So while it was a bit tough to give up these bags, the sales garnered enough money to buy a new custom messenger bag from a new San Francisco bag maker, Rickshaw. The new bag arrived today. It’s much less tricked out with pockets and such than my old Timbuk2 bag, but the simplicity is nice, the construction seems solid, and it appears to be plenty big enough:

Then arrived the horrible winter of 2011-2012 happened. The lack of snow kept me from training and hurt both races: the CoLL race shortened and staged on a short loop in Theodore Wirth Park earlier today, and the Vasaloppet was canceled outright. I didn’t even bother to go up to Minneapolis for the CoLL. I have no ski fitness at all, and skiing laps on a golf course didn’t sound appealing.

Trying to put a positive sporting spin on the day, though, I did go for an hour-long gravel ride – kicking off my training for the Almanzo 100 on Saturday, May 19.

It was a solid ride – not long, by any means, but I averaged just over 15mph and, most importantly, I felt pretty good, except for my frosted toes. I can’t wait to do some serious training over the next three months.

This year, we’ve had almost none of that. With only a few brief exceptions, temperatures have been unreasonably high since November. Even worse, we’ve had just a few inches of snow, and plenty of long thaws in between the one set of flurries and another. And we’ve certainly had no all-out storms to enjoy.

All of this has brought me down, man. Most importantly, I’ve only been able to ski once – for half an hour, in my backyard. Absolutely unjust. Being horrifically under-trained, I’ve decided to abandon any plans to ski the classic-technique races at the City of Lakes Loppet this Sunday and the Mora Vasaloppet next weekend. I *had* been looking forward to both event for a long time, but already the Loppet has been shortened and confined to a loop course – not its full, full, wonderful point-to-point route. I don’t know what the Vasaloppet organizers are planning, but I do know there’s no way I could enjoyably do the 42k race I’d been anticipating for months.

In short, this winter sucks. I hope it’s a one-time thing, and that next winter’s back to something like normal. If it isn’t, I might have to invest next year in some sort of U-SAD mitigator, like a backyard snowmaker.

The list mixes old and new stuff I’ve always meant to read, and there’s no rhyme or reason to the list except that I’ve heard good things about all of these books. As it happens, in the last month I’ve finished a few of these books, and loved them. I’ll try to remember to post some mini-reviews of those books soon, and to keep up with posts on other books as I finish them all year.

• Blair, Ann: Too Much to Know (2011, nonfiction – information overload in Renaissance Europe)
• Carr, Nicholas: The Shallows (2011, nonfiction – polemic against the Internet’s effects on thinking )
• Gibson, William: Distrust that Particular Flavor (2012, nonfiction – collected essays)
• Gleick, James: The Information (2011, nonfiction – a history of information in the modern age)
• Inskeep, Steve: Instant City (2011, nonfiction – Karachi)
• LeCarré, John: The Honourable Schoolboy (1977, fiction – 2nd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• LeCarré, John: Smiley’s People (1979, fiction – 3rd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• Lipsyte, Sam: The Ask (2010, fiction – college fundraisers)
• Martin, George R. R. : A Game of Thrones (1996, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Clash of Kings (1998, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Storm of Swords (2000, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Feast for Crows (2005, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Dance with Dragons (2011, fiction – fantasy)
• Mehta, Suketu: Maximum City (2009, nonfiction – Mumbai)
• Monchaux, Nicholas de: Spacesuit (2011, nonfiction – a history of the Apollo spacesuit)
• Murakami, Haruki: 1Q84 (2011, fiction – literary fiction)
• Smith, Tom Rob: Child 44 (, fiction – crime novel)
• Stephenson, Neil: REAMDE (2011, fiction – SF thriller)
• Szymborska, Wislawa: Miracle Fair (2001, poetry)
• Vanderbilt, Tom: Traffic (2008, nonfiction – study of auto traffic and driving)

Maybe I’m naive, but I was shocked by some of the critical comments that Daum quotes. This made me pretty sympathetic to her critique of hater culture on the internet, which not only dumbs down the (often already low) level of discourse on the Web (and, now, in every other medium, since everything’s everywhere), but contributes to what the conservatives rightly call the “coarsening” of our culture. Not that I believe America ever was, or should become, a high-toned society, but really, we are not better off when anonymous haters can tell Daum:

What a pathetic, inept, and uninformed person you are. Your articles are brainless, and when I read them I think of how miserable as a person you must be. Probably a fat ugly little girl who needs to prey on others to feel better…A fat, ugly squashed bug.

