Come In from the Cold

As pretty much anybody living in Ontario and presumably Quebec knows, we had several days in a row of truly frigid weather.  I did my best not to leave the house, and I teleworked from Monday through Thurs. afternoon, though I did end up running in to work at the end of the day Thurs., partly because I was going stir crazy (and driving my daughter crazy with all the Zoom and Teams calls I was on) and partly because I wanted to see Brian Dickerson's jazz orchestra at the Rex (with Neil Swainson on bass!).  Now I think in the end, I did make a quick grocery run Monday evening (and more or less regretted it the minute I hit the bridge) and I went swimming Wed. evening.* 

I had actually expected to finish up Mutis's Maqroll novellas this week and probably finish Joy William's Taking Care.  But because I wasn't taking transit back and forth for several days (and I have been letting work squeeze out a lot of my personal time), I just didn't do it.  I'm down to the last 40 pages in Taking Care, though I have more like 180 pages to go in Maqroll.  I am taking transit a lot this weekend, now that the temperature is back up to merely cold and not bone-chillingly cold, and I may finish both up.  We'll see.

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking over what's next.

I am generally leaning towards books that are in my towering stacks of books to trim them down a bit.  That would argue for Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time, or maybe Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods (which I probably read many years ago), or Denis Johnson's Angels or Craig Nova's The Informer.  Alternatively, I was starting to read through books with Edward Gorey covers (including a relatively recent pass through What Masie Knew, which I should discuss in the near future).  That would argue for Conrad's Victory or Gide's Lafcadio's Adventures.  Or I can read Ginzburg's Family Lexicon and cross it off two reading lists!  Or I can tackle a book that has been languishing forever on the shelves, like Lampedusa's The Leopard.  I just haven't really decided.

I actually do have a really busy day tomorrow, so I probably should sign off now.  Ciao.

* So this week I will finally be reaching my goal of 3 times at the gym and/or swimming pool, though next week is super stacked in terms of evening outings, and I will almost certainly be back to twice a week, which isn't quite enough.  Between not biking to work nearly everyday, and the winter blues/blahs and a raging depression about the state of the world and issues in my personal life, I just found I picked up 5 pounds.  Now I had thought it was worse and that I had gained 10 or even 15 pounds, but it isn't great, and I need to find a way to cut down on late-nite snacking, which is my greatest weakness in this arena.