My pulse is racing.

No seriously, I haven't run for a long time and I am not happy about that. It's golden hour, the fall, when the gear is still at a minimum but so is the sweat.

We have been in rehearsal for the residency program, which makes for early mornings, long days, and many of them (we rehearse on Saturdays, too) and my wife has begun her second year teaching high school English, so my evenings are largely housework related -- and spending time with my children, who have suddenly exploded into the larger world.

Then there's the change of season, allergy, feeling headachy and sick thing.

Gripe, gripe, gripe (the boys are marching.)

Temperature: 75°

Distance: 3.25 miles

 Let's Cool It In The Bedroom  
by Gretchen Reynolds
New York Times - July 17, 2014

Woke just before 3 am, certain I would slide into another sleepless night and wake in pain. I could feel my head expand and tighten. I crawled out of bed for water and pain reliever, and threw off the covers to sleep cool.

The NYTimes link provided above, and which I read during the summer, does not actually relate to my personal discoveries about sleep, though it is interesting. All I know is staying up late, sleeping warm, sleeping in (thereby missing out on morning caffeine) and even modest amounts of alcohol, combine to create a really awful morning. You may call it a hangover, but it happens whether I have had anything to drink or not, and always on the weekend.

I woke again at 7 am, feeling much better, and ready to just roll over, when it occurred to me to make coffee, which I did, by which time I was a little awake. I have not written in two days, not even nonsense. Lately I have been fretting - a lot - about my ability to write anything, ever, of any value, ever again.

Coffee, morning birds and a blank sheet of paper, combined with a half hour of thinking and rotating my wrist and I have the beginning of what may be a 10-minute play, which is great because I find those to be most difficult of all.

Then I went back to sleep for two hours, the best sleep I've had in over a month. It is 11 am, everyone is gone for the day, and I have housework to happily tend to. But first, we run.

Under Pressure Playlist
Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
The Ocean - Led Zeppelin
Roundabout - Yes
These Are The Days of Our Lives - Queen
Stone Cold Crazy - Metallica
I'm Free - The Who
Living After Midnight - Judas Priest

Bright and warm, but cool and breezy. This is fall. I feel good, I need to resume cross-training, these slacks won't put themselves on.

So glad we live in a universe where Under Pressure happened. When you are putting together that memorial video for me after my death, please use this song, it's kind of everything.