a new place

After some persistant prodding, I have formed an official blog. Not that I really know what that means- Public Diary? Opinion Page? Reason For Writing? What I do know is that I am continually rejuvinated by the writings of my friends. I love to read about what they are reading, what films they enjoy, what recipes are hits, what style they are rocking, what music inspires them.

As this is my first entry, I feel a certain amount of pressure. I want my writing to be good, although I know that it is not. I want my friends to read it and laugh, although I know from experience that I'm always the one laughing the hardest at my own jokes. I want to communicate the truth of what my life is, without wallowing in the "depths of despair" as I'm often wont to do. What a conundrum. I suppose I shall have to keep my written journal for those dismal moments, and use them later for hit pop songs.

So. welcome to my new place. Here I will write about my days, and the thoughts that plague me. Let me begin...

I just finished reading Dickens' "David Copperfield", and if you've read Dickens, then you already know what a delight it truly is. The next book on my list was "The Picture Of Dorian Gray", a novel given to me by my sister Penelope, by Oscar Wilde. I'm about half-way through, and my goodness gracious, if the two aren't night and day against each other. They were both written around the same time, but the lives of the authors were obviously spent in pursuit of quite different philosophies. Or were they? (to be continued once I've finished the book...)

My new thing (if you know me at all then you know that I've ALWAYS got a new "thing") is working out. And my favorite way to do this is to get on the elliptical machine and read. There are pros and cons on either side, as with everything else, the balance, the ying and yang, etc. I love running. My sister Emma turned me on to it years ago, 1997, I believe. I remember she convinced me one morning to wake up at 7 am and watch teletubbies. Then we ran the bike path along the waterfront, and she talked me through the side stiches and panic that would set in for me when my heart rate got too fast. She would say "breathe like this!" and go into a lamaz-style routine. Or she would say "raise your arms!" and magically the pain subsided... ever since then, I've loved to run, especially alone. I'll get a rythym going and have some inspirational mantra-chant in my head that has something to do with what I'm going through, and just run and run until I've done a respectable route. But I have bad knees. And I'm really scared of surgery, so I've decided not to run any more. Therefore: elliptical = good.

But the atmosphere at the gym is anything but inspiring. And it's hard to focus on a mantra with top 40 pop vs. fox news going head to head in the same room. So, reading helps. I can go for quite a while and not even feel fatigue! Is this bad? Something like eating in front of the television? Or, am I simply doing 2 good things at once? Oscar Wilde would not be supportive of today's exertion. I was bouncing up & down so much that I'm sure I quite missed the fluidity and poetic nuance of the chapter I read. Perhaps the gym should be sequestered to action-packed fast-paced adventure-romance novels, like Dickens!

I also made cookies. Chocolate chip with chopped walnuts. NOT VEGAN. And I was talking to my best friend Alexis while mixing, and I blame her for what happened next. Instead of 1 cup flour I put 1/2 cup flour. I meant to take a picture of them but I'll have to describe to you that every batch came out as one flat, holey, buttery cookie-mass-thing. Taste=great. Form=failure. The next batch will be perfect.