(no subject)

20 min, 3.5 mi.
Total: 154.2 mi. Still going east through the Chetwood.

Didn't bike yesterday. But as I still managed to lose about 2.5 pounds last week, even with two days of totally not watching my eating at all, I am not feeling incredibly guilty. Still don't feel like I've lost weight; I shall probably wear my extra-loose jeans tomorrow in order to feel like I've accomplished something.

( And in pedal extremity, carpet, and other news... )

ETA: P.S. Have today finished downloading all the episodes of Mushishi, after four grueling days of slooooooooooooooooow bandwidth. Does anyone know if the movie's been subbed?

Also...

I've started reading the Mahabharata, the great Hindu epic, because I am a sheep baa rachelmanija talked me into it (this is before she started posting about all the hot sweaty men in it). She's started reading_maha, a community much like reading_genji, for discussion of it. I've splurged on volume 1 of Ramesh Menon's translation, which reads really easily. I just have to get my brain to remember all the names. I may ask for a pronunciation guide on the comm - I think it's easier for me to remember something if I'm sure I'm pronouncing it correctly.

I also, on a whim, bought 6 comics of stories from the Mahabharata from nehaflix.com, purveyor of fine Bollywood movies like the classic Aabra Ka Daabra, which is having a $3 sale on them. I look forward to comparing their version with Menon's version. :)

Am also reading (what? you don't have several books in progress at any one time?) a book from the library called In Search of the Supernatural: A Written Record, which is a translation of a fourth-century Chinese collection of supernatural short stories, anecdotes, cures, creatures, etc. I skipped the introduction as I was in the mood to read about Chinese beasties and things that go bump in the night rather than historical writers. I'll go back and read it at some point. What I'm posting about is how it's amusing to go from short narratives of things that seem utterly fantastic, such as a man who would feed his retainers by writing a talisman and otssing it into a well, whereupon two carp would jump out and when cooked they'd feed all his retainers, to a mention of a Hindu fakir who came to Chiang-nan and performed various miraculous feats, all of which are the sort of things still performed by fakirs today (and sometimes busted by skeptics). Makes you wonder what else is true, or was based on some sort of true occurrence but got distorted over the years of telling.

Am also reading in dribs and drabs here and there Yeats' The Celtic Twilight, another collection of short supernatural tales and anecdotes, this time from 19th century Ireland. I can't imagine why I never read this before.