Meyer vs Vonnegut

Today I saw the only other man-let alone, person, reading in the park other than myself I had seen since I've been here.
Certainly a sight.
Brasil as a nation has a real issue with illiteracy, but this fella- white of hair, mid-late thirties, wearing a hoody and trainers looked less the A-typical illiterate and more the middle class day trader you might expect to see in an affluent area such as ours.
Not that success in Brasil really makes the difference . In our apartment block live elderly Jewish folk and thirty-something year old business types. In the streets outside, two doors up lives a drug addicted homeless women.
Affluence and poverty seem almost hand in hand here.

The fella reading even had the same ringtone as me (not surprising, I stuck to the bring-bring noise out of apathy rather than choice) and were it not for the language barrier (though I'm getting better), I might have sat closer and even attempted to engage him in conversation, but, having seen from distance the the familiar looking cover to his book, I decided against it. 'Twilight' in any language is still 'Twilight'!

I felt a little lame the other day. I gave up or rather, set aside the book I was reading- The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes and gravitated to an old friend- Kurt Vonnegut (Jr)- Deadeye Dick this time.

There's nowt wrong with Fuentes, in fact, I was really enjoying it, it's just so literary! I enjoy that a lot too, but sometimes it's too taxing when you're sandwiching in reading and have to pick up and set down novels after all of a few pages. Try it. Try it with someone else, how about Marquez! That mother's got literary verve out the wazoo and I guarantee you're not gonna follow him when you've got so little time to invest at a stint.

I've read over a dozen of Vonnegut's works and it's always so witty and self depreciating. Like Bukowski, but less smeared in alcohol of varying quality and sexually transmitted diseases.

So far, I'm liking it.

Our running is getting better and with the encouragement of my girlfriend I have begun sprinting towards the end of our 2.5 Km laps of the park. Run, sprint, jog, walk, pant and initially there was some collapsing and shortness of breath. Now, it's better.
Olympics here I come!
2016 maybe.

I just looked over to observe the most common of birds, the pigeon. It's not a bird I think much about (I have a friend who paints 'em and indeed, is quite fond of 'em...I'm less enthralled), certainly not as a Englishman who's seen his fill and not as an Englishman in Brasil.

I now regret looking...it just shit.

The weather's changed.
Last week- warmish, t-shit and jeans.
This week- cold- jumper (jacket if ya a wuss) and jeans.
Two months in Brasil and the British weather has finally caught up with me.

Anyway, tomorrow's a holiday. We're possibly off to a German town called Gramado (spelling subjective) about an hour and a half away.

Will keep ya posted.