Twenty-six years, on my way to hell.

Fall 1994 is about a lot of things. It's about both of them. Falling in an out of love again. Romeo & Juliet and walks though Harlem. Concerts and concerts and movies and parties and bad, bad acts. It was about being in my twenties.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:32
Pace: 8:52

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 59°
Climate: after the rain, just lovely 
Mood: good

This is what we listened to.

Fall 1994 Mixtape

Headstart For Happiness (162 BPM) - The Style Council

I Don't Understand Anything - Everything But the Girl

Gentleman Who Fell - Milla Jovovich

I Melt With You (156 BPM) - Modern English

Wish - Nine Inch Nails

Burn - Nine Inch Nails

Intermittently - Barenaked Ladies

As I cycle through songs from that auspicious season, you will notice they were not all released that season, but they were ours, at that time, as we shared them with one another (or angrily screamed the lyrics together in the car.)

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 166.2 lbs. (+2.6)

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

And now the rains. Last night's game was very exciting. I am also very glad I was not there in person, I don't fare well sopping wet and shivering.

Still. Guardians!

Wherever there is comfort there is pain.

On this date, twenty years ago, I was deep into marathon training. Five miles on a Wednesday.

"Okay, that hurt. I neglected (forgot?) my shin stretches before going out, and now they both are singing. The front of each shin was bright and pained, it made for little, tiny - but swift - steps. Hmn. Gotta watch that."

Indeed. Here we are, without pain in our legs at all. I was developing muscles on the front of my calves, I didn't know you could do that.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 29:07
Pace: 9:23

Also, I was listening to Podrunner a lot. On September 6, 2006 it was "I Put My Big Boy Pants On" which was one of those early mixes that included music he either didn't have the rights to or lost the rights to, in either case it is no longer available.

I have it burned on CD. It's one of my very favorites.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 70°
Climate: bright & beautiful
Mood: all right

In the 1970s, Tim Finn put together a band called Split Enz. It was quirky pop, frenetic post-punk, agitated (and agitating) tunes, aspiring to be "Ashes to Ashes" David Bowie or Sparks or early XTC but never really as good as any of those. 

By the early 1980s Tim's kid brother Neil had joined the group, who was to become one of the greatest (and underrated) songwriters of the decade. Singing lead for truly great songs like I Got You, One Step Ahead and Message to My Girl, you can see in the music videos how Tim tries embarrassingly to attract attention to himself, as if to remind people it's still his band.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 173.4 lbs.

New digital scale. And this makes sense. My revised weight goal is 165 lbs., which I believe is only appropriate. I much prefer the accuracy. I stepped on the thing three times, it said the same thing every single time. 

When did I buy the manual scale, how long have I had that thing? Liar.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

After Split Enz broke up, Neil started his own act, Crowded House, and almost immediately produced one of the best known and loved songs of the decade, "Don't Dream It's Over." The original Crowded House trio of the Neil Finn, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour created two amazing albums, Crowded House (1986) and Temple of Low Men (1988), which were so important to me during my college years.

Then in 1991 it was announced that Tim had joined the group. I can only imagine the holiday dinner over which Tim Finn was able to wheedle his way into the act. The result was Woodface, which includes some of my very favorite Neil Finn creations, and a couple unfortunate songs that are obviously Tim's. He even managed to sneak a few stupid turns of phrase into otherwise decent Neil Finn creations. A "lounge room lizard"? That's Tim's schtick. See also, his lead vocal on All I Ask.

And let us not mention the execrable, fat-shaming opening track, Chocolate Cake.

Woodface - Crowded House (1991)

Chocolate Cake

It's Only Natural

Fall at Your Feet

Tall Trees

Whispers & Moans

Four Seasons In One Day

Fame Is

... As Sure As I Am

Italian Plastic

She Goes On

That it dropped during the summer of that fateful year, as I was going through a tense will they/won't they with the person who I would eventually be married to (for a short while) gives the truly great songs a nostalgic pull for me, tracks like It's Only Natural, Fall at Your Feet, Whispers & Moans, Four Seasons in One Day and She Goes On, they are all hers.

