No work out, no sweating, some stretches for my aching neck and back and some tylenol. I slept strangely last night, woke up all splayed out on the bed, covers twisted half way round, from odd fits even odder dreams. My body, I think, wants water and rest, two things I've been neglecting. So, I ate healthily today, but gave the lump of flesh that transports me a rest. I'll weigh myself tomorrow morning to see how much progress I've made and, if I'm feeling brave, I'll let you in on it then.
50
Finished Wettest County and it was everything I thought it would be. Read George Saunders' Pastoralia and thankfully had no expectations for it to meet. It wasn't bad, it was just a lot of sardonic skepticism wrapped in wry and clever-for-clever's-sake observations about American life, and I was frankly unimpressed.
I spoke to a friend tonight about this, and what I concluded was that Saunders seems to be at the forefront of American post-modern absurdist fiction, but his take is--for me--ultimately soulless. He characters don't change or learn anything new, there's no sense of humanity lurking beneath the surface, it's all just vapid commercialism and theme parks designed to poke fun at who we are. And I just don't need a book to do that for me. I get that humanity is flawed and that Americans in particular have a pretty deadlock on narcissism and a seemingly endless lack of empathy, but you know what? I still fundamentally like people. I like that we are all colossal fuck-ups in the giant bowl of soup that is time. I like us. I like that we keep trying, that we keep falling down and screwing up and making really bad choices and hurting people we love and yet we still. keep. trying. I like that about us as a species, and I guess I need my fiction--even when it's filled with deplorable human beings--to still seem to have been written by someone who deep down likes people.
(Two writers of absurdist post-modern American fiction that get it right, the whole liking people thing, can be found HERE and HERE)
On the advice of the aforementioned good friend, I'm taking a night off from reading. I have a raging headache and a profound need to sit on my couch and watch season one episodes of Law & Order: SVU on Netflix, so I'm going to feed that need.
I hope your weekend was filled with beautiful things. This is the face that makes me happiest:
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