Too tired for having fun.

September is hard. This year in particular, as we are camped out on an air mattress in the living room for the duration. Until our bed is set up in our new bedroom, sleep here we must. Until the girl's bedroom is finished, we will never set up our bed in our new bedroom.

James and Eva came over on Tuesday to sand the floor, but my schedule has been prohibitive. Our schedules have been prohibitive.

My wife began a new teaching job, so I am taking care of all morning preparation -- breakfast, lunches, transportation. Then nine hours of residency rehearsals, then surviving until bed, we all managing musical lessons, soccer games and dinner. That's fall.

And just in time, seasonal sinus attacks kick in and that makes my head hurt.

Man. I feel like I've gained ten pounds since returning from New York. I wish there were some way of measuring that.

Temperature: 70°
Climate: cool & overcast
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 175.5 lbs.

That was glorious, cool, early fall run. My head is clear, I am in good spirits, and ready to stain the floor.

I mean, literally. I have to put stain on a wooden floor.

We move into the perfect days of running, cool and crisp, not sweaty and muggy. If I can keep it together, this could be a productive season.

Eric Coble's The Velocity of Autumn is currently in previews at Arena Stage. I remember eighteen months ago when we began rehearsal for that play at Beck Center. The tour of Styles had just opened, when we began rehearsals for Velocity. I was also in training for the 2012 CLE Marathon.

One day in late March I ran twenty miles, and that evening I had a performance. These things can be done. Move forward.

Middle School Playlist
September - Earth Wind & Fire
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Generals and Majors - XTC
Ah! Leah! - Donnie Iris
Driven To Tears - The Police
Working In a Coal Mine - Devo
Can You Feel It - The Jacksons
Dream Police - Cheap Trick

UPDATE: Was reminded that it was five years ago TODAY that I received "Left knee arthroscopy and partial lateral menisectomy and meniscus repair." At that time I had doubts I would ever be able to run again. And yet, here we are. Forward, indeed.

I want to be human.

Sick in NYC, 2004.
Thursday night I had developed the stomach bug the girl and the wife had shared for two days prior. Shivering with chills, queasy and achy, I took to bed, but was still up and read to perform a student matinee of The Mysterious Affair at Styles at Lorain High.

Week 6 Total: 12 miles
Training to Date: 135 miles

It also snowed yesterday, a lot. I thought, you know, I do not feel like running. Not at all. I am trying not to feel badly about that. Strange, though. For five weeks I was this guy who was crazy determined to run five out of every seven days. Who was that guy?

Distance: 4 miles
Route: Neighborhood loop

Glorious morning, sunshine, hard to accept it is below freezing, the icicles are melting. Several days rest can make you feel like a million bucks, but I can tell my shin will start singing again soon. Still a little sick to my stomach.

Must prepare for this afternoon's performance at the local library. Gotta love a five-minute commute.

Temperature: 30º
Pavement: clear w/patchy snow
Weight: 170.5 lbs.
Breakfast: pancakes & bacon
Hydration? yes
Stretches? yes

2004 Playlist
Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
TKO - Le Tigre
Ohh La La - The Ditty Bops
American Idiot - Green Day
Future Sightings - I Am The World Trade Center
Hounds of Love (New Mix) (168 bpm) - The Futureheads
Neon Human - Felix da Housecat
Pale Yellow - The Ditty Bops
Decent Days and Nights (170 bpm) - The Futureheads
She's a Rebel (159 bpm) - Green Day

Cooldown:
Ethanopium - Dengue Fever

Come on, baby. Now throw me a right to the chin.

Rosalind (Christie) Hicks: Poirot does not look like you.
Peter Ustinov: He does now.
The tour of The Mysterious Affair at Styles opens tonight at the Alcazar at 8 PM. You should join us, it is free and open to the public. I should be excited. I feel ill. I do not recall feeling this horrible the date of an opening before. Running should have made me feel better, instead it made me sad and angry.

Distance: 4 miles
Route: To Parkside Blvd. and back.

I believe that, had the sidewalks been clear, I may have cheered up, but they weren't and I haven't. Angry is not the proper word. I am anxious, to be sure. I do not doubt the material. Christie's novel is top-notch and so is my adaptation. I am delighted, overwhelmed by the talent and energy of the company. Emily, Anne, Michael, James -- especially James, who is onstage virtually every single moment of the play. I am not sure he knew what he was getting himself into! But I am extremely proud of him.

Lisa has been wonderful to work with, she has transformed into an extremely talented director, not just clever and creative but reassuring, calming, she is so very in charge. Diana has been immensely helpful as production stage manager. And I cannot praise the designers enough, Esther has made us sumptuous as usual, Terry's set is very impressive and stately, and Richard's sound just stitches it all together. Everyone at Great Lakes has been positive and supportive, and I hope they will enjoy the production.

No, I am not nervous about the show, nor my place in it. I will be uh-mazing.

Just ... openings make me doubt. They make me sad. They make me fret. But these days, so does the wind.

Temperature: 32º
Climate: miserable clumps of hard-pack snow
Weight: 173.5 lbs.
Breakfast: open-face fried egg, cheese, salami, toast thing
Hydration? yes
Stretches? yes

Speaking of James ... he's only 22, you know? That is half my age. I turned twenty-two twenty-two years ago. I was driving into work yesterday, and struck by a powerful realization. You only get one youth, you know. "This is our youth ..." Uh-huh, and what did you do with it? Maybe when you are a child, and begin to think of a real grown-up life, you make a picture for yourself of what you will do, and who you will be. And it's always fun and adventurous without any of the heartbreak and difficult things.

My senior year in high school we were supposed to create a glossy magazine article about ourselves, from some ten years into the future. This future me was an actor and a director -- but a successful one, a famous one. But I also included a failed first marriage. Who does that? Who sets themselves up like that?

1997 Playlist
Your Woman - White Town
Steven's Last Night In Town
Selfless, Cold & Composed
Song For The Dumped - Ben Folds Five
Burning Ground - Van Morrison
Space Junk [Wang Chung '97] - Wang Chung
Tubthumping - Chumbawumba
Turn It On - Sleater-Kiney
My Hero (154 bpm) - Foo Fighters
Mon Amour Tokyo (153 bpm) - Pizzicato Five

Cooldown:
Smack My Bitch Up - Prodigy

How did I actually end up spending my youth? And by I, I mean "we" because I did none of these things alone, and forgetting the heartbreak and difficult things for a moment, we made plays, threw parties, drank and smoked a lot, we danced, reserved private rooms in restaurants, we were written up in the newspaper, were interviewed on TV and radio, wrote stories that were printed in magazines, made assholes of ourselves at parties, offended the mayor, slept too much or not enough, met people, learned to dislike people, offended people, reunited with people, traveled to big cities, slept on couches and floors and in the wrong places, drew pictures and painted paintings and made many, may more plays.

In early 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp hung in the sky, harbinger of the Millennium, beneath which my play The Vampyres was opening at Dobama's Night Kitchen. We had a room upstairs at the Firehouse on Silsby. There was eating, drinking, and a lot of smoking. Money was freely spent. Who were those people? I think I could name all of them, I am sure I am Facebook friends with every single one, with one very obvious exception.

It was a youth. Perhaps bigger than most. We had no idea.