Tim left the band during the tour.

When we could run away to paradise.

My ex-wife and I honeymooned in Maui, and we visited Lahaina, and it has burned to the ground.

The human world will burn to the ground or get washed away. It's happening as we watch.

Distance: 2 miles

Duration: 18:24
Pace: 9:11

Route: Burlngton Loop (clockwise)

Temperature: 67°
Climate: overcast & humid

Mood: good

 
Stretches: yes

Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh banana, cherry strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, watermelon & granola w/yogurt

Coffee Break: latte

Lunch: sushi & salad

City Walk: 20 oz. cherry coke

Dinner: MR4 & fries

Alcohol? no, but

Treat: ice cream scoop

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 170 lbs. (-0-) 

Goal: 165 lbs.

Blog: Yes

What's That Lyric?

To Live & Die in L.A. - Wang Chung

Thank you for fine times.

Such a day, more different work in the past two days than I have done in some time. Preparing the rehearsal space, and editing residency materials. Researching and writing posts ... and dreaming. I took a brief, afternoon nap, only to wake to the sky darkening, and a storm rolling in. It was as though the day was over, but it was not. The storm came, I sat on the porch and took it in. It briefly passed, and I read for a while, my heart full of life. Of desire. Of ideas. I am troubled but I am amazed. I wonder. I have little idea what to do next, but I have a need. I wonder what will happen.

Distance: 4.25 miles
Duration: 40:21
Pace: 9:29
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 75°
Climate: overcast, stormy & humid
Mood: good
Weight: 174 lbs. (-1.0)

Liberty - Duran Duran (1990)
Violence of Summer (Love's Taking Over)

Liberty

Hothead

Serious

All Along the Water

My Antarctica

First Impressions

Read My Lips

Can You Deal with it

One for the ex-wife. This was DD's first album that entirely failed to land in popularity, at least in America. But it includes "Serious" which is one of my very favorite of theirs. We liked it, and we played it, a lot, during our first summer togther. We thought we were adults or something. Apparently, so did they.

Tuesday Intake
Breakfast: coffee (2x), min wheats w/milk & banana

Coffee break: latte
Lunch: wine gums (oof, big sugar day)
Dinner: carmelized cabbage w/spicy tomato & quinoa, beer (1x)

Also, fizzy water (2x)

Wednesday Intake
Breakfast: two eggs, seed toast w/butter & jam
Lunch: Coca-cola, apple
Dinner: coconut & greens over rice

See, I've got heart like John Starks.

Tori Amos always reminds me of my ex-wife, and that's just fine.

Distance: 3.75 miles
Duration: 33:02
Pace: 8:48
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 70°
Climate: overcast & humid
Mood: good
Stretches: yes
Bandage: no

TRUE STORY! If left untreated, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (UC) can lead to some life-threatening complications.

My brother has lived with UC his entire life ... and though it's only incidental to his story, when I was two I ate all of his medication and had to have my stomach pumped. Not actually relevant, but I wanted to tell the tale.

But! Crohn's disease also increases a patient's risk of developing colorectal cancer. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is the third highest risk factor for colorectal cancer cases.

I'm taking the month of June to remind you of this TEAM CHALLENGE campaign, and reach my goal of $2,000, to find a cure for Crohn's and other IBDs? Will you kick in something today? Hit the TEAM CHALLENGE button at top right (or this link!) Many thanks!

Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/582241/crohns-disease-facts

1994 Playlist
God - Tori Amos
Realm - Lestat
Funk Dat - Sagat
Khang Tone - Stereolab
Snail Shell - They Might Be Giants
Get It Together - Beastie Boys ft. Q-Tip
The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana
Moon Sammy - Soul Coughing
Night In My Veins - The Pretenders

That's some Maximum 90s!


Beautiful night in the park, took the extra loop. Think I spotted my daughter and some friends existing as teen phenomena at the top of the hill overlooking the City.

No complaints in my legs or lungs. Doing all right, getting stronger, no need to walk at all. The girl runs around 8:07 at soccer practice these days but there we go. I've been passed.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 172 lbs. (+1.0)
Goal: 170 lbs.

