Some interesting discussions

These are random.  I'm researching several disparate things at once, and pretty much use my blog as a way to capture odds and ends I find on the interwebs, to keep my bookmark MB count down...

A Claudia Rankine and Lauren Berlant  conversation about art, identity, theory...

And there was gonna be more theory, but I got distracted by music.  Here's a good recording of Jake Bugg on KCRW's The Morning Becomes Eclectic.  I want to be annoyed by him (maybe more his local fans), but then he plays a solo or does an amazing cover like the one here of "Folsom Prison Blues." I watched this after a bunch of Joy Division, and it worked...

A Smiths video by Derek Jarman:  The Queen is Dead 

An acoustic song by Nirvana is that could easily segue into the current trad hipster scene:  Where did you sleep last night? 

One of the upsides of that scene is the bouying of Shovels and Rope's career: Live on the radio, KEXP Seattle.  Their self-titled doco is awesome, BTW.  The clear-voiced First Aid Kit.

Locals Doomtree in the same studio kicking it.   

Alabama Shakes.  And, leading into Monday, Nina Simone on "M...i" states, among others. A sobering  interview with her on BBC's Hart Talk, 1999, and of course,  The King of Love Is Dead. 

Making me think of Kenneth (Kenny) Saffold, who moved up here to MN and carried on the work as a leader in the Twin Cities legal community as well as his church and the larger community.  I was lucky enough to get to work with and be inspired by him, especially as he fought metastasizing cancer.  The packed house at his memorial service was a real testimonial to the breadth of his impact on people and how powerfully he touched their lives.  Anyway, missing you, Kenny...

I know, too serious.  Have some  Lizzo.  And Lizzo at Glam Doll Donuts and at the State Fair.  Yes.

Later now, I watching Almost Famous cos I want to see Philip Seymour Hoffman and I can't watch Capote again yet.  Plus the opening is killer. 

"Simon and Garfunkel is poetry." "Yes, it is poetry.  It is the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex.  Honey..." Pointing at their eyes suggestively. "...they're on pot." ..."You do hate her,  you just don't know it yet.  ...This is a house of lies!". The kids combing their moustaches and beards and then tiny William...  "Who put such a high premium of being typical?" Frances McDormand is too good at playing the wacky hippie mom.  And Kate Hudson, etc.

But Hoffman as Lester Bangs really kills it.  "Ah, you made friends with him, didn't you?  ...I have seen you.  And you...are NOT cool.". Anyway...

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As 2014 careens toward its end

Another pleasure of 2014 is seeing so many high school and 20 something folks speaking their minds and being active about systemic injustice.  Also seeing over-thirty friends get involved for their first time.  I'm so jaded, having done police brutality and prison activism and researched the stats and stories starting over 20 years ago now, and having worked for a public defender in a notoriously racist county and then rural legal aid. 

It's really nice to see people discover the power of working together and stuff like all those cheesy old chant slogans.  They're cheesy, but so true.  It's not fun being an old fart who sold out and has to keep most thoughts to herself, but I had my say back in the day and it's more interesting to hear what people made of everything that's been said and done and see what they come up with to address the here, now, and future.

I'm not saying people can afford to not study history deeply or not talk to the old folks who truly have something to contribute.  Just saying Right on.

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Trapped

Well, not exactly, but it keeps snowing and I am dogsitting baby dog, who cannot be left alone.  Her BFF is working on her Flyball Master title while we shovel and cook up CSA veggies for the week.

The salad is an odd amalgam of veggies and crap I cleaned out of the fridge and cupboards, but it worked.  Chioggia beets, microwaved til tender and chopped, orange pieces halved, a few chopped walnuts and pepitas for protein, and lettuce. 

The dressing is tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, a touch each of cumin, turmeric, garlic powder, onion powder, and mustard, and palmfuls of parsley and arugula.  Goes with the potato, leek, carrot, arugula soup I made yesterday.  Fennel lemon peel bread is rising, using up some old buttermilk powder that was hardened into a ball. 

