Before Graham Beattie complains again about my intermittent blog posts, I’ll drag myself away from the Tour de France for a moment or two.
Tulum seems like a year ago, though I’ve managed to maintain a few holiday habits – afternoon naps, tearing through books, guacamole. Since we got back I’ve been working flat-out, pretty much, on DARK SOULS, which is my next YA novel for Scholastic. It’ll be finished by the end of this month, and published some time next year. It’s set in York, and is another supernatural mystery.
I’ve been doing other things as well, of course, like writing columns for NEXT magazine, zooming up to St Louis – if an eleven-hour drive each way can be considered zooming – for July 4th weekend, and watching the World Cup. Then there were the overlapping delights of Wimbledon, and the Tour de France.
T. Middy is a cyclist, though his expensive bike drowned in the Post-K flood. [It was uninsured, like everything we lost, because renters can’t buy flood insurance.] When I first met him, he was doing things like the Century Bike Tour (a hundred-mile ride through NYC and New Jersey). I didn’t go along to wave signs or cheer him on in any way, and I can’t remember why – a sale at Crate & Barrel that day, perhaps.
This morning, when TM was getting ready to go to work, we discussed the competition in this year’s Tour de France between Andy Schleck of Luxembourg and Alberto Contador of Spain. Contador has a fiancée whose name is Macarena. I didn’t realize it was an actual name. Schleck, who’s leading Contador by thirty seconds in the overall standings, will win the overall White Jersey (for best young rider) for the third year running.
TM: I could win the best young rider prize.
PM: Could you?
TM: No.
PM: You could if the Tour de France was only for riders over 55.
This comment was not appreciated. It launched TM on another reverie, this time about running. He talked at some length about his days in the New York Road Runners Club, and how he was one of the top five in his age group, and how his age group were faster than the next age group down, blah blah blah. I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about how the weather report said it will feel like 100 degrees this afternoon. We walked out to the car, and he was still talking about the Road Runners and how much he enjoyed running with them in New York.
PM: Why did you stop?
TM: Because I met you.
This is quite untrue. I always get the blame for things TM has allegedly been forced to give up – sporting activities, peace & quiet, Manhattan, the music of Led Zeppelin, etc.
After I dropped TM off at work, I came home and watched the end of Stage 12. Thunderstorms and suffocating heat today. Drinks later on at the Hermes bar at Antoine’s, down in the Quarter. Right now I’m getting on the elliptical trainer, my only actual sport.
I only complain because your posts are always so entertaining Paula !! This is a good example.
Posted by: Bookman Beattie | July 19, 2010 at 09:54 AM