Get started. Get stupid.

Keep going.

Last year I ran twenty-six times in June. And I hurt myself. I don't even remember that. My hip was in pain. I think that was the result of running every single day. It was a mania, I guess. I was then, as now, trying to slim down to a manageable size. I was 185 lbs. in June. I was able to drop another five pounds, but then put it all back on by the holidays.

Running every day, I didn't write about it. Too busy? In quarantine? I had nothing to say? It was a difficult, depressing time.

Not that tings are rosy and bright. But they are better. I was exposed to lots of hillbillies this weekend. Really testing the limits of this vaccine.

I have been in a creative frenzy this past year, too. The writing, the schoolwork, all the Zoom productions. But I'd like to make exercise something that is part of my head, what I think about, and not just something I do and get over with, to try not to think about. Some of my favorite moomenst I am thinking about running. Or actually running.

Distance: 4 miles
Duration: 37:54
Pace: 9:27
Route: Hocking River Bike Path
Temperature: 67°
Climate: sunny & nice
Mood: good, you know?

My current mental exercise in delayed gratification. I will be eating X later, so I will not eat Y right now. If I did this on Noob (or whatever it's called) I could find out exactly what the calories are in X vs. Y, too. For now, I choose to be merely mindful.

It's not really a diet. I am not eating different. Just less grazing. 

Intake:
Breakfast: coffee (2x) 
Lunch: General Tso's Tofu

Snack: deviled eggs, tapanade w/crackers

Dinner: cheeseburger, onion rings, milkshake

Also, Manhattan (1x)

Okay, holiday's over.

2003 Playlist

Transatlanticism - Death Cab for Cutie

Crazy In Love  - Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z

Toxic - Britney Spears

Let's Get It Started (Spike Mix) - Black Eyed Peas

We Will Become Silhouettes - Postal Service

Seven Nation Army - White Stripes

Move Your Feet - Junior Senior

Hey Ya! - OutKast

Emerge - Fischerspooner

The year 2003 was a big year for me, aurally. We had discovered iTunes. I was listening to Radio K. And then there was the girl. All the music that emerged from being a new father, the father of a living child. It was a rebirth. The latest rebirth.

I see another hurdle approaching.

The Smiling Skull Salloon

Couple of days at he Wolf Homestead. Afternoon run by the river, it was totally beautiful. After all this time, however, the fact that people can't get their shit togther and stay out of each other's way as they pass.

It was brisk, and strong. That's what a couple days off gets me.

Distance: 4 miles
Duration: 37:33
Pace: 9:23
Route: Hocking River Bike Path
Temperature: 63°
Climate: sunny & beautiful
Mood: good

When I get into a groove, of not overeating, it makes having even a light snack of junk food impossible. No small bowl of chips. Just none. Reach for the fruit, the veg, or just drink more water.

Friday Intake: 
Breakfast: coffee (3x) oatmeal w/raisins, butter, brown sugar, cream
Lunch: spaghetti & sauce, broccoli & cauliflower w/butter

Snack: apple, handful of Runts
Dinner: beans & cornbread

Dessert: 1 scoop chocolate chocolate chip ice cream.

Also, fizzy water (2x), beer (1x)

Saturday Intake: 
Breakfast: coffee (3x)
Lunch: beans & cornbread, cornbread with butter & honey

Snack: banana
Dinner: Whopper, onion rings, Coke

Also, Old Fashioned

Also, fizzy water (1x)

Well, that's one way I discover that I have gone too many days without a run. But seriously, putting this down keeps me from messing around. Gotta tell you, having a meal from MacDonalds the night before can fill me up for an entire day. I have eaten, but I was just not hungry.

Sunday Intake: 
Breakfast: coffee (3x), Edmund Fitzgerald (1x)
Lunch: odd pieces of fruit, Eliot Ness (1x)

Snack: General Tso's Tofu w/broccoli

Dinner: grilled cheeseburger w/works, thundercake, Eliot Ness (1x)

Meantime, two beers during the day? Sure, fuck you, I'm on vacation.

The mid-day Chinese dish was a hoeowrk assignment for the boy. It was delicious.

1983 Playlist

The Cutter - Echo & the Bunnymen

Lies (Remix) - The Thompson Twins

Fascination (Extended Remix) - Human League

Safety Dance - Men Without Hats

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics

Maniac - Michael Sembello

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson

This Must Be the Place - Talking Heads

The pounding of my heart, it beats so strong.

