Standing right on campus

South Green Three Mile

In our fourteen years together, my wife and I have never wandered around South Green. She never lived there - I did for my first two years - but she did have a boyfriend and knew others who did. It was a bizarre journey, from Uptown past the ridiculous new student union and down through East Green.

The first sign of derangement was the frat house, two doors down from the Presidents' home, abandoned with windows busted out. Heading down from the Oasis (now closed) we saw Shively, undergoing some kind of major reconstruction, fenced off and empty.

South is coeverd in graffiti, with signs indicating that students will not return for a while. Lots of windows in O'Bleness, my old dorm, marked "window broke" on slips of paper sticky taped to the frames.

It gave the impression that, ever since I left the place in 1988, that they just shut the doors and locked everything up behind me.

Distance: 3 miles
Temperature: 36 degrees

College Music Playlist
She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
Dreaming I Am - Bob Mould
The Power - Snap!
Alex Chilton * - The Replacements
The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades * - Timbuk 3
Good Times * - INXS
Waiting For The Great Leap Forward - Billy Bragg
Peace Train - 10,000 Maniacs
World In My Eyes - Depeche Mode

51 days 'til the great leap forward.

Smarta** Blogtitles Are For A**holes

Fun Runs Are For Fat Kids

... and blogs about running that mock fat people should be updated more than once every six months! Because people might think you've gotten fat!

Now that's funny.

Caution: Golf Balls In Flight

South Green Three Mile

Happy Thaksgiving. I started coming down with a cold Monday afternoon, and it's been pretty nasty. Just stuffed up and weak. And yet ... I came to run. Besides, I got lots of turkey to work off.

Distance: 3 miles
Temperature: 43 degrees

College Music Playlist
Never Gonna Give You Up - Rock Astley
Def. Con. One - Pop Will Eat Itself
Weird Science - Oingo Boingo
Dreamworld - Midnight Oil
Doin Da Butt - Gap Band
Here's Where The Story Ends - The Sundays
Never Enough - The Cure

God, that felt good. I have just been a congested, unhappy mess for days. Bright sky, cool breeze and no students.

And here's your Post-Turkey-Day wake up call:

Bay Days

This is the "after" photo, standing in a field in Cahoon Park. You can see the former BMS in the background, a great prison-like building I was attending at the time.

I must have found that number irritating, people wear them much lower on their abdomen where they don't disrupt your movement. Looks like cardstock, boy have we changed in twenty-eight years.

Those shoes are simply awesome.

The Stay In Bay Days Five Mile Run used to begin right there at Bay Days, in Cahoon Park. It's always on July 4th, I believe at 8.30. Ten or so years ago I thought I would run it again, for the sheer amusement of it, and learned that they were now starting at the high school, presumably for organization and facilities, etc. A lot of people show up for it.

However, I miss the old route. It would go through the Metroparks, and in and around all the unusual, older neighborhoods of Bay. There were more trees, a few hills, winding terrain, I remember it being enjoyable, even if I kept my head down and had to stop and walk every half mile or so.

Now it's flat, flat, flat and lots of long, straight roads. It's kind of boring.

Distance: 3 miles
Temperature: 30 degrees & sunny!
Weight: 156 lbs.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Emotion in Motion (155 BPM)

That was so totally not below freezing, it's the Great Pre-Thanksgiving Thaw of Aught-Eight out there.

155 BPM seems to be Daddy's sweet spot right about now.

Three miles. Thank you.

Runnin' Circles

Wow! Am I sore! Tonight Ali and I staged a good third of the show. Seriously? A third? Thirteen pages, do the math. And boy, it is a physical show. On thing I was hoping to find a reason to do - I will be running laps around the entire audience.

No, I don't have all the lines down, though going over it so many times was a real kick in the pants. Speaking of which, I need to get them in my brain so we can concentrate on all the costume changes ... which are more complicated than even I imagined.

Off the Soundtrack: Future Sightings by I Am The World Trade Center
On the Soundtrack: Jerk It Out by Caesars

Dumbass

Last night was great! Picked up mushrooms and tofu on my way home, and then took a great run. Halfway through my route I stopped at the kids' school - the wife was picking them up right then, what a surprise for everyone!

They drive home, I follow after on foot, and pick up a little and be with the kids while she makes a really delicious smelling stir-fry. Around 7 pm I get a call from Ali - am I going to show up for our 6.30 table session?

Jesus.

So I bolted out of there and made it to her place by 7.30, amazing. Amazingly thick. Between my being late and her slowly succumbing to a miserable headcold, we got some good work done. Tomorrow night; on my feet.

So what

That's below freezing, yo. May I remind you it's not yet Thanksgiving?

Nice, brisk, evening run. Damn, those old mixes are fun.

Distance: 2 miles
Temperature: 30 degrees
Weight: 157 lbs.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Build (135 BPM)

Writing, not running.

Here's my dilemma ... I just got back to running a few times a week, but now it's snowy and dangerous outside. And cold, of course. I would like to sign up for a gym membership, but we're a little pinched right now and trying to cut out unnecessaries. So a treadmill is out ... and so are all of those weight machines which I seem to have no trouble using when I have a physical trainer to tell me what to do, how much, and for how long.

Keeping up with the regimen is challenging. It's not impossible. But, you know. I worry. Hopefully there will be time later today to hit the less scary parts of the neighborhood, the shoveled parts, I don't know.

It took a few months (in four segments, two weeks apart - and missing the last one) but the PU has finished hearing the &TYD.