Okay, fellah. Take it easy now.

Center Mayfield Theatre

Another day off was welcome. These mornings I am hobbling a bit. Thursday night in particular was difficult, my right Achilles tendon was singing with pain.

Received a message from the city yesterday that "the restoration of the remaining walks will follow very shortly after the rest of the new natural gas mainline has been installed." Glad to hear it. The word shortly reassuring defines the word after in that sentence, otherwise I would still question whether they work would be done before the snows which will inevitably begin falling in October.

Distance: 6 miles
Duration: 46:52
Avg Pace: 7:48
Route: Cain Park Loop.

Podrunner: Run Track Mind (166 BPM)

We cool. Still humid but I can run in daylight without totally overheating. Brisk run through my side of town. Beautiful, perfect day for the annual neighborhood block party.

Temperature: 64°
Climate: bright and sunny
Weight: 159 lbs.
Intake: banana
Hydration: yes
Water Stop: yes
Stretches: a little

Word is the former Center Mayfield Movie Theatre is due for demolition. I mean, it's been due for demolition for some time now. The last show I saw there was Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In an effort to remain profitable they had split the single screen into two theaters, side by side, but had not moved the seats so whichever theater you were in your seat was oriented towards to edge of the screen.

I sat sideways watching what was possibly the worst movie I have ever seen with a terrible pain in my abdomen which had that day been diagnosed as a hernia. This was almost twenty-one years ago, a little over a year after I had bought my house and right around when my (soon-to-be) ex-wife left. So, maybe it wasn't entirely Branagh's fault.

But the movie theater closed shortly thereafter. So it hasn't been the "Center Mayfield Theater" for twenty years, though the marquee remained as it transitioned into a Hollywood Video. You know what happened next, we stopped renting videos and so it became a state store ... run by someone who couldn't be bothered to change the decor. It looked like a Hollywood Video where you could buy liquor. It's just been vacant for some time now.

I am very familiar with this sidewalk.

I run past this place and around the corner often. Like, very often, it's part of my regular route. I ran past there this morning. I have seen barber shops and stylists and Chinese restaurants come and go. They are all gone now and I recently noticed that every single storefront is now vacant. All that is left is the child care center behind the theater, which must relocate.

I have no nostalgia for the movie theater, that was not part of my time. Frankenstein may have been the only thing I ever saw there. But I only hope the city can find a developer who can create something useful with it. I can't imagine there is demand for another dollar store in this town.

Stumble in my footsteps.

Google Maps Street View vs. The City of Cleveland Heights
Heights Wins!

On October 1, 2013 I will have legally owned this house for twenty years. I didn't even find it, that would be my ex-wife who saw it in the Home section of the Plain Dealer (back when they covered more than Sports) but in the end I was the one who wouldn't leave.

The place has had its ups and down. The kitchen it better, the deck is worse, and someday soon either we will tear down the garage or it will collapse. Our bedroom is now our daughter's and all the better for it, it's a lovely girl's room ... and hopefully the rest of us will have a place to sleep before Christmas.

I love this house. I have my ex-wife to thank for this.

I know twenty-five year-old morons, and yet when I was twenty-five I acquired a mortgage, how stupid was that? Security and baggage, a sense of permanence and doubt. I have often imagined what it would have been like not to be anchored with this. But I am very attached to this place. And I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. At least, not in the United States.

Seriously. I said that. This is the best city in America.

1993 Playlist
Walking In My Shoes - Depeche Mode
Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springtseen
Lonely Planet - The The
My Sister - Juliana Hatfield Three
Sunflower - Paul Weller
Connected - Stereo MCs

Wow. That playlist is pretty incredible.

Temperature: 59°
Climate: cool, still humid
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 176.5 lbs.

Congratulations to you, Mrs. L. ... Best wishes to you on this beautiful day, I am so glad you have found this wonderful happiness.

All right, stop.

So old.

Now it's spring. The boy cannot adequately express the joy he feels when I take him on a run with me. He has reminded me numerous times of that great afternoon we ran two miles together, which was really the only time we had run together, until today. We began with a lap around the block before I left solo for a longer run.