Last night was wonderful and horrible. The girl was receiving a corporate-sponsored scholarship, one she had applied and interviewed for. She received cash, prizes, was celebrated for all her hard work. And she has done such hard work.

By the end of the event she was finding it hard to breathe. The caterer had included an unusual ingredient in the pesto - peanuts. Peanuts do not belong in pesto. Pine nuts and often other tree nuts can go into pesto, not peanuts. And there was no allergy warning, no indication of this special, secret ingredient.

I remember those parents who would make a stink that their children couldn't bring peanut butter to school, or didn't impress upon their children to wash their grubby little mitts before visiting their friends at the nut-free table. Join me in the emergency room after my daughter has jabbed herself with her epi-pen on the white-knuckled drive.

She's fine. She leaves for university in a few months. I am nervous and afraid, and so is she.

Distance: 3.5 miles
Duration: 34:28
Pace: 9:51
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 54°
Climate: sunny & cool
Mood: okay
Weight: 185 lbs. (-1.0)

Four days of running in a row. Cooler today. Chose not to write morning pages, instead to do housework, make lunches, breakfast, for the family, all of whom slept late. I got five and a half hours of sleep last night, and that was more than anyone.

Intake:
Breakfast: cream of wheat (1c), with raisins, alomonds, butter & cream, coffee (2x)

Snack: carrot sticks
Lunch: noodle salad & green soup

Snack: apple
Dinner: pasta & sauce w/steamed brocolli & cauliflower, butter

Also, beer (1x), fizzy water (2x)

Let's try breakfast. Somestimes fasting keeps me from being hungry. Isn't that weird? But this morning I made cream of wheat, so. And I have lost five pounds since we began.

UPDATE: Around 10:30 AM, I am hungry again. This is what I am talking about. 

1984 Playlist

Take Me With U - Prince & the Revolution

Locomotion - OMD

You Take Me Up - Thompson Twins

Tenderness - General Public

Erotic City - Prince

Legs - ZZ Top

I Want You Back - The HoodooGurus

It's My Life - Talk Talk

Don't Let Go - Wang Chung

Eucch. These almonds are two years out of date. Picked thme up at a race sometime.

We know what it means to be alive.

Sip it like it's hot.

Muggy run. And this is where it gets hard, controlling my intake, I mean. Eat good things, not bad things.

Lots of homework, work work, and work work work. But I am sick of this chair. 

Got to hit the books.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 31:07
Pace: 10:02
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 73°
Climate: overcast, breezy & humid
Mood: all right?
Weight: 186 lbs. (-2.0)

Took three days to work off last weekend's pizza binge. Keep going.

Intake: 

Breakfast: coffee w/ cream (2x)
Lunch: noodle salad

Snack: apple, grapes
Dinner: pretzel crusted chicken breast, braised red cabbage & string beans, beer (1)

Also, fizzy water (2x)

2004 Playlist

Future Sightings - I Am the World Trade Center

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

Drop It Like It's Hot- Snoop Dogg ft. Pharrell Williams

First Waver Intact - Secret Machines

Musciology - Prince

One Call Away - Chingy

(Reach Up For the) Sunrise - Duran Duran

Taking care of business.

Can run? Must run. 

Saw the doctor yesterday and he saw me. It would appear I am in good health. It would also appear, from all the bather I gave him, that I may need to resume talk therapy. Most of my fear of death (as I see it, this is not a diagonsis) is mental not physical. I am not at risk for a heart attack.

Having said that, I need more "good" cholesterol, and less "bad" cholesterol. If I could eat that soup my wife made last night, or the salad the night before, on a more regular basis, I would be in excellent health. She is amazing.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 31:39
Pace: 10:12
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 73°
Climate: sunny & warm
Mood: determined
Weight: 188 lbs. (-1.5)

We will record our intake. The wife suggests an app she's using to record her intake. Says it gives her a clear picture of her diet. Me, I am concerned that might make me depressed - that it won't matter that I know what is in my diet, I will keep eating it.

I'll post it here. Make it public. Because shame works.

Intake:

Breakfast: coffee w/cream (2x)
Lunch: green soup w/soda bread & butter

Snack: apple, banana

Dinner: Noodle salad w/fried tofu

Also, fizzy water (3x) & one beer

I fasted all day so that I would have clean labs. And it wasn't a problem. I can do that, not eat, when necessary. I don't need to fast, necessarily ... though after the weekend's binge it didn't hurt. 

