And it’s about as good of a Tuesday as it’s possible to be.  Last night I went running with my neighborhood running group for the first time since (I think!) June.  It was nice to run with other people again, it was a long, lonely summer.  It was also a long, easy summer given that I ran by myself so I didn’t have to push myself speed-wise.  So that’s not so good.  Anyway, I ran an extra mile and a half (take that, Paulie!) afterwards just because I was feeling good and my rule of thumb is usually that if I’m feeling good, by which I mean, I don’t want to keel over and die, then I should do a little extra.  It’s intended to make myself not feel guilty for only running 3 miles or so on some days.  It doesn’t work, but whatever.

Then home to watch Fringe.  Has anyone else been watching this?  I believe we watched our third episode last night, although I’m not positive.  This episode was more watchable, and by that I mean less confusing, than the previous episodes, which was good.  What wasn’t good was the fact that it was so obviously trying to be like the X Files and failing miserably.  The first two episodes were incredibly confusing, but only because the show was trying to be mysterious in that X Files manner.  Comparatively, while the third episode actually followed a narrative, it had a lot of drawbacks. A lot of the plot contrivances were just dumb, some maybe weren’t dumb per se, but were still obvious, and parts of it were mildly entertaining.  We’ve decided to give the show another shot.  This means it’s not that bad, considering we usually cut and run in the beginning of the fall season when we have too many shows to watch.  So we will.  Give it another shot.  Hopefully it gets better.

Tonight we go for trivia again at the Thinking Man.  Two weeks ago our team came in third, last week we came in second, which means that this week we MUST be first! Right?  Yeah, I seriously doubt it, but we’ll give it the old college try.

In the meantime, I have really been enjoying Discipline by Mary Brunton.  I’m surprised that this book hasn’t been touted among the theory monkeys in the various literature departments in higher education. I’d certainly never heard of it before Dice discovered it.  The plot is rather obvious, I suppose.  The main character is Ellen Percy, a rich and spoiled 17 year old who’s mother is dead and who’s father doesn’t care what she does or where she does it as long as she marries the man he chooses for her. She’s the epitome of careless selfishness.  Until her father loses everything in a financing scheme and consequently kills himself, at which point she becomes penniless and all of her friends leave her.  This is the part where I’m at right now, and I’m assuming what happens is she learns that not having money isn’t that important, but being a good and religious person is, etc.  But it’s the way in which the story is written that’s the true center of the novel.  It’s written in first person future, which means  that the main character is the narrator of the story as though she were telling it from the future.  The narrator pretty much states all over the place that she was spoiled and selfish, so it’s not such a mystery to uncover.  The best part is just letting the story unfold and enjoying the narration.