Walking and Sailing

Well, my new fitness camaign is two days strong and I am starting to feel better. Today I walked from the heavily populated rental district of East Arlington to Davis and then from Harvard to MIT. Walking down Broadway approaching Davis Square - the streets to the right that gently swoop/slope towards Mass Ave, some of them are so beautiful. Or maybe it was just the long lost exercising endorphins being released into my system that made me ga ga for the Somerville topography.

In between stretching the ol' quadriceps, I stopped at the Harvard Coop and bought two books: White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars by Lauralee Summer.

There's been a lot of buzz about Smith for the past two years and I liked her introduction to The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003
, so I bought the paperback version. I also like the cover design. Embossed white san serif type on a bright orange cover. The all type treatment stands out among the abstract photography/Chip Kiddian fiction landscape. Learning Dogs is by a local author who went to Harvard and was on the wrestlin team there. She is actually a friend of a friend of a friend and I met her a few times a few years back when she was working on the book. It was only after reading a friends web site, www.spikeyem.com , that I realized that the book was out. So, I'm looking forward to reading it.

When I was talking to Lauralee at a cowboy and Indian themed party on the third floor of a triple-decker in Dorchester in 1998, we discussed Jeanette Winterson. I had read Oranges Are not the Only Fruit in college and went to one of her book reading when I was working in Kenmore Square at my first job (paginating personal ad pages!)

Anyway, I am looking forward to reading the books. I always feel more complete when I am reading a book. But more often than not, I just read a lot of news on the web and don't make the effort to start a new book.

I also vowed to myself that I would read more non-fiction this year: history and science books. Well, I probably won't be downing any books about Quantum Mechanics soon - but maybe some ones aimed at the curious liberal arts major. There is so much happenning in the world, universe ... and sometimes I get tunnel vision and only focus on getting up and driving to work, etc.

Walking up Mass Ave towards Central Square I was feeling pretty good for exercising and I looked down to my right and there was a Yoga class going on in the basement of a building and for a brief fleeting moment - I witnessed 8 lovely women doing the Downward Dog (or whatever they call it). I almost ran into someone in a motorized wheelchair as I got distracted by the power of stretching. [I think you are onto something here Sting.]

Earlier, when I was waiting for the train at Davis there was a female guitar player and I sat down next to her on the bench. She started to play the song "Sail Away" and had this lovely, sultry voice like Beth Orton. I was just listening and did not look at her. I dropped a dolalr into her open guitar case and boarded the inbound redline car. When I looked up as the train was departing I caught eyes with her and , bygod, she looked a lot like Thom Yorke from radiohead. The same scruffy hair-do and cocked sneer - not that that is a bad thing.


Sail away with me honey
I put my heart in your hands
Sail away with me honey now, now, now
Sail away with me
What will be will be
I wanna hold you now

Crazy skies all wild above me now
Winter howling at my face
And everything I held so dear
Disappeared without a trace
Oh all the times I've tasted love
Never knew quite what I had
Little Darling if you hear me now
Never needed you so bad
Spinning round inside my head

Sail away with me honey
I put my heart in your hands
Sail away with me honey now, now, now
Sail away with me
What will be will be
I wanna hold you now

I've been talking drunken gibberish
I've been puching at the bars
Trying to find some explanation here
For the way some people are
How did it ever come so far

Sail away with me honey
I put my heart in your hands
Sail away with me honey now, now, now
Sail away with me
What will be will be
I wanna hold you now
Sail away with me honey
I put my heart in your hands
Sail away with me honey now, now, now
Sail away with me
What will be will be
I wanna hold you now