So It’s Here.

The waves are loud and pounding now. The wind is constant enough to give me a headache when walking long distances. Women are actually layering their clothes, or wearing things that extend down their arms and legs. The sun is gone. It can only mean that winter, Cape Verdean style, has arrived.

I’m sweating less. A lot less. Enough to make me not to want to take cold, cold showers in the morning (did I mentioned how cold they are?). Even though I don’t feel dirty from the liters of sweat I normally produce, it’s still too dirty in Mosteiros not to shower on a regular basis. Though not exactly a paradox of insurmountable proportions, the solution is clear, a “targeted showering” regime. This program involves me only washing some body parts, and scoffing at everything else. I’ve been doing it for a few days now, and it is going well.

Book Review:

If The River Was Whiskey by T. Coraghessan Boyle
There is one section that I consistently skip when reading the New Yorker, and that is the fiction. I have nothing against fiction, but I’ve always felt it was a large mental investment to get into a short story, because I really want to get into it. But by the time I get into it, it’s over. So that couldn’t possibly be worth the time, right? But after reading a favorable review of Boyle’s work (in Entertainment Weekly, of all places) I decided to push this book up to the front of the line. And the short stories that he had were fine, but I just didn’t understand the point of any of them. Was I supposed to get something out of them, or just enjoy them as is? Was there a point to these stories? Are they just like short vignettes that dive into his mind, his view of the world, or is it something more? I have no idea, so while it was pleasant enough to read, I don’t know what I was supposed to get from it.