Slightly more hospitable in those dark corners of the kitchen...  Puppy helped by licking the floor.  Then we worked on the project of getting her to pick up a toy or ball and bring it back.  She will sometimes do this in the yard, but mostly if BFF the ball hog competes for it, growl growl. 

In the house, she's too shy and cautious, even with treats.  So far, she'll catch a soft cat toy but not a ball, but then spits it out.  Or nose a ball but not pick it up, with scorn and groaning about not just getting treats for offering downs and cute poses.  Shaking took a while, but now she offers the spotted paw almost every time, with only slight disdain.

I'm trying to finish Bad Feminist (Roxane Gay) before it's due.  It's very good, but better in chunks with breaks in between essays.  To think about them and because a lot of the subjects are heavy: racism, rape culture, Penn State, body image, eating and weight, even her pop culture analysis is not lite.  She almost has me convinced I should read the rest of The Hunger Games, which is a feat. 

Mostly I am nodding my head, glad *someone* can say all these things so well, in current terms, without making me groan or bite my tongue.  The dog is not impressed, but I will have to buy my own copy, as I suspected based on her columns, short stories, and tumblr posts.

Anyway, time to punch down dough and go shovel some walks for folks who need a hand.  We'll see how good her heel is, though she did great running yesterday, not pulling me over in slidy freshly falling snow.  Though if i'd had a sled or skis I think we would have been in business. 

She woofed at another (full) husky, very excited, which she has not done before then, before SIBERSKI SNEG!  (Even when the dude who has his Husky pull him on a scooter on the sidewalk goes by.)  Better than the Chewbacca yowl she sometimes does when she feels Treats Are Due for some feat of obedience.

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Ruska-aika

It is fall-to-winter again.  I'm not sure how that happened.  I was cold and snowed in and lazy, then just stayed lazy while it was briefly warm and darn hot.  Now I should be raking leaves but it's very windy.  That's my excuse, anyway.  Plus I'm warming my cat up.  He gets cold with all that long fur.

Instead I was watching a film about much-harder-working people, and working on my Finnish vocabulary:  Finns in the UP.  The 80s hair is cool too...

I was reading more Scandicrime books, but the Swedish thriller was very derivative and word heavy and the Finnish comedic noir was too crass and head hopping for me.  So I have nothing new to recommend in that vein.  The GF is hooked on Sigurdadottir's thrillers, and the latest ghost story is good: I Remember You.  Creepy.

I just started a biography of sculptor Edmonia Lewis that promises to be earth I shattering.  I'd like to learn more about her, anyway.  I know about the mysterious scandal at my alma mater but not enough about her art and later life.  Sounds like a lot of research went into the book, so we'll see...

Tomorrow the NY marathon is supposed to have massive headwinds.  The Lakefront marathon in Milwaukee was unreasonably cold when I spectated a couple weeks ago.  Good luck peoples.  I think I'm glad to be a lazy lump this season and only swimming, followed by the hot tub or sauna.  Did I mention it's cold? 

The trick-or-treaters last night were all bundled up or moving fast, and my fingers almost froze to the metal bowl.  Luckily, they did not snatch up all of the Pirate's Booty (cos you have to have a gluten free candy alternative these days, not just non-peanut).  That should keep me from raiding the leftover chocolate for a few days, time enough to dump it on my coworkers instead, that fine Halloween tradition.

The plan is to be less of a lump this winter despite ghost torn glute pain and the ice, frigid air, and snow they say is coming.  Skiing, running, writing, rah.  NaNoWrimo is here.  See, I'm throwing out words pell mell already...  Time to sit down and direct them a little more productively, then.

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Popping back up

Betty

We had serious flooding.  More storms are supposedly headed this way, but there has been a little dry time. I have a new dog panting in the chair after running around my house hyperventilating for an hour and a half.  She is very skittish after being rescued from a hoarding situation.  I am reading a Finnish mystery that is so-so.

She calmed down and enjoyed walking in the quiet early morning and then with a dog friend, thankfully.  Resting quietly on the mat after many many treats.

