Category: Read Run Write

week eleven

Books Read:
22. The First Bad Man — Miranda July
23. Erec & Enide — Amy De’ath

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 42.62
to date — 342.73

I really liked Miranda July’s short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You so I thought that I would like The First Bad Man and I didn’t to begin with and then I did later on towards the last third of the book. It had nothing to do with the fact that the entire time I was reading the book I was thinking that I know Cheryl Glickman in real life or at least I know someone that could convincingly play Cheryl in the film adaptation and it would be the easiest directorial project along the lines of you, you just be yourself. It’s the same way I felt watching Ben Affleck in Mall Rats. Kevin Smith just telling Ben to be his douchebaggy self and everything would be fine. Not that Cheryl is a douchebag, nor is the person I have in mind to play her. You know what I mean. I picked up Erec & Enide at an Amy De’ath & Anne Boyer reading at Or Gallery back in February. I’m a big fan of her and her work and I thought this was pretty great. De’ath is a British poet currently completing her PhD at Simon Fraser University under the supervision of Stephen Collis. I hope the Coast Salish territories gets to keep her around once she completes, though with her talent I’m not holding my breath.
week eleven
Running this week is bit deceptive because the number is decent but it includes a rather paltry 5.34 km today that followed a lunch at Nuba in Gastown. Suffice it to say Lebanese seasoned ground lamb and humous, though delicious, is not recommended pre-run meal unless running while carrying bricks in your stomach is your thing. It’s not my thing. I don’t believe in karma but sometimes when I’m out for a run and I get to (common for runners, so I’ve come to understand) wondering what exactly it is that I’ve done to deserve this feeling that I’m going to crap myself. The other day I was listening to Julie Moss talk about her first Ironman Triathlon in a Radiolab podcast. So I guess it happens to even the best of us.

week ten

Books Read:
20. Men Explain Things to Me — Rebecca Solnit
21. Lemon Hound — Sina Queyras

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 34.48
to date — 300.11

I didn’t plan for the one-two punch of you should really read some Virginia Woolf that came with reading Rebecca Solnit’s collection of essays followed by Sina Queyras’ poetry collection but I have the two literary black eyes to show for it and I don’t mind. I don’t have any excuses. None come to mind except that I just haven’t bothered to yet. I will probably rectify the situation in the near future. I’m not quite sure how I managed to avoid Woolf so completely throughout my undergraduate degree in English literature. I also didn’t know that Lemon Hound was a book of poems before(?) it was the formidable force in Canadian/feminist poetics that is the (sadly, defunct) blog lemonhound.com though the blog started in 2005 and the book was published in 2006. Defunct isn’t the right word, either, since the site is still alive, though with no new material since May 2015. I recall reading Queyras’ to social media announcing that she was moving on to other endeavors and the wave of ugh that swept through the community. It left a hole that has yet to be filled that I’m aware of at least. Maybe I’m out of touch. It happens.
week ten
I’ve been trying to keep my running interesting by mixing up my routes but it’s not really working all that well since I really only have two routes and they’re approximately the same distance but with dramatically different scenery and my decision to turn left or right is usually decided by the position of the sun in the sky when I leave my building. With Daylight Savings on the near horizon about to push the sun away from its horizon that could change, but for now it’s left for the lit path if the sun sets before I finish, and right if it’s a morning or midday run. They look like this.
Turn Left
This one takes me over the Burrard Bridge the then down (up?) Cypress Street connecting to the Seawall path at the Maritime Museum then around Science World and back to English Bay. It’s a nice, flat run with the exception of the climb to the middle of the bridge, and it’s lit from the bridge all the way back to English Bay (except for that part through Vanier Park). I have a headlamp for the short dark section from the north side of the Burrard Bridge to Bute Street that has garnered me a couple “TOO BRIGHT!” comments. I highbeam people. I’m a jerk.
Turn Right
This is my lit-by-the-sun option. Although I have said headlamp, I prefer to use it sparingly. Not glaringly? [groan…] This route is straight down Barclay and then under West Georgia and onto the Stanley Park Seawall. I like this run, and it’s probably my favourite especially in inclement weather when the Seawall is mostly deserted. The one part that I still find slightly deflating is when rounding Brockton Point under the lighthouse and seeing the Lions Gate Bridge way off in the distance. It looks a lot farther than it is.