Jeudi
Eaten yesterday:
four, 3 ounces chicken cooked up fajita-style with onion, garlic, frozen bell pepper bits and cumin, over Romaine, with some green salsa; 4 tablespoons 8-grain cereal with English Toffee sugar-free syrup and vanilla s-f pudding mix with soymilk on top (very good!). Green tea.

five, 6 ounces broccoli with garlic juice and sundried tomato sprinkles; 2 ounces soy pasta done up faux carbonara style, with some tofu cream diluted with soymilk, some nutritional yeast, parsley flakes, and a tablespoon veggie bacon bits. Also 2 teaspoons real Parmesan. Swoon. One-quarter cup pumpkin mixed with butterscotch sugar-free pudding, cinnamon, nutmeg and hot water for sweet. Green tea.

six (post-run), one cup Kashi Crunch with protein shake mixed thick with a quarter-cup of soymilk and some almond extract.

Also a small mid-afternoon cheat of a half-cup of Fibre One, an Ontario plum (A. bought a box of these, and they've been taunting me in the fridge for two days. Worth it!), and several tablespoons salsa eaten straight from the jar. Sigh, but certainly not anything to cry over.

I did an ab workout (pretty much the same as the one two days ago, but with more weight and a superset).

Superset:
Weighted Swiss ball crunch
45lb DB 3x15

Twisting Swiss ball crunch
b/w 3x12/side

Single set:
V-ups on bench
b/w x10
(I saw these in a magazine, and thought I'd try 'em. They don't seem to hit the abs at all, and my hip flexors get enough strain, thank you.)

Reverse crunches, on bench
b/w 3x10

At 8 o'clock, I went out for a nice long run (52 minutes). It was a lovely night for it -- probably one of the last few we'll get this year, judging by the rest of this so-called summer. Clear dark blue air, full of cricketsong; the gentle evening breeze carrying the smells of balsam of Peru, late flowers, cedar mulch and the occasional whiff of scorching steak; mellow temperature, neither hot nor unpleasantly cool.

I didn't see much of any human activity going out. Starting into the return half of the loop, I passed, going the other way:
4 pedestrians,
3 in-line skaters,
1 cyclist,
all of them busily yattering on their cellphones. Now, it is possible that they were sharing the beauties of the evening with unfortunate housebound friends, but somehow I doubt it.

Then, in the park, I ran past a couple holding hands. The girl? On her cellphone.

I should give up my job, and take up wandering the streets with a sign, "The End of the World is at Hand." I can hardly miss, can I? At the very least, our "civilisation" has clearly just about run its course. Ancient Rome? A model of clearheaded reasonable living by comparison.