A Marvelous Day for a Marathon

After sending off one of my beautiful friends who was here for a terrific weekend visit, I find myself relaxed and solitary on this Patriot's Day. A few blocks away, incredibly fit men and women are running the Boston Marathon, an event I usually celebrate with a beer. As they pant and sweat and lose feeling in their legs (I refuse to believe in runner's high), I sit in my sun-filled living room and contemplate the types of marathons in which I am willing to actually participate.

• Project Runway Marathons- I will gladly watch any and all episodes from any season with the exception of this past one in which the Kardashian look-alike won, because that season sucked.
• Jack White's Projects Marathon- Night or day, rain or shine, I will happily listen to and watch the myriad of projects Mr. White has contributed to over the course of his career without ever tiring of his greatness. (New Dead Weather album out May 10/11- thanks for the heads up, Eric!)
• Mad Men Marathon- Speaking of which, have you seen Christina Hendricks on the cover of Esquire?! Like, okay: in my humble opinion the photo's a little too retouched, but she's still one of the most attractive women roaming the planet. And yes, I'm totally dyking out right now, sorry.
• Book Reading Marathon- I just finished The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe. It was such a gripping story that I lost all sense of myself whilst reading and at one point even got on the wrong bus, found myself not at the Logan Airport (my desired destination) but rather an industrial park off the waterfront, and had the pleasure of being the only passenger for about ten minutes as the bus circled back on its route and took me to familiar territory. It was awkward, but I was enjoying my reading and didn't mind being stupidly lost so long as I had the book.

Now that I have successfully made myself out to sound like a terribly lazy person, I will go and do something productive with my day, like eat a hamburger as I cheer on the real marathoners! BYE!

Lists

I have a Blackberry Pearl and I know, they're so 2008, but I love it because I have tiny hands and am able to navigate all the keys with just one of them. In my phone, I keep various lists that are beneficial to my daily existence. These include:

• Books- those I should read, stumbled upon and am interested in, or are recommended to me.
• Gifts- because I habitually forget my great gift ideas unless I write them down.
• Man List - which was made at a bar and includes all my favorite men. It's topped by none other than Jack White. (More on this in another entry.)
• Music- comprised of bands I hear and like and will never remember the names of.
• Thirsty- basically a wine list. Further proof that I'm actually 50 years-old... excellent!

Then I have a smattering of lists which consist of fragmented story ideas, paintings I like, and whatever else I find important enough to passively remember (ie: Thoth is the Egyptian god of wisdom and writing. He's pictured below.)

Because I share a sleeping schedule with the very elderly, I was awake at 5:15 AM and decided I would later take a trip to the Brookline Booksmith for something new to read. I arrived at the bookstore shortly after opening and realized I'd forgotten my phone at home and I didn't remember off the top of my head my most anticipated titles.

To take a tangential detour, let me say that I get an obscene number of book recommendations from clients and friends because, having a degree in Writing, Literature and Publishing, people think I'll be interested in all the crap they read. There are very few people whose taste in literature I actually trust, which is attributed more to my bizarre interests than my literary-snobbery (though I am quite particular about what is categorized as literature, as many of my former professors can attest to- for I frequently disputed the validity of certain texts being studied in class). To purge my Books list of recommendations, I'll spend hours online looking up books and deciding if I'd actually be interested in them. Usually, I'm not, and only the best stay on the list.

So, I was at the Booksmith without my list and with one of those headaches that comes from not having had enough sleep (honestly, it wasn't a hangover!) and I was aimlessly wandering the isles feeling overwhelmed with book lust to the point of ambivalence when suddenly I remembered that my co-worker, Maura (she does awesome hair, FYI), is constantly telling me to read William S. Burroughs. She's told me many times, including Friday night, "Kate, he was all about bowties and scotch and typewriters and shit. You're going to totally love him."

I trust her with my hair and decided, perhaps wrongly, to trust her book recommendation and bought Naked Lunch. I'm now twenty pages in and feel in need of a Junkie Dictionary to get me through this. Someone (other than Maura), please tell me this gets better.

I'm just thankful the Olympics are on to distract me. BIATHLON! I love the sound of skies on crispy snow!

Haven't you heard? There's a blizzard outside!

I could spit more than it's precipitating outside, yet my boss and the city of Boston still decided to call it a snow day, so here I am. Ta-da!

Though I'm bound to go a little stir-crazy, I'm actually totally cool with sitting in my candlelight apartment in my kimono with a bottle of red on the coffee table, and passing the time reading Andre Dubus. In fact, I'm quite happy about it.

Mmm, glorious.