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Shaking off the blahs

The Metrodome is now a small section of riser, a pile of rubble, and a bunch of tall cranes against the sky.  The streets are no longer covered in two inches of ice, and the roofs are no longer buried under two feet of snow.  I am trying to pull out of hibernation mode to glimpse my own shadow.

I'm reading Dust Devils on a Quiet Street by Richard Bowes in ebook and The Flamethrowers in book book.  Of course the Bowes is brilliant, and the latter is much more interesting than the other NYTimes list book I just read.  Motorcycles, conceptual art, and Italian leftists- what could go wrong?

Finished Once a Runner by John Parker and, after wading through the purplish prose and laddishness of the beginning, see why it's a runner classic.  The unfocused feel of the first half mirrors the protagonist's mind, and by the end the writing is tight and knifeblade sharp, like a runner in the race of his life.

I really want to read the Tapir book but I put it somewhere in my house where I can't find it.  Scouring the corners is my weekend plan, along with taxes.  And maybe looking at dogs, as well as spectating at flyball dog's tournament if I can fit it in with swim class.

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Socked with snow

Surprise, that scant inch overnight plus two in the daytime... more like six plus by noon.  Peak at rush hour, of course.  Bring back the below zero.  Oh wait, that happens today too.  Welcome to Minnesota. 

I was listening to a podcaster from Chicago talking about the unusual just below zero temps.  Unfortunately, for us it's below -15 that's been freaking endless.  People's cars start in their garage, they go to work, car sits in outdoor lot, and whammo- it won't start.   Makes for fun times. 

The lightrail is better but understaffed from sick calls and trains get stuck and block other trains from mechanical problems.  Buses, luck be with you, too.  Siberia has it worse, I keep reminding myself...

So, The Virgins was underwhelming, though I did finish it.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was due and I could not get into it again.  I'm bad at rereading light material, and the tech references - digital watch as state of the art- are very dated now. 

I'm trying a new workout schedule, mostly based on the Furman FIRST 3-2 plan for an intermediate 5k.  Interval run, tempo run, long run, and two cross training days.  Biking and swimming, with skiing and snow shoveling to vaguely train towards a sprint triathlon.  But more focused on upping my base running pace a little.  I'm so slow I'm a little off their pace chart...  Hope to get on it.  We'll see.  This first couple weeks is to shake off the cobwebs and see if I can handle the workload.  It's a little easier to get to the gym with no dog clock, so we'll see...

So cold

It's wearing everybody down.  The streets and gas stations were full yesterday with everyone rushing around to get ready for the next plunge well below zero, after only two days of partial- warmer but biting wind- relief.

The CSA farm is still keeping me cooking new things.  For warmth, I roasted carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower with olive oil, garlic and thyme last night and this morning made soy honey pumpkin to go with the chicken I needed to finish.  Beet meze, beet quinoa salad and borscht are all in the fridge with carrot ginger soup.  I still have a celery root, cabbage, and parsnips to eat before the next pickup.  May have to make something for the party of a coworker who is moving to Florida- good timing on her part.

I'm taking swimming classes at the Y to further my triathlon goal and so far it's fun and productive.  The age range is broad and the teacher is skilled but mellow.  My motivation to walk ten blocks to the gym after work to practice is nonexistent, the gym is full of January members, and there's no way I'm running outside at night.  I've managed to do some yoga and Nordic tracking, with running and skiing warmer weekends, but it's the blah season.

The GF got Netflicks and we started watching "Orange Is the New Black," which is surprisingly watchable and addictive.  I tend to dislike many of the shows and movies that get raved about as great lesbian or LGBTQAYaYa treats, but once in a while...

Teen werewolf movie "Jack and Diane" not so much.  Hated the werewolfy interludes, tepid, treacly dyke drama, and gratuitous college rape video scene.  Yeah. 

"Making the Boys," a doco about Boys in the Band, was interesting, with footage I'd never seen of gay Hollywood in the 60s and interviews with a range of people that had informative stuff to say that was not duplicative of the many films made about the Stonewall era.  I hadn't realized how many of the original cast died not long after the movie came out, in the early first waves of the AIDS epidemic.

