I purposely *rode my bike up hills* today. In a way I did it partly for the much-needed cardiovascular workout (the only cardio I've been doing in the past couple weeks has been stress-related, kind of like interval sprinting, but with more clenching of fists and swearing. Okay, there has been another type of cardio, but some things must be kept private and mysterious...), but I also did it to avoid insane Montreal rush-hour traffic on busy, though flat, streets (it was a really pretty route though and went to the rich anglo part of town. quel suprise! rich, anglo and pretty?! never.). Yes, now that the essays are over (for these brief, brief moments - how I relish them and honour them by watching three straight hours of Thursday night tv.), I can get back into Routine. Which means going to the gym tomorrow to see if my muscles have atrophied as much as I think they may have. Poor mus-cles. I was doing push-ups and sit-ups but I kinda need to work out in a class setting or with a partner in order to stay motivated.
*Anyway*, speaking of health-related things, I think I might become a food activist. Y'know, go around spraying fake blood on boxes of cookies and bags of chips, that kind of thing. hahahahaha. no. I like a good chocolate bar as much as the next person (unless they don't like chocolate. In which case they are not a friend of mine and clearly sans all their faculties (see previous blog entry.)), but in general people eat far too much in the way of processed food. Yeah, I'm all whole-food revolution! It's difficult though b/c short of having my own farm, it's hard to practice what you preach. Especially when organic meat costs 3 times as much as 'regular' meat, meaning that I would only be able to eat meat, um, once a week. And I require protein. Protein that is meat. And there's so much bad press about soy now. I actually really like the taste of soy milk and tofu, but, as with everything, one can't eat the same thing every day - I strive for balance. Omnivourous balance! Yarm. A cornucopia of balance.
I guess I mention this b/c in this week or so of 'free time' I've had, I've spent a bit of it on the Internet, reading things and realizing that all information is eventually conflicting information. le sigh. It's not just an internet phenomenon either, as some would have you believe. Oh no sir, the books contradict each other too. One does not know what to believe anymore (this is me shaking my head in mock tragedy. Why mock? Because 'believing in things' makes me laugh anyway. hahaha. Just because. Ah, believing - let us not waste our precious time on believing and focus on 'being interested in' and 'attracted to' and 'exploring these ideas'. Ow, this fence is hurting my bum.)
I am almost finished reading "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (it is the abridged version, however, bought for me in a secondhand shop by a party interested in entertaining me from a safe distance while plotting how to, like, get in my pants. harhar.) Abridged or not abridged, it is a great book! I'm told that all I'm missing is a hundred pages of mere "description", nothing to worry about. Well, okay. But I couldn't read "Fellowship of the Ring" when I was a kid b/c I thought I had to read all the appendix-type bits and maps and such (the "description", people!) before getting to the story. That is, I don't like missing out on the details. But, as is evident in my ability to read said abridged version, I'm calming down about all that. And soon enough I will read the Lord of the Rings trilogy b/c I've been wanting to read it forever and just, well, never have. It's silly really. But, aside from all the school-related books I've got piled up around my room (including one about *organ transplants* called "Twice Dead", which is really very cool and interesting), I've got 6 books on my bedside table, bookmarks in all of them. Like interrupting my own written sentences with parenthetical asides, reading too many books at once is a bad habit. So heaven only knows when I'll get to good ol' Tolkien.
Robin the Midlands Milkman mentioned me (and my newfound weblog) in his weblog! I'm all honoured and blushing. But let it be known that I cannot promise the whimsy of my doppelganger, what with his sweet stories about gardeners and his uncanny ability to talk to all sorts of strangers. But perhaps my stories will become sweet eventually and perhaps I'll be able to strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger at the market next time I'm there. I believe I'm already working on it though: I'm realizing that a friend of mine lives in an apartment filled with talkative/friendly people! And whenever I'm there I inevitably get into conversations with them while waiting for the elevator. It's nice and, like Robin, inspires me to talk to more strangers or at least just smile at them. Today the conversation was with a woman who had just come in from walking her *gigantic* rotweiller. As we waited for the elevator, her dog had a good time sniffing my cat-smelling hands. I said, in that lilting way in which you speak about nothing to strangers with big dogs, "Ah, he smells my cat." (insert little laugh. because i always seem to laugh too much when talking to strangers.) The woman was about 40 years old, a bit round, a bit gruff looking. But she laughed too! And told me about how her old dog had really like cats and used to lick their faces while they looked perturbed, and how this dog just likes to chase cats. Yes, another friendly encounter in the building of friendly encounters.