1974 Playlist

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John

TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia) - MFSB ft. the Three Degrees

Lady Marmalade - LaBelle

Boogie Down - Eddie Kendricks

Waterloo - ABBA

Hooked on a Feeling - Blue Swede

Takin' Care of Business - Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Living For the City - Stevie Wonder

Come and Get Your Love - Redbone

My pace will be slower when I am running every day, and when it is hot. And that's all right. Better to run slower every day than fast once a week.

The playlist makes a difference, too. The 70s can be slower paced. Groovy, but slower paced. As I am creating Sotify playlists, I am choosing not to include some tunes I used to because they just aren't fast enough to inspire.

Challenge what the future holds.

What a difference a weekend makes. The boy has a birthday party Saturday night, which means "New York" pizzas from Guys, bags of Doritos, cheese balls and a variety of soda pop. So that night, and Sunday, it was all junk food, all day.

This, after all the parents gathered to take pictures of our kids at the art museum before Prom. I tried to avoid photos, but there's a very nice one of me, and she and her. And my shirt is very snug. It was embarrassing to me. I am trying to be my own shape, but I just eat shit.

I even have boobs now.

And I wanted to exercise, I did. But I kept putting it off, or trying to engage the boy. By early Sunday night, I was tired. Junk food tired, you know? At least the wife made an excellent salad for dinner. Those have everything I need.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 31:00
Pace: 9:59
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 63°
Climate: overcast & humid
Mood: anxious
Weight: 189.5 lbs. (+2.5)

Christ, almighty.

Much cooler today. And after a couple days off, I'm like, nah. It's funny, 63° and overcast seems chilly like 63° and sunny definitely does not.

Things that are giving me anxiety today: Social messaging for CSU, my Early American Poetry class, the sheer amount of junk food I consumed the past two days, what I look like in that photograph, racial inequity in the workplace, certain professional issues and certain personal relationships, making plans to scatter ashes, losing hard at trivia. It's a lot.

1994 Playlist

Fantastic Voyage - Coolio

Closer - Nine Inch Nails

You Gotta Be - Des'ree

When I Come Around - Green Day

Ruiner - Nine Inch Nails

Shoop - Salt-N-Pepa

Sure Shot - Beastie Boys

Gin N Juice - Snoop Dogg ft. Daz Dillinger

What a messed up year 1994 was. I hear songs I haven't heard in a while -- while running -- and I am reminded of how angry I was, how unhappy I was. Also, how active I was, how much was going on.

And how bad I was. I was awful. And miserable. Self-pitying, self-loathing, self-aggrandizing. All self, no other. No excuses, sometimes it is good to remember how it happened, and music helps me do that.

We're just fucking animals.

I pull my soleus all the time.
What the fuck was I thinking?

We run because we can. As long as time is available we, should run.

There is also, ow, the consideration as whether to wait until the afternoon or evening, to run with one of my children. However, as the school year comes to a close, there are more afternoon activities. More business. More life, out in the world. So, morning runs it is.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 30:42
Pace: 9:54
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 72°
Climate: sunny & warm
Mood: good
Weight: 186 lbs. (-0.5) 

Passed a man on the trail by the pond. Maybe seventy? He may have appeared older because he was using a cane, his calf was bandaged. He called out to me, so I stopped.

He smiled and said, "I'm jealous!" 

I laughed and said, "You'll join me!" 

He laughed, too. But is that true? When will that be me? How soon? Last night we saw an outdoor concert on the lawn in front of the high school. And I thought, what if? What if my father had not suffered a massive heart attack (he was always going to suffer a massive heart attack) or had survived it?

Surely, he would have needed a cane to reach the high school. Or a walker. Or a chair.

2014 Playlist

Let 'Em Say - Lizzo & Caroline Smith

Talk Dirty - Jason Derulo ft. 2 Chainz

Happy Idiot - TV on the Radio

Turn Down For What - DJ Snake ft. Lil Jon

Dancehall Domine - The New Pornographers

Batches & Cookies - Lizzo ft. Sophia Eris

Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke ft. T.I., Pharrell Williams

Shake It Off - Taylor Swift

Animals - Martin Garrix

I can't say baby where I'll be in a year.

This is an actual photograph of Brian May
holding a badger.

Mellow morning run. How long will it last, this daily running routine? Who knows. As long as the weather holds out. As long as my knees hold out.

I haven't changed that much since I began this blog, fifteen years ago. Or I have chnaged a lot. I find it harder to lose weight, my stride is not as long. That's what I was doing today, intentionally keeping my stride short.