I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which was good enough in the first 50 pages to make me buy it when the library ebook came due.  It just got nominated for a PKDick award and has interesting things about gender and occupations, in a space opera-y setting.  So far the genderfrack aspects seem tacked on and showy, but I'm not that far in.

Also The Lovers, which I read about in the NYT Book Review and am bored with.  I reread After Delores by Sarah Schulman in a new Arsenal Pulp Press edition and enjoyed it and the new preface by her, classic Schulman incisiveness.  I just found two bona fide new lesbian novels that look promising, off the shelf, we'll see.  Have to save them for a reading drought moment...

Actual writing work has been occuring, nothing to write home about but better than the deep freeze of December.  Thoughts stirring again.  A couple of my CW classmates have things coming out- novels and a short story in Asimov's this month for Domenica Phetteplace.  Yay.  The latest installment of the Nightshifted series for Cassie Alexander, although it sounds like it's ending.  Fun reads, especially if you like actual medical knowledge in your supernatural romance...  Inspiring me to get going.

Turnips

I'm browsing recipes this morning, while listening to Teenage Kicks on The Current, of course.  David Bowie turns 67 on Wednesday, she tells me, which makes me feel very old.  I'm having flashbacks of staying up late to try and tape videos (DC did not get MTV or any cable til I was gone, so no going to friend's houses for that).

Turnip tart, with variations from Stilton to goat cheese to vegan cream to simple carameized turnips, is looking like the best bet.  I used Daikon radishes, cabbage, and turnips in a kim chi vermicelli bowl for breakfast.  Golden beets will go part to juice and likely borscht, but maybe I can find something

new on the internets...

Boiling diced turnips in a little water flavored with soy sauce and honey is surprisingly good.  The CSA is keeping things interesting this winter, though each biweekly box feels a bit overwhelming at first, even split between 2-3 households.

We're having one and a half days of 20 degrees between deep freezes, so I'm shopping and maintaining the car, then holing up to write and finish watching a bad British sitcom before it's due.  Went skiing (cross country) on New Year's Day and fought finger frostbite half the time, though it was stil fun.  Not as crowded...

I did indeed finish Reamde in 2013, and enjoyed it to the end.  Neil Stephenson's other books that I read have lost me before or at the 3/4 mark, but this stayed interesting.  I'm now working.on a Sarah Schulman reprint, After Delores, and a gory Icelandic mystery.  Then I think the Tapir book is next.  A little shot of science in mid-winter goes a long way...  Anyway, happy new year and stay warm and dry if you can...

Nice to have a day off

You can almost see our skyline, such as it is, over Lake Hiawatha there.  Lake Nokomis skaters and docks.  Flair's fountain in its usual winter state, frozen except for the burbling top, lit with colored lights.

That was not for a funeral or politics.  It's been a while.  Actually, it just feels like that, cos I went to NC for the GF's marathon in early November.  Oh yeah...  It's nice to lay around instead of traveling, tho. 

Of course, I shoveled twice and ran to the lake, in "laying around."  And helped make some dinner, lots of root vegetables thanks to the CSA I joined this winter.  The dog is slowing down a lot but had fun eating snow, still her favorite activity.

I finished The Shining Girls.  It was a good read, and meticulously researched.  In the end, it's all about a (time traveling) serial killer, though.   Somehow, that's less satisfying by the end than it was in the beginning.  I ended up feeling it was gross and sad but I hadn't really learned anything.  YMMV...  Now I'm on a rampage to finish Reamde by 12/31.  250 pages to go...

Brrr

It's definitely winter.  I've been trying to keep up with a winter CSA share from Featherstone Farm, with a lot of help from my friends.  Today is cold enough for roasting a funky-looking kohlrabi of immense proportions and some golden beets.  Yesterday was squash tofu Thai curry soup in the crockpot, a nice end to a long day of work, running at the gym, and having to take a convoluted combination of bus and lightrail home.  Before that, turnip, daikon, parsnip, potato mash and fennel chicken worked well. 