Which brings me to my own current experience with internet haters: the anonymous and horrible crap that’s being vented by “readers” on the webpage for Shannon’s book. I won’t quote any of them, for at least four reasons: most are awful (being badly written, cruelly vitriolic, or both), many are stupid (betraying the commenters as very poor readers), at least some of them are coming from a person or people we know, and – most importantly – the negative comments are more than outweighed by the numerous thoughtful comments.

Now, don’t misunderstand me and think that I am (or think my wife is) a delicate flower who can’t stand being criticized. To the contrary: both of us learned in grad school to take some hard knocks and profit from them. I have to be similarly flexible (or bulletproof – pick your metaphor) to do my grantwriting at Carleton. And Shannon’s been a blogger for a long time, in which role she’s received some pretty awful comments.

But but but, there is a huge difference between, say, redlined comments on a grant-proposal draft and a “review” on Shannon’s B&N.com page such as

I truly expected a really helpful read, the answer to my many answers. Failed to live up to its title and expectations I had. ”

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one quote.) Constructive criticism exists to improve the writing to which it responds, and the writer and the critic are in a relationship that assumes the value of the writing. On the other hand, a half-literate “review” on B&N.com exists only to tear down the writer. It actually prevents any sort of meaningful connection between the reader and the writer, and rests, as another couple reviewers say, on the readers’ idiotic evaluation of the writing as a “joke.”

Thankfully, Shannon knows all this. A few days ago she called out the negative commenters in a post on her blog. In addition to requesting that anyone who’s read and liked the book post a comment to that effect on the book’s page, Shannon said (in part):

If you’ve been following along at home, you know that there’s been quite a bit of drama over at my book’s Barnes & Noble page. I’ve been blessed to get a ton of super-great, five-star reviews over there, which is thrilling and exciting. I’m grateful for every one. However, I’m being dogged by a troll reviewer who has been putting up hateful “reviews” for every good review that goes up, from the very first day of release.

…

Many of these comments have been flagged as abusive, off-topic, or inappropriate. My publisher and book marketing manager are in contact with Barnes & Noble regarding an investigation. But in the meantime, this person or persons is/are intent on continuing to bring down my ratings average by putting up a 1-star review for every 4- or 5-star review that goes up. (Fortunately, most potential buyers and reviewers are smart enough to notice the suspicious nature of these troll reviews, and more than one have actually mentioned it in the comments.)

As you should expect, the fact that my talented, hardworking wife has been attacked like this on the internet angers me, and I applaud Shannon for standing up to them. I (we!) value the exchange of views, even opposite ones, but I think the hate by the comment trolls is beyond the pale of normalcy or value. Which is probably why I felt such a strong jolt of satisfaction when Daum wrote in her Believer essay, “These days, being attacked isn’t just the result of saying something badly, it’s the result of saying anything at all.”

We’re all lucky that some of us are brave enough to say something good anyhow.

What’s even more amazing is that, seventeen items earlier, the land of the kromer is listed as another “perfect thing”!

I wish some of this U.P. cool would rub off on me, eh.

It sure did. The bright yellow sun and 40°F temperature were nice; the 20-mph westerly wind and my disturbing lack of fitness were less so. But any time spent riding is time well spent! The gravel was dry and pleasingly fast, the lack of clouds or foliage made for endless vistas, and there was plenty of fresh cold air to inhale.

Wondrous Life
Yesterday I saw my book, The Essential Stay-at-Home Mom Manual: How to Have a Wondrous Life Amidst Kids and Chaos, fully laid out for the first time. On the computer, I mean, but still! The designer sent me a file of the entire thing, every page, laid out how it will look in print, and with the cover mocked up and everything. How cool is that? It was definitely one of the most significant and exciting moments of my life.

Of course, I had that significant moment while also preparing to go volunteer in Genevieve’s kindergarten classroom and fielding an e-mail from Julia’s teacher about the fact that she had cried at school because she was scared about having a substitute teacher for the afternoon. So I couldn’t exactly drink in the moment and reflect on the hard work and events of the past two years that have led to the imminent publication of my book–you know, how it’s the culmination of a lifelong dream and all that? I was a little too busy e-mailing Julia’s 2nd-grade teacher and making sure the soup for dinner was started before I went over to volunteer in kindergarten. Which is the exact sort of thing the book is all about, really. So it’s all kind of fitting and wonderful.