the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

I told Mich last week that I'd decided to just take Wednesday through Friday off this week, on accounta I need the rest. She frowned at me for a moment. I said, "Do you know when was the last time I just took a few days of leave out of the blue?"

She said, "Since forever?"

Me: Well, there was that time after my first or second year teaching when i took a handful of days for no apparent reason, but yeah. You're right on track. 

I don't just "take some days off" any more than I just "go blow some money." I'm frugal by nature, and since I get paid in time off as well as money, I tend to treat them the same. 99% of the time I take leave, it's for travel. I mean, who needs to take time off just to sit at home, right? 

Right. 

I'm tired. The weather is flawless and exciting in its spring briskness. I have work to do around the house. Also, I'm about to get my road bike back on the road where it belongs. I've also begun using the Elliptigo I bought just after I got to Izmir, only to discover that Mich couldn't ship it to me, even in pieces. 

An Elliptigo is one of these: http://www.elliptigo.com/. I bought one the first time I ever heard such a thing existed. It is the closest you can get to running without actually running, so of course I had to have one. And I love it. I'm still working out the nuances of operation, of course, but it feels good to be out in nature and "running," more or less. I can't tell you just how good it feels. 

At the same time, I won't tell you just how pathetic my physical fitness has become. Everything seems to hurt all the time. I have neck, shoulder, upper and lower back, hip, knee, and ankle pain to the point that I've taken to just popping an 800mg Motrin every morning with my Prozac. Because of this ongoing pain--combined with my occasional efforts to exercise anyway which tend to result in even more pain--I've been loathe to do anything athletic in a long time. 

Imagine how this destroys me inside. 

Anyhow...I've discovered that I can ride a normal bicycle (as in, mountain bike) here and there without making the important joints hurt, so that in itself is a coup. Then the Elliptigo experiment went swimmingly, so I have high hopes that I'll soon be back to "running" on it. Tomorrow, though, I think I need to get the road bike back on the road. This involves repairing a tire, reassembling the beast, and making occasional adjustments to get everything back where it should be.

First? Sleep. Sweet sleep. And when I'm not sleeping, I'm reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a brilliant example of modern literature, placed in a 14th century monastery.

Yes. I'm reading it for fun. I've discovered that my taste in literature has evolved considerably in the past few years. I strongly suspect that that last master's degree is to blame. Once you have embraced the timelessness of poetic yet poignant prose, it's hard to turn again like a dog to its vomit. 

And with that in mind--and leaving you with that image--I imagine myself closer every day to being able to explain how we know good literature when we read it, and why some is timeless while the rest comes and goes like the seasons. 

d