I have to make an apple pie and vanilla ice cream to fulfill a fundraiser auction item for the Combined Federal Campaign, and then it's Thanksgiving stuffed squash and Quorn roast.  Then no more eating til January 1, or until the next CSA share pickup...

Luckily, I've also been busy trail running, tuning up for a food bank fundraiser 10k for Thanksgiving, and weight training a little, recovering from a botched half marathon in Mankato, MN.  I got off course and only did 10.5 miles, but I think it kept me from injuring myself, so theoretically I've accepted this as yet another failed half attempt.  Ready to cut off the bad muscles, except I need something to sit on...

The lack of much to say here stems from having started Neil Stephenson's 1,000+ page Reamde while furloughed, then being sent back to work within a week because I am, of course, essential.  The book is awesome, I can barely put it down, except I constantly have to...  It's sucking up all my free time, such as that is, but in a good way.  Classic cyberpunk subject matter, thriller style, and timely observations about technology, globalization, and practical economics.  Or something.  Highly recommended, if you can make the time or don't mind reading the same book for months.

Oh yeah, I also went to DC to see the folks, bro, niece and nephew, and Air and Space, of course.   Then to NC to watch the GF run the OBX (Outer Banks marathon to the uncool, apparently.)  Pix and more later.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I have plowed through a bunch of books and stories without time to cover them, lately, thanks to being deemed "essential" just as I got used to being at home with time to get things done (that do not cost too much).  I started Reamde by Neal Stephenson, thinking this was the perfect opportunity to get through its 1,040 some pages.  But no, it goes back on the pile.

Neil Gaiman's latest, the Ocean at the End of the Lane, IIRC, came up at the library, amazingly after 200 plus people on the list.  I started it.  It was engrossing and properly creepy.  Then downright scary.  Then I figured we were ready for Act II.  And it ended.

Really?  That's all?  All's well that ends well, essentially?  I'd say more, but major spoilers to discuss it on any level, especially since it's so short...

I'm listening to a Harry Hole, Norwegian cop mystery series.  This one, The Snowman, is also creepy, but they kind of go on and on.  This makes them better as audio books, for me, because I can tune in and out and get things done in the meantime.

I may get back to Reamde, because it started very well.  Snow Crash started well too, but then it meandered, so we'll see.  Reamde has a lot of plots in play from the get-go, so it's about keeping all those balls in the air.  I find Stephenson's brand of cyberpunky economic connectivity pushing the "what ifs" very entertaining, but I think it's probably an acquired taste, especially at such length.

Naomi Kritzer, local author, Wyrdsmiths member, and election guide guru, has a short story up at Clarkesworld called "Bits" that is pretty damn funny.  But it's the Clarkesworld type of Very Adult story, so I'm not gonna link to it.  Aliens meet Suzy Bright.

I can't think of anything else right now, before coffee, so I will stop there.  My brain is also addled from trying to figure out whether we're ever going to get a paycheck for all this work we're doing and get to use leave again.  I had to go in at 6:30 so I could be only a little late to a seminar I paid for three weeks as go, and may have to miss another one that's right in my area of practice, forgoing money and the credits I need to keep my bar license.  And for what, exactly? More unclear and off point every day... 

Really?? That's my word for the week, and I trust it will continue to prove useful...

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Labor day

I'm headed in on a fine Saturday morning, the first non-90 degree day we've had in weeks, or it seems like that anyway.  Don't defame us public servants.  No one else is headed in today to make things keep moving along, except some flight attendants and guys who're clearly headed to open restaurants.  (My old job, I do not envy them. It's hot and greasy in the kitchen, and restaurant managers... Yeesh.)

I'm listening to China Mieville's City and The City, which I just started and have to restart cos of some VERY LOUD kids on the light rail yesterday who were pulling the "You're racist if you complain or move away" schtick that doesn't really work that well in public transportation when it's not the suburban Vikings/Twins crowd. 

I'm also reading Outlaw Platoon, about the U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  True war stories, my guilty pleasure.  It's interesting, from the POV of a new platoon leader set down in a remote village with lots of local political intrigue.

