Books Read:
2. The Princess Diarist — Carrie Fisher
3. The Long Tomorrow — Leigh Brackett
4. Nutshell — Ian McEwan
Kilometres Ran:
week two — 58.1
week three — 50.9
To date: 175 km
So 2017 so far: okay start on the reading, good start on the running, bad start on the writing. I think that of all the celebrities that died in 2016 Carrie Fisher is the one that probably had the most effect on me. Bowie was big. So too were Prince and George Michael, but there’s just something about Carrie. One of my earliest memories is going to see The Empire Strikes Back with my [late] father (I was barely five years old) and us showing up late and coming into the theatre at the moment Leia and Han are arguing the the ice tunnel on Hoth. In university I dated a woman that was a Fisher fan, though I wonder if her fandom was more due to an episode (I have no idea how many…) of Sex and the City that featured Carrie playing Carrie being Carrie. I managed to find first editions of all of Fisher’s books (at that time) and gave them to her one by one. Regret isn’t the correct word because I don’t regret, but maybe I should have doubled up and collected copies for me. Alas. It’s strange how death seems to force us to appreciate life in retrospect. I’d not read anything of Fisher’s, though I was very curious about this book given the salacious attention to the Harrison affair. It still amazes me that it was kept a secret for so long. I had no idea that Brackett also wrote The Empire Strikes Back. Her book was on a list of post-apocalyptia that I thought I would like to read. I liked Empire better. I feel like Nutshell is a book that crazy, right-wing, anti-abortionists might read and shout “SEE!!!” thereby completely missing both points, if there are points at all. I think you’ll have to have read it to understand that. And a part of me doubts that crazy, right-wing, anti-abortionists read much of anything except for a book that they claim is the basis for their crazy, right-wing, anti-abortionist stance in spite of the fact that said book, in all its eternal wisdom, actually says literally zero directly about abortion. Zilch. I remember pointing out this fact to a Rock for Life dude once (I had a past life). And he, in his white maleness (they’re almost always white males, aren’t they?) tried his best to co-opt some vague scripture but couldn’t quite answer the overt question that is if this is really as important as you want people to believe that it is don’t you think that your precious book would be a little more overt? I recall him being stumped, but memory is a strange thing. Anyway, it’s a pretty good book. You should read it. No, not that one. The McEwan one. Gawd.
I was getting nostalgic the other day looking at my accomplishments and realized that about a year ago I was pretty damn happy with running a sub-one-hour 10 kilometres and 12 or so months later I’m running a hair-thin sub-one-hour 13 kilometres and that is pretty effing humblebrag inducing. I was on the Seawall the other day and there were some tourists walking and chatting (like they do) and I’ve a pretty decent pace going and I’m just about to pass this pair and then this dude, let’s call him Kevin, blows by all three of us and one says to the other that’s not jogging that’s running. So I still have some more work to do.
