sabato, aprile 21, 2012

Airmiles and airport books

I have enough of them for a round trip to Rome. I just bought some tickets instead. I mean to say I'll be in Rome, but not flying in and out of there. Feeling a bit of an abstract urge to scarper. Lots of women love being pregnant but I suspect I'm not one of them. Now that I'm not particularly worried anymore - forewarned forearmed, etc., and Ren seems to be ticking along nicely down there as we round out this beginning 1:4 miscarriage risk period - I'm just sort of sick of being pregnant. I want to go for runs and camping trips and eat food with sesame oil, not to mention coffee. But lethargy, nausea and blood pressure's in the way, not to mention the tail end of that fucking plague I contracted in Melbourne. 

And I want to not be so fucking fat. I'm back up to the weight I was before I started running, and wondering how I stood it back then. I feel like a fucking elephant. It's not an aesthetic thing. I look pretty great, with my porn boobs and glow and minibump and all that. It's more the feeling - this feeling of being some sort of clumsy, loose-limbed mastadon. And I'm just at the beginning of it, too. Oh well. I think things'll get better in that respect when the goo clears out of my lungs well enough for me to run and jump in the pool, and we've got a Pilates instructor buddy who I'll learn some matt tricks with. I'm just so bloody sleepy and dopey all the time.

The good thing is that all the enforced relaxation is reintroducing me to the world of light reading. I'm reading Dashiell Hammett's short stories for the first time. I like Raymond Chandler's better, for their emotional richness, but not much. These are pretty damn sweet. Not Dorothy Sayer's though, which aren't particularly emotionally rich compared to either - not at all - but are fucking awesome and which I've also been reading. Also reading The Art Forger's Handbook, by a very interesting man called Eric Hebborn. The linked documentary is very interesting, worth a watch, but nothing to the book. While it's got a lot of quantity of methodology not immediately interesting to those of us who don't draw or paint much, its conclusions on modern art versus older art and the intrinsic value of artwork are absolutely fascinating. Despite or because of being written by a sociopath, no dissection of those topics has ever spoken to me better.

In the vein of slightlier heavier reading I've been going through Erasmus's Praise of Folly, which is a rather sweet read. I have a great-grandfather Erasmus who made it to 100 without breaking a sweat, named after him of Rotterdam I know not, but in case Ren turns out to be a boy I'm mounting a minor campaign for us to name him that. (Don't worry, it's going badly.) In the circumstances I should at least read some of his books.

3 commenti:

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

I have an Erasmus gggrandaddy too...fought in the War in Tennesseee and Florida. He didn't make it to 100 though.

Glad to hear some thoughts about the difference between what exercise does for the body vs. what loooking good.

Martha, hardly a big girl, has been watching what she eats for a while now..."I just feel better."

As her loving husband...I tell her that's all that matters...even as I'm steadily stocking the pantry with Twinkies and Moon Pies.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Mine didn't fight in any wars, as far as I know, which probably helped him get to the centegenarian.

You people deep fry Twinkies, don't you? I've got to try that someday. I imagine there's not a lot of salt in them . . .

e.f. bartlam ha detto...

There are a lot of traditional Southern dishes that are fried...pan fried chicken and prok chops, etc, Then delicacies...green tomatos (mmmmmmmmmmmmm) and pickles but, the extreme frying like fried Cokecola and Twinkies and Kool Aid is really a Fair thing...and more often than not a midwest fair thing.

We will however pickle anything...anything do you hear me?

It seems that all my Greats, on my Daddy's side at least, fought in the War...and hard.

Martha's the one with the family that never dies.