(Later) I made it home, napped, ran 5 miles, biked to the store, and now I'm making black Russian sourdough and chipotle raspberry chicken wings, while it decides whether it's storming outside.

I'm reading Riding Fury Home by Chana Wilson intermittently, but can't take too much of it at once.  It's fascinating - particularly as a look at daily life in the 60s/70s women's movement and lesbian circles, but a little too much of what I think about all day at work.  Will review it separately.

Later- I'm trying to rework the setup for these two different novels I got stuck on.  The setting in terms of time and place is not right in one, maybe just slightly off.  The other is not taking the characters where they need to go.  I think it's the characters, not quite realized enough.  They started as kind of stereotypes, so that's likely enough.  Stewing about them on the page is likely my plan for today- now Sunday.  Plus finishing the bread, which rises overnight, then five hours, easier to fit in a weekend.  Farmer's market in Kingfield and salsa canning is possible, too, if I'm not too lazy.  And it doesn't rain- it's hazy grey out.

Anyway...  Wrote this like I read and write fiction, in fits and starts...

You know it's summer when...

A 10k blocks the road Saturday, and a triathlon Sunday.

There are backyard parties at more houses on the block than not.

You're looking up zucchini recipes, desperately trying to find something really different.

You feel bad for the people running at 4 p.m., even if they look happy.

A retro funk band is playing LOUD in your neighbor's backyard, and nobody cares 'cos they're pretty good.

You're about to break the record for most (fake) BLTs in one week.  Or fresh salsa and chips.

It's hot and you want these people with gardens and parties to shut up and go away.  So you can sleep in the shade.

You're dead tired of mowing.  You're even more tired of your neighbor mowing.  Because he makes it clear you should be too.

Chafing.  Ouch.  And a singlet and shorts are too much clothing.

Weeds.  Dreams of blowtorch or DDT.

Dogs panting and sighing and looking at you like it's all your fault.  And it is, of course.  Like fireworks and squirrels who taunt them.

Everyone else at work is on vacation.

Everyone gay is getting married.  Oh, that's new, and state- and year-specific.  But let me say, one wedding per couple, please...  You're hardly unique if we have more than one until-now-denied friend.  And don't honeymoon in a hater state, please.  Spend those niche dollars wisely.

At least my hometown is vacated by the transient powerbrokers, and everyone else can breathe that August drained swamp air freely...  Did you hear, they may have a vaccine that works for malaria?  That's actually news.

Anyway... It's hot.  And the neighbors are playing "... I got the moves like Jagger..."  *You* try to be interesting.

Typical summer Saturday morning

Making sourdough squash, kale, corn pancakes (mostly) and strawberry raspberry  jam from the garden while listening to the Clash on Teenage Kicks (The Current 89.3 FM).  Then biking to the Farmers Market if my back will let me. 

Had a little pain after trying to lift the balky dog up the stairs, after pulling a calf muscle running fast in hot hot heat.  It's thrown my running schedule off but, except for the pain, I'm happy for a little break.  The last few weeks I've been tired in the 90 degree heat and unable to go run in the gym for various reasons.  (It's not much cooler there, but no sun beating down.)

I have been reading the bio of Lopez Long, a Sudanese lost boy who ran for the US in the last two Olympics, and just broke the indoor American record for the 5,000m.  The video is worth watching, if you google it- nice surprise kick ahead of the leaders.  The book is interesting, tho a little too fawning on W.

I'm now reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Spell.  So far it's pretty captivating.  It meanders with lots of scene description, but he has this style that makes that sort of gripping, very 19th century.  Working on a novelish thing that delves into the spiritualism and poetry of that era, so it fits.

Score one for the birds

The ridiculous rain from the previous month's storm made the walking path part of the lake/wetlands.  The ducks and egret were happy.  I misjudged and got sloshy shoes for the next four and a half miles.  Oops...

My first raspberries came in, though.  They're loving the downpours alternating with 85+ degree days of full sun.  Now I have to add picking twice a day to the schedule, if I can't con others into picking and eating all the berries.  The birds got more aggressive about them last year, and took all my pears (and rabbits or birds took all my peas this year) so we'll just have to see.