That's my wife's appelation, by the way. Cute, right?

And word is good. I was most thrown and then moved when DM said there are places when the piece "devolves" ... (and I cringed as she lost her thought for a moment, considering if that were the right word before continuing) ... "into poetry."

Oh. Well. That's good.

FS likes the piece about the Jock in Geometry. Funny, I may be having lunch later this week with the guy I talk about in that piece. We've seen each other twince since graduation, both times at reunions. We've probably never watched each other eat in our lives.

Inventory

Did I mention I am selling my comic book collection to finance this show? Seriously, how wildly symbolic. The show is about a cartoonist who can't shake his own adolescence, and here I am divesting myself of years of comics.

Not that I own a lot of comics, it was a regular habit for about five years, and they've just sat there in my attic since then. Hell, I had to schlep them around for a while before I could finally dump them in one place for fifteen years.

Are they even valuable? Some are. You'd be surprised what people still pay on eBay for shit, even in this economy. Not everything, mind you, interest in VHS tapes are seriously on the skids (though not entirely) and I did pick up some winners in my time. First Wolverine appearance. First appearance of the black Spider-Man/Venom suit. Things like that.

Alpha Flight? No, thank you. Sorry, Terry.

But seriously, you have got to see the shoes I got for nothing.

"Why?"

Word count before today's rehearsal: 12,535
Word count after today's rehearsal: 12,490

A net loss of 45 words. Well. We'll see about that.

"Why," was one of today's big questions as we went over the text for the first time in weeks, Ali asked why, Kelly asked why. When someone asks why I would prefer to say, "I don't know," and cut it, but that wasn't always the case.

Distance. Detachment. And poop. Quite a show.

Daddy Runs FAST!!!

... especially when it begins pelting rain as you are rounding third to home. Damn. I am a wet man.

Distance: 2 miles
Temperature: 48 degrees & rainy
Weight: 160 lbs.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Groundpounder (180 BPM)

Rehearsal begins tomorrow.

Promo awfulness

I had a promotional nightmare last night! For real! Even that's a new one.

I picked up a promotional flyer for this season's BIG BOX series and found several errors in my listing.

My show was listed as BIG BON and included no description of what the show was actually about. All the other shows did.

In particular my attention was drawn to the first show of the series, a solo performance about the joys of running by a guy I went to college with. He wasn't even an actor. The title was something like, HOW I LEARNED TO REALLY ENJOY TO RUN, or something hideous like that.

Eeccggh. Bad marketing dream. I need to take a shower.

Free and clear

Distance: 2 miles
Temperature: 52 degrees
Weight: 158.5 lbs.

Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Mo Betta Run (150 BPM)

Wart-free and proud. After almost seven years, I believe those f*kers have finally been scraped, burned, dissolved, gouged, purged from the soles of my feet. God, that was awful. Always loved me feet, big feet guy. And I have spent the past seven years ashamed to take off my socks.

This will work, if I can keep up with it - a nice, easy, two mile run, followed by a half-hour of stretches and free weight work. Not every other day, every third day. I think that will do just fine for the time being. On other mornings I will continue the regimen I have been since I began physical therapy.

I guess this will work until the weather gets lousy. This happened in 2005 - missed an entire summer's worth of running due to an injury.

Hooked up the old Podrunner mixes. Lyrics have been wearing me down.

I got to git out

Distance: 2 miles
Temperature: 38˚
Weight: 164

Back on the streets. I wish to sign up at the rec center, but haven't yet. Pavement got me into this mess, but it's free and abundant. The wind was sharp, the light rain bracing. Uncomfortable at first - and I got winded, surprisingly winded. I walked for a little bit, that was all right.

The knee feels all right. No worse than the rest of me. I run again.

Good news, good news.

Physical therapy is at an end. Melissa discharged me today with a guide for future at-home and in-gym workouts. I can run two miles, twice a week for two weeks. Then three miles, twice a week. Then three miles, three times a week.

I'll hold there for a while.

And now a word from Rose Tyler ...

Yes I Can

My God, physical therapy was grueling this morning.

Last Monday I had to bug out shortly after I had started to cover for another of our actor-teachers, and scheduled this mid-week substitution. Melissa had some never exercises planned which really taxed my thighs, I was shaking.

Of course, it did not help that I had four hours of sleep last night. Or all that Southern Comfort.

David's Classic Southern Comfort Recipe
2 shots Southern Comfort
Ice cubes

Melissa says one more session in the clinic, then she gives me an at-home regimen to follow. Maybe I will resume running next week. Maybe a black man will win the presidency.

Here's your post-Election Night wake-up call:

Groundwork

Josh surprised me with a call yesterday afternoon - from Central Park! I forgot/wasn't aware that he and Kelly would be in NYC this weekend.

"Did you know the marathon is this weekend?" he asks. Yes, yes I did. I had it on my calendar.

The great news is that he took this opportunity to take his own pictures of certain landmarks which will be incorporated into the slides for ATYD. Awesome!

Here's your Sunday morning wake-up call:

The B'hoys

As I do my daily stretching routine here in the privacy of my office, my thoughts are with those forty thousand people camped out in Fort Wadsworth right now, waiting for the cannon blast that will set them free, racing around the five boroughs.

If you are not familiar with the podcast The Bowery Boys, it is a weekly lesson in New York City history, and this week's episode is about the NYC Marathon. Check out their page for photos, and find their podcast on iTunes and listen, it's really interesting.