Moving through the Cleveland heat.

Fuck tha police.

Outstanding! What a tremendous week, but one with no time for running. My wife and I simply cannot get to bed until midnight most days, there's so much going on.

This past weekend we held a fishing derby birthday party for an eight year-old, which turned into an all-day affair, as well as soccer games to attend and curtain speeches to make downtown. It's only Wednesday (morning) and we have conducted interviews for next year's actor-teachers, I led a tour of PlayhouseSquare for students from Lake County, and yesterday was packed with performance workshops and sharing I Hate This a medical conference.

We are also laying the groundwork for a fundraising campaign to get Double Heart to the New York Fringe, popping all over to shoot attractive, young actors video in exciting, outdoor locations.

So glad I did not also have to run a marathon last weekend.

However, it has been an entire week since my last run, and I only went out today because my wife suggested I should. I woke this morning with the same backache, and (surprise) a spasm in my left calf. So, yes. Run, we must. But I shouldn't have to spend the summer waiting until she tells me to to do it.

Temperature: 74°
Climate: cool breeze, but humid
Distance: 3.25 miles

School Is In Genius Playlist
Precious - The Pretenders
To Live and Die in L.A. - Wang Chung
Double Life - The Cars
Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go's
Nightspots - The Cars
Last Chance on a Stairway - Duran Duran
Blood & Roses - The Smithereens
Mexican Radio * - Wall of Voodoo

Yes, children. These are the 80s.

I'm staring at the asphalt.

Don't know what happened. I was driving home with the windows down and I felt fine. The drive home, that relatively speaking brief drive home can make me bleary-eyed, it's just boring. But I felt fine, for the most part ... but by the time I got to the grocery store, I was tired.

The grocery store can be a major soul-sucking experience, I don't care which store it is. Sometime it hits me in produce, Good God, it's the first section of the store and I have been here for half my life already. But that wasn't the case today, I was in and out of there real fast with a lot of great fruits and vegetables.

But then I went into the aisles ... I didn't think we needed much but whatever I wanted, I couldn't find it. That's when I aged a year. But the time I emerged into the hideously bright parking lot, I was spent. I came home, dinner was almost ready, everyone was active and on top of things, I am was like Zombie Dad. It was pathetic.

The boy needed to get to baseball, and the wife generously offered to take the girl to practice soccer in an adjacent field, so that I could do whatever I liked -- with an emphasis on taking a run. Maybe a short one. Could do me good.

Actually, just writing this has already done me good.

I think I was hungry.

Temperature: 82°
Climate: warm
Distance: 3.25 miles

Freshly-mow lawns, bright, early-evening sunshine, and what do you know -- other runners. The kind of people who regularly use the gym. That's nice. Get off my sidewalk, I was out here when it was nineteen degrees, who do you think you are?

Stopped by the schoolyard where the boy was practicing and the ladies were kicking the ball around with boys who were absolutely incapable of not touching the ball with their hands.

Running feels so good. The running feels good. I feel good. This day is nearing its end. There is so much to accomplish in each and every one. And these are good things to notice.

You Make Me Feel Genius Playlist
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
You May Be Right - Billy Joel
Die Another Day - Madonna
Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) - Mika
Next Girl * - The Black Keys
Free - Graffiti6
Taken - One Direction

Running from the cops in our black bikini tops.

That's right, children. A man made that.

Things to do! Speeches to give! Plays to see! Work to be done! Rose early to make the mother-of-the-house special breakfast and called my own dear mom to remind her I love her ... and that's it. Later!

Temperature: 45°
Climate: hail ... then bright sunshine
Distance: 3.25 miles

You Make Me Feel Genius Playlist
15 Step - Radiohead
Thank You - Dido
Same Mistakes - One Direction
Everlasting Light - The Black Keys
This Is What Makes Us Girls - Lana Del Rey
The Kids Don't Stand A Chance - Vampire Weekend
Deer In The Headlights - Ben Gibbard Owl City (whatever.)

Wow. I don't think I have ever had a Genius generated playlist featuring so many pop stars who wish they were someone else.

I can't be no super-man.

Welcome to my dreams.

Morning run. Spring weather, rainy lightly. Not too cool the the skin, just perfect. So much excitement in the air, annual benefit at work tomorrow night, year-end cultural arts project at the girl's school yesterday afternoon, children's theater festival downtown, making fringe festival fundraising plans, the weather stays nice, the days stay full and relatively free of stress.

Yes? Free of stress? Maybe. Well, no. In spite of putting in 3+ miles I still have a lightness in my belly which betrays anxiety. That, and the zombie dreams. Never too calm, never too sure. Perhaps that's for the best, it keeps me on my toes and in the street.

Temperature: 66°
Climate: a little rainy
Distance: 3.25 miles

You Make Me Feel Genius Playlist
You Make Me Feel ... - Cobra Starship ft. Sabi
Letters from the Sky - Civil Twilight
Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers
My Best Friend's Girlfriend - The Cars
Save You Tonight - One Direction
Animal - Ellie Goulding
Summer Skin * - Death Cab for Cutie
Boys Don't Cry * - The Cure

Moving into the universe.