Midsommer

Finally some good weather is making the garden and lawnmower-obsessed Minnesotans happy.  I biked home 7.5 miles, with a nice downhill several miles, and may have to try the to and from next.  I may take the wimpier path to, though...

The dogs don't like fireworks, but I am following my family tradition of making ice cream, albeit soy and without the old blue hand cranker.  The GF's son returned to his home briefly from fighting that deadly AZ wildfire, so there's something to celebrate. 

I'm not happy that the sequester has left them shorthanded and low on needed big equipment, though.  It's one thing to defund us desk jockeys, but drowning first responders in the bathtub is just plain destructive in all ways.  Shortsighted is blowing in the wind.  You don't need a weatherman to tell...  Just headlines.

I'm reading a bio of Mark Spitz and Borderliners by Peter Hoeg side by side.  Both studies in authoritarian pedagogies, it seems to work better for sports, when the pupil is very very driven, as well as physically gifted.  Borderliners has an interesting obsession with theories of time, as well as psychology, but it is weird, as in purposely obscure.

I have to get to work, to meet my write-a-thon goal of one hour a week.  While I actually have some free time. This experiment in triathleting is hard on the schedule.  Fun though, so far, though swimming is still eluding me.  It's harder than it looks... Kind of like writing.

Athletical

It's slightly demoralizing living around an elite athlete.  Especially when she's amazingly cut, can jump six to seven feet straight up in the air from a standstill, and can catch bunnies.  But no squirrels.  And honestly, I can catch a ball more consistently.

I did a cutback week run yesterday, taking time to pick up branches.  And do a lot of gawking.  I got super lucky, and the GF had minimal damage despite many large branches falling on her roof and being flung from the trees above her house in the storm we had Friday night.

Then I did swimming and biking today, consisting of biking to the lake and enjoying the water with half the city's kids and delinquent teenagers, doing vague drills to improve my crawl, and biking back.  It was fun.   Everyone seemed to be having a good time.

This was a far cry from yesterday, which was blocked roads all throughout the neighborhood, the sound of chainsaws everywhere, and lots of people calling insurance companies and tree trimmers, and the power company running around trying to restore electricity.

With the help of ART man, my body seems willing to let me train slowly for a half marathon and sprint triathlon, so I am keeping on. 

We got really excited yesterday about the idea of going to the Gay Games, what with their "everybody gets to play" egalitariansm that would allow us to compete, but then realized that was the one weekend of 2014 we have confirmed responsibilities that make it impossible to travel to beautiful Akron, Ohio.  (I went to college nearby, with folks from Akron.  It has pros and cons...)

At least I'll be in a new age group in 2018.  But so will all those fast wimmin...

Speaking of which, for Pride Month I brought home the docos "Before Stonewall" and "After Stonewall."  Well worth watching, or revisiting, for random bits of history and mini-interviews.  Hiding in the basement for an hour in the middle didn't make it less interesting.

Happy Pride month.

Avoidance

Baking works well.  I got some good spring out of the sourdough in the squash bread, after winging it on approximating the UK measurements.  Last of my winter squash from last fall.  Wiping them with diluted bleach kept them from molding, in my sort of cool cellar.

Listening to lots of Coode Street, Skiffy and Fanty, and Galactic Suburbia podcasts this week, plus Jo Nesbo's The Redbreast, from his Norwegian Harry Hole mystery series. 

I'm reading books about strength training and anatomy, not so interesting to anyone else who doesn't read medical records or practice medicine daily... Or get injured frequently.  The book Running Anatomy by Joe Puleo and Dr. Patrick Milroy is fascinating me though.  Who knew you used all those upper body muscles in running?  Great color pictures.

Recent Hugo discussions sent me back to Jonathan McCalmont's blog post about  Cowardice and laziness in SF.  I'm trying to work through it all, but there's something he's putting his finger on in that post that seems really important, to me.  I keep being drawn back to the discussions about what's missing in SF right now.  Not exactly sure why, but I'll keep trying to become more articulate about it...

Snow makes Minnesotans happy