Sunday, 25 April 2004

My brother was looking at my journal entries from April 25th of each of the last three years. As it happens, there actually is such an entry for each of the past three years, so I figured I should take steps to continue the streak.

Steven summarizes the past entries as follows:

Last year, you were on the trip down south. Before that, you were depressed. The year before that, you were stressed and irritated.

A limited reading of the text, I think. But perhaps I give my own journal entries a more nuanced reading than they deserve.

I'll try to break the string of depressing (or depressed) entries by saying that I feel great today. I ran 5 miles yesterday (5.13 miles in 1:01:42 for an average pace of 12:02). That left me tired, but not exhausted. Today I was recovered enough to go with Jackie to the Fitness Center and do one of my best workouts in quite a while.

I had not realized that Brust's new book Sethra Lavode was out until I read about it in Marissa's journal, but once I realized the new book was out, I raced out and bought a copy. (Well, I raced to the Fitness Center, lifted weights, then to Quizno's and had lunch, then to the money machine, and then to Pages to buy a copy.) I've read a tidy chunk of it this evening.

Despite time spent reading, I also had time to replace the inner tube on the rear wheel of my road bike. Now I have two bikes ready to ride. I want to start riding to work, but I don't like riding when it's cold or windy or raining, so I haven't gotten started yet. Looking at the forecast, I think Wednesday might turn out to be the day to start.

On Saturday, after my run, I took Jackie out to the mall for a bit of shopping. This is a rare occurrence for us--we probably don't go to the mall as often as three times a year. But, as I've continued to lose weight the past few months (albeit very slowly since the end of last fall), I can't just buy the same old size but need to try on clothes. Jackie also wanted to try on a couple of things she'd seen in catalogs. So, to the mall we went. I bought a slightly smaller pair of jeans.

All I need now is some fiction writing to report, but alas, all I did was write a short screenplay for the next UDC film festival. It has two senior team members working with the boss to design a recruiting campaign. When all their ideas are shot down, they end up recreating the famous Shackelton ad used to recruit men for an antarctic expedition:

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. Earnest Shackelton.

I thought that ad was well-known, but nobody at the office seemed to have heard of it. I also thought it was a real ad, but that turns out to be unclear. At least, nobody can point to an actual appearance of the ad. I don't know what to do about the movie--it won't be funny unless I can make people more aware of the original ad.

In any case, that wasn't real writing.

If I come back to the past few months entries some time in the future, I'll no doubt get quite tired of entries that say "I need to get back to my writing." But I will get back to my writing. And, in the meantime, I'm fit, healthy, and feeling very happy about my life in every other way.