particularly in light of the Poetics of the Everyday class I just finished.  We may not know the whole truth at the end of Extremely Loud, but we feel the truth, or at least a connection to the characters.  Maybe for this subject, that’s better?

Today has been a lovely day of hanging out at home.  My friend Claire, her husband Ash, and their son Elliot came over to play Mario Kart Wii.  Okay, Elliot didn’t play (he’s only 8 months old) but he did give me a lot of luck and help me win on the hardest course.  All-in-all, the whole family kicked my and Dave’s butts most of the time, but it was fun times.  The perfect way to spend a cloudy afternoon.

Tomorrow Dave and I are going to continue my cleaning spree by organizing some closets.  And I’m off to Borders to decide which prelim book I’ll be starting with first.  Oh!  And I’ll be in Bowling Green (Kentucky, for those of you who don’t know) on Friday.  So if you’re there, we need to hang out.  Definitely. Why wouldn’t you want to hang out with someone with a life as exciting as mine?