But being outside, in the air, after a winter more or less cooped up in quarantine. No reason to leave my house, not for work, not for play, not for school, not to visit mother.

Just running through the park feels so very good. Where else will we go this season?

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 31:36
Pace: 10:11
Route: Forest Hill Run
Temperature: 68­°
Climate: sunny & bright
Mood: good
Weight: 186.5 lbs. (-0-)

The triangle part in "Sweet Emotion" totally slaps.

1975 Playlist

Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith

Fire - Ohio Players

Tush - ZZ Top

Sister Golden Hair - America

Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain and Tenille

Love Rollercoaster - Ohio Players

Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To ...) - Queen

S.O.S. - ABBA

Rhiannon - Fleetwood Mac

Father had had such hopes.

"Every band has at least one good song ... except the Decemberists."
- Mary Luchia, The Current

The Boy

Today my son turned sixteen. The one who lived. The one who was horribly injured in my care. The musician, the thinker, the Communist. The biggest smartass in my life. Well. He is his father's son.

Today I choose not to do morning pages. After 618 consecutive days of writing, every morning. Today, I rose to make him breakfast and we opened presents and the morning is moving on and I could write, but I choose not to. Instead. I will run and wash and get to work.

Because the writing is not about records. It is about so much more than that. And today I choose not to.

Here are songs from the year my son was born.  

2005 Playlist

DARE - Gorillaz

Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

The Sporting Life - The Decemberists

Chicken Payback - The Bees

Pon de Replay - Rihanna

The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails

Technologic - Daft Punk

Pump It - Black Eyed Peas

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 29:58
Pace: 9:40
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 66°
Climate: sunny & warm

Mood: very good

Running up that building.

May 15, 2016

Okay, now we're doing it. Keeping up with the boy, pushing him further. First six mile (okay, wasn't quite six) now we're talking the eight mile we used to, me running him on his bike. Maybe next week? 

Distance: 5.7 miles
Duration: 53:21
Pace: 9:21
Route: Cain Park/Noble Run
Temperature: 66°
Climate: sunny, nice

Mood: good

Weight: 186.5 lbs. (-0.5)

Five years ago today, it snowed.

1985 Playlist

Miami Vice Theme - Jan Hammer

To Live and Die In L.A. - Wang Chung

Everything She Wants (Remix) - Wham!

In Between Days - The Cure

Driver 8 - R.E.M.

Weird Science - Oingo Boingo

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) - Kate Bush

The Highest High - China Crisis

Like, Wow - Hoodoo Gurus

Jockey Full of Bourbon - Tom Waits

Another Generation - Fishbone

She's On It - Beastie Boys

A Love Bizarre - Sheila E.

We passed some kids on the street, one of them recognized the boy and high-fived him. "Hey, Orson!"  Then he said, "Hey, person who I'm guessing is Orson's dad!"

Everybody's running, but half of them ain't looking.

My extremities are falling asleep again. Am I pre-diabetic? Did this happen at the exact same time last year? These things come and go. I am glad I am seeing the doctor next week

This is when all the runners come out and I'm like, where have you been?

Distance: 3.25 miles
Duration: 30:00
Pace: 9:13
Route: Boulevard Loop
Temperature: 61°
Climate: sunny & warm

Mood: good

Weight: 187 lbs. (-0.5)

Morning runs, right after the kids head off to school. Those are the best. I was planning to get out some time yesterday afternoon, but events conspired against me. No matter, this day is glorious. You can see from my pace, I am picking things up. The Boulevard route has several inclines, and  yet I was never winded. My lungs are getting shape.

1995 Playlist

Gangsta's Paradise - Cooli ft. L.V.

Down by the Water - PJ Harvey

Girl U Want (Tank Girl Version) - Devo

Shook Ones, Pt. II - Mobb Deep

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins

White Lines (Don't Do It) - Duran Duran ft. Grandmaster Melle Mel & Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Connection - Elastica

1979 - Smashing Pumpkins

Yes. That was a good year for music.

Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch?

Maintaining. That is the struggle. It's not like I dn't have a million things to do. But where is my desire? My fulfillment? Part of his malaise is due to the end of the semester, to be sure. But it also may be the impending high school graudation of my daughter. Who am I, what is my purpose, and what comes next? 