The season of tearing down. It feels as though, following an era of abandonment and decay, people are finally taking action in the face of massive migration.

I'm not just talking about the housing collapse, though that is definitely part of it. There was a (relatively) small grocery store on Noble, behind the movie theater on Mayfield. It probably closed the year I bought my house. Unlike the aforementioned movie theater, which closed shortly after that, and has since been occupied by a Hollywood Video, later a pathetic-looking liquor store (they didn't even change the Hollywood video design, paint the walls or anything) the grocery store was never reused for any purpose at all. Just a big empty building, with a big empty lot.

Last month, they tore it down. But also, they ripped up the cracked, useless parking lot. Today I ran past, there was earth and ground cover and seed. One might say where there was something, there is now nothing. To me, it is exactly the opposite.

Temperature: 51°
Climate: cool, clear dawn
Distance: 4.2 miles

Morning run. Dropped the car off at the girl's school early and ran my way home, so that she and I could walk to school together this morning as part of Walk/Bike To School Morning. I am not too concerned about the girl's physical health, at least as far as getting up and moving is concerned. She is a psychotically sensibly dedicated soccer player.

Gorillaz Genius Playlist
Clint Eastwood - Gorillaz
No Surprises - Radiohead
Henrietta * - The Fratellis
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa - Vampire Weekend
Perfect Day - Lou Reed
40 ft - Franz Ferdinand
On Melancholy Hill - Gorillaz
And She Was - Talking Heads
Life During Wartime - Taking Heads

And it's not about you joggers who go round and round and round ...

Multi-tasking is something with which I have a certain degree of skill, but that does not mean it comes to me easily. Tomorrow is a rare example of a single day in which I have three major events scheduled, all of which, while pertaining to theater, consume a different part of my brain and soul.

In the early afternoon I am the designated speaker at a social event for which I am expected to detail my journey as a theater artist. For this event I have even created a PowerPoint presentation. About me.

Later in the afternoon I will conduct an audition workshop with three at-risk youth, and encourage them to get onto their feet and read Shakespeare. It can be done. That does not make it easy.

Finally, there will be a private table reading of a new play I have written. This will actually be the most relaxing part of the day, where I get to just sit and listen. That does not mean it is without stress. But having already done all of the advance work (rehearsal with actors, writing the damn thing) I do not need to speak very much, and just sink into my chair.

Temperature: 59°
Climate: utter gorgeous
Distance: 4 miles

Anxiety can crush the will. Judging how much I yearn to accomplish vs. how much I want to just give up is a good barometer for whether I am depressed or merely stressed. This afternoon was tough because, I believe, this weekend, while entirely enjoyable, involved a lot of not doing those things that are running around my mind.

We were relaxing, attending the girl's orchestra concert, lazing about the botanical garden, taking in an art "happening", having dinner in Little Italy with my mother-in-law. Today it was the boy's soccer game. Hurry up and wait for Monday. That's no way to enjoy a weekend.

However, it even made me not want to run, rather than run. That lasted about two steps into my actual run. Synapses flashes, the pulse quickened, I came a live and alert. I even noticed that, for most of my run, I did not even open my mouth.

I breathe through my nose! To run! For miles, with my mouth closed! There was a time in my life when I could simply not have done that.

Gorillaz Genius Playlist
Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz 
Suffragette City - David Bowie
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
Derezzed - Daft Punk
Close To Me - The Cure
Parklife - Blur
All I Need - Radiohead
L.E.S. Artistes - Santogold
Sleeping In - The Postal Service
Tron Legacy (End Theme) - Daft Punk

I'm where I want to be.

When winter passes, and moving into the out-of-doors is no longer uncomfortable (this, before the humidity that falls by mid-June) then all fretting of weight and size seems to pass. For a moment, for a brief moment. Not obsessed by consumption, or the size of my pants, or how my shirts fit. It's just pleasing passage through the air -- even hard smelling air, bright shocking sky, like that I experienced walking up Euclid for an after-work, happy hour drink to discuss FringeNYC plans with other members of the company. It's worth it to squint, when the breeze is not so cool as to chill, nor yet hot enough to make a sweat. Ideal, late afternoon stroll through downtown, which no longer feels desert, great crowds reclaiming the pavement, even if it's just because there's a game tonight. It feels like a city looking forward to summer.

And so am I. And so am I.

Temperature: 73°
Climate: cool & lightly breezy
Distance: 3.25 miles

Whatever anxieties followed me home melted in the cool night air as I ran, and picked up speed. Confusing conversation made sense, ideas fell into place, timing became a philosophy. These things can be managed and controlled and addressed and solved.

I could not find the clown shoes last Sunday and wore traditional running shoes. That did not feel good, I felt it in my knees, I felt wobbly and uncertain. In the zero drops I feel the pavement -- I know it is there, and I am aware of my alignment, of the way my toes are pointing. I feel it all. And it feels good.

Gorillaz Genius Playlist
DARE - Gorillaz
Too Long - Daft Punk
Like Eating Glass (160 bpm) - Bloc Party
Girls & Boys - Blur
Michael (158 bpm) - Franz Ferdinand
Nothing Better - The Postal Service