This was a perfect morning for a run. Sunny and cold, with fresh snow to look at as I sped past the sparkling lake. By the end of my 9km (1hr 7mins – snowy sidewalks slowed me down), I went to have a drink from my water bottle and nothing came out because the water had frozen solid. Delightful.

Someone is playing a banjo tune in the apartment next door and it’s making me think of . Sorry I’m missing New York, dearest. I bought tickets for and I to go to Hong Kong in March, so my northeastern US tour will have to wait until at least April. 🙁

Finished reading ‘Water for Elephants’ by Sara Gruen yesterday. Good, but the Jewish villain/Catholic hero thing made me feel reeeeeally awkward – I’m sure we’ll discuss the role of religion and the whole Polish cultural thing at length in bookclub next month.

Today, in honour of my period holding off until just after my long run (thanks for waiting, uterus!) I’m starting Vincent Lam’s ‘Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures’. First sentence of Chapter 1, ‘How to Get Into Medical School’: “Desperate stragglers arrived late for the molecular biology final examination, their feet wet from tramping through snowbanks and their faces damp from running.”

posted a really creepy, terrible news report in his blog the other day about a Long Island comic book store employee with a serious S&M fetish who did some bad, bad things. That story was nasty and explicit, but it reminded me of this great comic book called ‘Mail Order Bride’ by Mark Kalesniko, which is about a Canadian comic book store owner named Monty who gets lonely and buys a wife from Korea, and then abuses her emotionally. The two of them get in a knock-down drag-out fight at the end, and it’s a really raw, sad, well-told story. JVL recommended it to me just before we started dating; it’s a great book.

is feeling under the weather, so I cooked her some soup and will be going solo to feed Dad his lunch today. I think I’ll make us burritos for dinner. Lactose intolerance be damned, I’m buying the 18% sour cream to go on them, because I could actually see my hip bones in the mirror yesterday. Bring on the full fat! Bring on the stomach cramps!

Anyone want to come see ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ with me next week? I’m thinking maybe Saturday the 24th.