Why put up with painful corns any longer?

The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons I Run Long Distances

The Oatmeal

Okay. The Oatmeal nailed it, again. I can stop blogging now, you read that and everything will be made clear to you. My work here is done.

Due to some unfortunate freak scheduling, which was no one's fault though I feel horribly responsible, I have not seen my children in two and a half weeks. I went to New York on 8/8, and when I returned ten days later they had already been taken to their grandparents' in Athens for a week-long excursion, as part of the annual scramble to occupy the kids at camps and on vacations and min-vacations while two parents try to work.

No, it's not like being in the military, two and a half weeks. But I miss my children powerfully. It is depressing. I have grown accustomed to their faces. Hearing certain recent pop songs remind me of car trips back and forth to summer camps listening to Radio Disney.

There was a bar in Avenue A which was playing virtually every top ten song of 2013 for the couple of hours we were in there. Really? Clarity makes me misty?

To cheer myself up today I bought a new running kit. New shirt, shorts, eyeglass strap and that other thing men need to run with.

Temperature: 71°
Climate: muggy
Distance: 3.25 miles

Woke this morning with a band of pain below my left knee. I think this has to do with the new seating arrangement in my new office ... or just that I have been sitting a lot the past several days, after walking non-stop for weeks. It has been a while since either of my knees hurt.

Glenview Playlist
Brick House - Commodores
D.I.Y. - Peter Gabriel
Step Right Up - Tom Waits
Follow You Follow Me - Genesis
Lady Marmalade - LaBelle
Don't Worry About the Government - Talking Heads
Dancing Queen - ABBA
Surrender - Cheap Trick

I'm breathing, but it's become a chore.

The annual playlist runs plunges me back into the depths of my own history. The 1972 playlist, for example, made me think of the early-to-mid 1980s, which makes sense if you think of it.

I wasn't really listening to rock music when I was three. Get it?

However, as my wife has pointed out in her blog, we listen to a lot of Radio Disney. It is what the kids ask for, in the car at least, and we are nothing if not generous and flexible. But it does speak to our parenting style, and the benefits we receive from it.

First of all, I am only too happy to have Radio Disney on, not because if what it is, but what it is not. I would like to listen to the news, but my children do not need to hear reports on preliminary hearings on the Aurora, CO movie theater shooting.

I would like to listen to music, and though other stations play a wider variety of songs (though not much wider) the DJs on Radio Disney will never talk about RTA bus drivers slapping the shit out of mouthy whores, or the preliminary hearings on the Aurora, CO movie theater shooting.

My kids are not sheltered from the world. The opposite, in fact. The boy is seven, and has read more about the Navy Seals who assassinated Osama bin Laden than I have. These are books in his school, written for children. I have seen them, and I will not keep them from him just because they may upset me to know his is reading about violence. Better to get it from a book than from some twit like Rover.

Amusingly, when the girl first got into Radio Disney (2010) every song I heard was performed by a teenager. Lots of white, Canadian boys who rap, and girls whose name I recognized as stars from the Disney Channel. I assumed every single track they played was produced by a Disney/ABC subsidiary.

Even more shocking was when I resumed listening to the FM commercial pop stations, which I realized I had been entirely avoiding since the early 2000s. They were playing the exact same songs. Disney Is Top 40 Radio. Amazing. But I guess there isn't really anything surprising about that.

Temperature: 39°
Climate: safe as before
Distance: 3.25 miles

There is absolutely nothing comparable to arriving home after a run to find my wife, daughter and son, sitting in the living room, quietly reading.

1992 Playlist
Kiss That Frog - Peter Gabriel
Too Funky - George Michael
Happiness In Slavery - Nine Inch Nails
Constant Craving - k.d. lang
Seen The Doctor - Michael Penn
Something Good - Utah Saints
Steam [Oh, Oh, Let Off Steam mix dub] - Peter Gabriel


"This sounds horrible." (Thanks, Stephani.)

Just 'cause you're hungry doesn't mean that you're lean.

Radio Disney Top 13 of 2011
2012 (It Ain't the End) - Jay Sean feat. Nicki Minaj
Breakthrough - Lemonade Mouth
Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost! Remix) - LCD Soundsystem
Tightrope (168 bpm) - Janelle Monáe ft. Big Boi
Like Em All - Jacob Latimore ft. Diggy Simmons
Derezzed - Daft Punk
Dynamite - Taio Cruz
Firework - Katy Perry
Too Dramatic (166 bpm) - Ra Ra Riot
Like a G6 - Far East Movement
Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
Shake It Up - Selena Gomez & The Scene
Blue Tip - The Cars

Ladies and gentlemen ... 44 Playlists for 44 Years.

Distance: 5.75 miles
Temperature: 66º
Weather: warm. nice.
Weight: 172.5 lbs.

My heart starts beating like a big, bass drum, alright.

The last several nights have been a breeze, running 3 miles or so, feeling like I could farther but choosing not to. Tonight my knees hurt. Now that I am resting, my ankles and feet hurt. I've been on my feet all day for a change, at drama camp, that might have something to do with it.

It should not have taken so long to complete 44 playlists for 44 years. The last time it took this long (longer, actually) it was because I had a torn meniscus. And back then I started in February, not January.

Three runs in March? I know the weather was bizarre, that's no excuse.

One run more to close it out. Music from this year. Expect a lot of stuff from Radio Disney, because that's the only station I get to listen to.

1971 Playlist
Life On Mars? - David Bowie
What's Going On - Marvin Gaye
Roundabout - Yes
Bitch - The Rolling Stones
Tokoloshe Man - John Kongos
Joy To The World - Three Dog Night
I Feel The Earth Move - Carole King

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 66º
Weather: cool. sunset.
Weight: 169 lbs.