Biking and Books

This is my 3rd post in a week! Can't remember the last time that happened, if it ever did.

I just returned from my second bike ride of the week. I'm not doing a very good job of biking more than driving, but I'm glad that I didn't give in to my laziness this morning. I rode farther than I did on Monday, but I still didn't make it to the library. Road construction caused me to rethink that destination.

Honestly, it wasn't just road construction. Most of my time on the bike, so far, I feel old and awkward and even more self-conscious than normal. I'm really worried about embarrassing myself by looking like I don't know how to ride a bike, and I'm not young enough or old enough for that to be cute. I can't imagine learning to ride a bike for the first time as an adult. Luckily, children don't worry as much about embarrassing themselves with a fall. They might be afraid they'll hurt themselves, but they know those kinds of hurts heal. They can't wait for the training wheels to come off and mommy or daddy to step away and let them be free.

There are moments, though, when I've felt good riding the bike. There really is something freeing in it, something like flying would feel, I think, something like driving very fast does feel. I have a friend who likes to jump out of planes, maybe the feeling of freedom is the draw for him. I thought I might segue to books from this feeling of freedom, but now, I see how cheesy that would have been. I'll just start a new paragraph and a new subject instead.

I started my third Summer of Short Stories (or #shortstorydaily as I'm calling it on Twitter). I've read two stories from Haruki Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes and one from A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories. So far, my favorite is Murakami's "The Second Bakery Attack." It's about a newlywed couple who wake up starving one night and have nothing at home to eat. While they are drinking beer to try to quash their hunger, the husband tells the wife about the time he and a college chum held up a bakery for bread (the eating kind not the spending kind). They got bread but not in the way they had planned. The wife decides that the botched hold up has cursed her husband and caused their extreme hunger pangs. The only way to break the curse is to attack a second bakery. The story is quite funny with some truly unexpected details.

In addition to the short stories, I'm reading A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, my book club's current selection. I've never read any of her writing before, but I know she is much loved by literary critics, and I can see why. I'm responsible for this selection, and I'm so happy to be enjoying it. My last selection, Sag Harbor by Colson Whithead, fell flat. Most liked moments in the book but thought the book didn't hold together as a novel very well. I think Sunday's discussion of A Visit from the Goon Squad will be much different, if more than one or two of us has read the book, which seems to be a problem lately. I actually think that her novel is very similar to Sag Harbor in structure, but I'm finding hers more successful in creating a whole. I have more to say on this, but I'm going to save it for book club discussion and a later blog post.

Now, I need to do some housekeeping. Later!