Good afternoon, friends of the internet. My summer break has well and truly begun, and it’s been fabulous so far. As I write this, I am sitting on my couch in pajamas with a half a cup of now-cold coffee at hand. I’ve spent the morning finishing up a writing project and watching some more of Veronica Mars Season Two. Things are pretty goddamned exciting.

The weather has been delightfully scorching so far and the temperatures are only climbing higher. I am peased as can be to have my afternoons free for lounging at the pool and enjoying that delightful, sun-induced state of absolute sleepiness. I rock the SPF 100 while at the pool, but I confess that lately I’ve been forgetting to put it on before runs and bike rides, which means I am now sporting very fashionable racerback and running-shorts tan lines. This is almost okay, as I’ve been spending most of my time wearing shorts and tank tops anyway. Please don’t be intimidated by how glamorous I am.

Speaking of sports, my hip seems to be tolerating two slow interval runs per week and one bike ride of gradually increasing distance. My friend who is getting ready for RAGBRAI next month has been generously allowing me to tag along for short portions of his long weekend rides. Let me tell you, there is almost nothing I love better than that salty crust of dried sweat and sunscreen one gets after a hot, windy bike ride. Except maybe for the cold beer one drinks afterward. Bell’s Oberon is the recovery drink of the pros, is it not? (Please don’t tell me it’s actually Michelob Ultra.)

I am getting used to life without Netflix, Hulu, cable, etc. and have managed to entertain myself nonetheless (imagine that). I’ve been reading a bit — I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides. I’ve started but haven’t finished Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants and Eugenides’ Middlesex, and have been picking my way around in Patricia Highsmith’s The Selected Stories of… and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Collected Poems.

From the latter, here is one of my all-time favorites:

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn wtih pity, — let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

Any feisty 1920s woman who writes a Petrarchan sonnet about a one-night stand is tops in my book. And there are hundreds more poems in the collection for me to peruse!

Not that all my reading has been so literary: in fact I have taken to Twitter to ask for smutty book recommendations and have followed through with a couple of them so far. So terrible, so titillating. And where would we be without Twitter for such matters? Where, I ask you.

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In gardening news, my tomato plant is going gangbusters, I’ve got plans to replace the herbs that died (for dog’s sake, it is still June; I am not giving up this easily), and my little metaphor has quietly taken root. I am happy.

How are you?