Such encounters always make me feel like I am floating above the conversation. Just a bit. I suppose because what we're talking about is so vague, so totally unassuming and almost not there at all, that I'm not all there. Yet at the same time these encounters are so meaningful to me. Simple little connections, you know, brief smiles in the hallway. They just make me a little happier. It helps that it was a lovely day here today and that I had just gotten off my bike and was full of exercise goodness. Mmm, I love me some all-natural lemon and lime flavoured endorphins.
Well, Captain Nemo calls.
Robyn
*Anyway*, speaking of health-related things, I think I might become a food activist. Y'know, go around spraying fake blood on boxes of cookies and bags of chips, that kind of thing. hahahahaha. no. I like a good chocolate bar as much as the next person (unless they don't like chocolate. In which case they are not a friend of mine and clearly sans all their faculties (see previous blog entry.)), but in general people eat far too much in the way of processed food. Yeah, I'm all whole-food revolution! It's difficult though b/c short of having my own farm, it's hard to practice what you preach. Especially when organic meat costs 3 times as much as 'regular' meat, meaning that I would only be able to eat meat, um, once a week. And I require protein. Protein that is meat. And there's so much bad press about soy now. I actually really like the taste of soy milk and tofu, but, as with everything, one can't eat the same thing every day - I strive for balance. Omnivourous balance! Yarm. A cornucopia of balance.
I guess I mention this b/c in this week or so of 'free time' I've had, I've spent a bit of it on the Internet, reading things and realizing that all information is eventually conflicting information. le sigh. It's not just an internet phenomenon either, as some would have you believe. Oh no sir, the books contradict each other too. One does not know what to believe anymore (this is me shaking my head in mock tragedy. Why mock? Because 'believing in things' makes me laugh anyway. hahaha. Just because. Ah, believing - let us not waste our precious time on believing and focus on 'being interested in' and 'attracted to' and 'exploring these ideas'. Ow, this fence is hurting my bum.)
I am almost finished reading "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (it is the abridged version, however, bought for me in a secondhand shop by a party interested in entertaining me from a safe distance while plotting how to, like, get in my pants. harhar.) Abridged or not abridged, it is a great book! I'm told that all I'm missing is a hundred pages of mere "description", nothing to worry about. Well, okay. But I couldn't read "Fellowship of the Ring" when I was a kid b/c I thought I had to read all the appendix-type bits and maps and such (the "description", people!) before getting to the story. That is, I don't like missing out on the details. But, as is evident in my ability to read said abridged version, I'm calming down about all that. And soon enough I will read the Lord of the Rings trilogy b/c I've been wanting to read it forever and just, well, never have. It's silly really. But, aside from all the school-related books I've got piled up around my room (including one about *organ transplants* called "Twice Dead", which is really very cool and interesting), I've got 6 books on my bedside table, bookmarks in all of them. Like interrupting my own written sentences with parenthetical asides, reading too many books at once is a bad habit. So heaven only knows when I'll get to good ol' Tolkien.
Robin the Midlands Milkman mentioned me (and my newfound weblog) in his weblog! I'm all honoured and blushing. But let it be known that I cannot promise the whimsy of my doppelganger, what with his sweet stories about gardeners and his uncanny ability to talk to all sorts of strangers. But perhaps my stories will become sweet eventually and perhaps I'll be able to strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger at the market next time I'm there. I believe I'm already working on it though: I'm realizing that a friend of mine lives in an apartment filled with talkative/friendly people! And whenever I'm there I inevitably get into conversations with them while waiting for the elevator. It's nice and, like Robin, inspires me to talk to more strangers or at least just smile at them. Today the conversation was with a woman who had just come in from walking her *gigantic* rotweiller. As we waited for the elevator, her dog had a good time sniffing my cat-smelling hands. I said, in that lilting way in which you speak about nothing to strangers with big dogs, "Ah, he smells my cat." (insert little laugh. because i always seem to laugh too much when talking to strangers.) The woman was about 40 years old, a bit round, a bit gruff looking. But she laughed too! And told me about how her old dog had really like cats and used to lick their faces while they looked perturbed, and how this dog just likes to chase cats. Yes, another friendly encounter in the building of friendly encounters.
Such encounters always make me feel like I am floating above the conversation. Just a bit. I suppose because what we're talking about is so vague, so totally unassuming and almost not there at all, that I'm not all there. Yet at the same time these encounters are so meaningful to me. Simple little connections, you know, brief smiles in the hallway. They just make me a little happier. It helps that it was a lovely day here today and that I had just gotten off my bike and was full of exercise goodness. Mmm, I love me some all-natural lemon and lime flavoured endorphins.
Well, Captain Nemo calls.
Robyn
posted by rrrobyn at 12:24 AM
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