Rachel Toor's Blog, page 13

On Going on a Run While Listening to Hazlitt's On Going on a Journey

Yesterday morning, before setting out to run, I thought about what would be the perfect way to travel. To go someplace warm and beautiful (check), to spend the mornings writing (check), to spend the afternoons running and exploring (check) and then to have an interesting companion with whom to dine (oops) and enjoy other nocturnal entertainments (oops).

I like the solitude of being in a foreign place, and I like seeing sights under the power of my own endurance-fit legs. But I was thinking, ye...

The Most Boring Asian Vacation Ever

Here I am, day three in paradise, and I'm exhausted, lonely and bored. Well, not bored so much--more on that later. But I have, by design, planned a stay in Asia that is about as dull as it can get.

During the fall quarter, I got very little writing done. I traveled a lot for work (as much as running marathons and then writing about them can be considered work), taught one undergraduate course and one graduate writing workshop, and also did a course at the state prison. I embarked on the terr...

In case you missed the last reference

I often have lines of Wallace Stevens' poetry running through my head. Last Sunday morning, during the Singapore Marathon, it was "Sunday Morning." It took over my mind like a jingle.

Here it is, for those who have somehow missed this beautiful poem.

Is There No Change of Death in Paradise?

Does ripe fruit never fall?

I'm writing from the balcony of a luxury condo in Hua Hin, described to me as the Palm Beach of Thailand. I'll be here for a couple of weeks, hoping to get bored and lonely and therefore be really productive. I have much writing to do, and while exciting travel to interesting countries is always fun, deadlines loom.

So I'm taking advantage of the generous offer of a friend to settle in here at what I'm calling the Hua Hin Writer's Colony (of one). This morning, for ...

I Thought I Would Be Bigger Here

In Singapore, I expected to feel like a giant.

There are so many ways I was wrong about what this country would be like. During the marathon on Sunday I spit, chewed gum, and even did the "farmer blow" (if you don't know what that is, ask a runner). I wore a jog bra and running shorts. No shirt. No caning.

Doing a marathon in 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity wasn't easy. I drank two cups of water at every aid station and dumped one over my head. It took me a half hour longer than my eas...

Lost in Singapore

Okay, well then, not really that lost: I can run the entire length of the country, and will do pretty much that tomorrow morning at 5:30 during the Singapore marathon.

I planned to go out for a little jog to get the many hours of flying (12 hours to Narita; seven more to Singapore) out of my legs. But I found interesting things along the way, got a little confused about directions (so what else is new?), and accidentally ran for an hour and a half.

Each time I stopped to ask someone direction...

Great Expectations

In an item in the most recent Ride and Tie newsletter (What? you haven't read it yet?) my last-minute partner wrote about the horrors of riding Pip, a young horse who was generously loaned to us by Don and Annie Betts, for the Championship race.

To set the record straight about what a monster this animal is, here's a photo of me on him. No saddle, no bridle, no problems. Oh, and I was wearing a running skirt. A month or so later, my friend Brandi and I won another race--by an hour--on this un...

Still Recovering from the Trauma of Last Year's AWP Conference

My latest Chronicle column: http://chronicle.com/article/Your-Review-Was-Brutal/49077/

While You Were Sleeping

It's a good thing I was in NYC last weekend; otherwise I would have been awakened by a car coming over the cliff and landing right next to my building. It was a wild Halloween in Spokane. Glad I missed it. Now I wish the car would go away.

Cry Me a River

I love New York. Even though I had very little time to be out and about this weekend, just walking around the City makes me happy. It thrums and buzzes and doesn't even stink anymore. I kind of miss the stink.

The marathon Expo was predictably exhausting—especially since the Moeben booth was so busy. But the reward for a hard day's work was hanging with my peeps, Shannon Farar-Grier and Lynne VanderBos. We had an incredible dinner at SushiSamba (where it was so dark and hip that none of us cou...