Distance: 3.65 miles
Duration: 35:45
Pace: 9:47
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 46°
Climate: sunny & cool

Mood: good

Weight: 187.5 lbs. (-0-)

The wife has been out of town for a few nights. I have been drinking too much. It's not because she is out of town, I'd be doing that, anyway. It's end-of-semester malaise, I know. But something else. One of the birds is soon leaving the nest. And what have I done? Where have I been? And where am I going?

At the very least, these questions generally keep me on the road. 

2015 Playlist

Ship To Wreck - Florence + The Machine

The Ghost of Beverly Hills - Death Cab for Cutie

Hurache Lights - Hot Chip

American Money - BØRNS

The Shade - Metric

Wait For It - Leslie Odom Jr. & the Company of "Hamilton"

Leave a Trace - CHYRCHES

Cream On Chrome - Ratatat

i - Kendrink Lamar

I struggle to keep up with you.

Brisk, pre-work run. Feeling good. Though I am not losing weight, I am gaining stamina. No need to walk, and there were places where my pace was rather fast. The last stretch I was under nine minutes - not as fast as my son, but it felt good to finish strong.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 29:26
Pace: 9:29
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 46°
Climate: light fluffy clouds

Mood: all right

Weight: 187.5 lbs. (-2.5)

Okay.

2016 Playlist

2AM - Bear Hands

You Don't Get Me High Anymore - Phantogram

Run Sister Run - Cass McCombs

Good as Hell - Lizzo

Heathens - Twenty-One Pilots

New Song - Warpaint

Can't Feel My Face - The Wekknd

Can't Stop The Feeling - Justin Timberlake

MORE COWBELL

I have got to stop eating breakfast.

Distance: 3.6 miles
Duration: 33:56
Pace: 9:25
Route: Foprest Hill Loop
Temperature: 45°
Climate: sunny & cool

Mood: good

Asked the boy to choose between two years - 2016 and 1976. He chose the latter. Not only an education for him, but also I was glad not to hear him diss eevery track from five years ago.

1976 Playlist

I Wish - Stevie Wonder

Golden Years - David Bowie

Somebody to Love - Queen

Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder

Knowing Me, Knowing You - ABBA

Hot Line - The Sylvers

The Rubberband Man - The Spinners

Cherry Bomb - Runaways

Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

He likes to sprint as we turn onto our street, and I lag behind. Today I was able to keep up for maybe one hundred yards. I'll get there.

Burn the river down.

Sinus headaches suck.

Been teaching (virutally) at a middle school this week, Romeo & Juliet. Good times, they have some fun, and so do I. Waiting for the rain to stop so the guys can finish the patio (they did!) and so I can get out into the sunshine.

Distance: 3.1 miles
Duration: 30:44
Pace: 9:55
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 55°
Climate: sunny & cool

Mood: all right

Weight: 190 lbs. (+2.5)

Did I mention that on our last run, we got too close to the goslings? A goose attacked my son. Flew up and jumped on his back. Freaked me out worse than it did him.

1986 Playlist

Montego Bay  - Amazula

Kiss - Prince & the Revolution

Word Up - Cameo

Wild Wild Life - Talking Heads

Crush On You - The Jets

Lessons In Love - Level 42

Left of Center - Suzanne Vega ft. Joe Jackson

Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins

Cuyahoga - R.E.M.

Something something romeo and juliet.

Run with the boy. Which band better deserves Rock Hall induction, RATM or Soul Coughing? It's a question. 

The answer is, of course, Fiona Apple.

Distance: 3.15 miles
Duration: 30:33
Pace: 9:59
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 61°
Climate: overcast & humid

Mood: good!

Weight: 187.5 lbs. (+1.5)

1996 Playlist

Bulls On Parade - Rage Against the Machine

Super Bon Bon - Soul Couging

F.N.T, - Semisonic

Devils Haircut - Beck

Criminal - Fiona Apple

#1 Crush - Garbage

Lovefool - The Cardigans

The New Pollution - Beck

You Showed Me - The Lightning Seeds

Take it to the bridge.

Distance: 3.75 miles

Duration: 35:48
Pace: 9:33
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 57°
Climate: sunny & warm

Mood: good!

Weight: 186 lbs. (-1.5)

2006 Playlist

Mass Repeat (Extended Mix) - Gabriel & Dresden 

Dust In the WindI - Gabriel & Dresden

SexyBack - Justin Timberlake

Punkrocker - Teddybears ft. Iggy Pop

Friday Night - Lily Allen

Tracking Treasure Down - Gabriel & Dresden ft. Molly Bancroft

Yes, this was my mid-life crisis, 2006. Running that first marathon. And everything that followed.