The outreach tour has closed. My two-act workshop production of These Are The Times at Cleveland Public Theatre has concluded. Two of three (known) play scripts of mine to be produced this year are done. Changes are in the air, literally and figuratively. And I have your ordinary, Sunday afternoon sinus headache.

Temperature: 63°
Warm-up lap: .85 miles
Distance: 5.6 miles (Cain Park Loop)
Climate: bright, breezy, almost ideal
Weight: 169 lbs.

Spring 1991 my girlfriend took me to her sister's Senior Talent Show. A band played a high-voltage cover of Hard To Handle and the crowd went ape-shit. I remember at that time I looked around at the Athens High student body and thought, wow. I am old.

I was almost twenty-three.

1990 Playlist
World In My Eyes - Depeche Mode
Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode
So Hard - Pet Shop Boys
The Power - Snap!
Where Are You Baby - Betty Boo
Hard To Handle - The Black Crowes
Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
Serious - Duran Duran
Sadeness - Enigma
Freedom 90 (183 bpm) - George Michael
Round and Round - Tevin Campbell

Cooldown:
Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy

That's a sweet playlist, I kid you not.

Wii Fit Plus

Suddenly encountering a former therapist in an unexpected locale can trigger flashbacks and trigger a reemergence of trauma.

Not that I would know of any of this, I think I just read it somewhere.

So winter came to the North Coast, and at the same time the commencement of tour rehearsals. I am disappointed not to get out more, but temperatures have remained below 20 degrees since Inauguration Day, sometimes in the single digits.

The past two years or more I have strapped my shoes on regardless and charged into the snow. But this is different. What started as muscle or tendon strain in my right ankle or shin has affected my calf muscle and into my thigh. While I believe I could successfully run in the ice and snow, I do not believe I could walk, anywhere, at any other time of day,

Not that non-running time has any value to me whatsoever. But I do need to go to work, feed children, and so on.

Yesterday morning I got up and my wife asked, "Why are you limping?" Seriously. She just noticed.

However, and this kills me, yes, I already mentioned this -- it was my ex-wife who reminded me that we have a Wii Fit in our house. We got it for the girl's birthday last January, but seriously, it was a family gift, one which did not interest me at all. Because, you know. I don't need that shit. I run.

Yeah, I have been using that thing every single day for over a week. It is awesome. My wife warned me not to use it just for the running program, but I don't even like to running program. Running in place is seriously tedious and uncomfortable. It's not natural, it's not how running works.

But the stretching exercises, hey, even the yoga exercises ... I think what I enjoy most about it is that I can stretch without anyone watching. Just what the wife calls the Wiiminatrix. I like to call her the Uncanny Valley Girl.

So, I have not been in the street, but I continue to exercise. It is not really worth logging here, the details, I mean. But I thought you might want to know.

The music is calling.

I have a medal just like that. I get to keep mine.

Allow me to begin by stating clearly and without qualification that I have the best friends in the world. That includes my ex-wife.

Having reported my issues with backache and general need for cross-training, I received a number of extremely helpful suggestions ... all of which involve YOGA.

(takes a David Cross-like hesitant pause.)

Look, I never said yoga is fucking awful ...

(okay, back to me)

I did try yoga several years ago, and found it extremely painful and less than helpful. When I am at my most limber, when I can actually squat down, I cannot kneel, sitting on my calves for any length of time whatsoever.  My knees simply scream with pain. Always have. And that kept me away.

The wife has suggested chair yoga (or "cherry-yoga" which sounds tasty) but I have too much pride or that.

However, the ex did remember that we have wii fit, and that I might try that. And she's absolutely right, why didn't I think of that, in fact here's all kinds of crap I can do with that thing that I have never tried. Funny, I am not a video game guy, at least not any more.  After spending most of 1999 playing Duke Nukem I was just done, they bore the hell out of me. But getting off my ass and moving to a video game, that might be my ticket to upper-body work.

Also, Elaine referred me to a Feldenkrais workshop in Little Italy, geared specifically for runners and those interested in less-important athletic pursuits, which I could take advantage of that takes place in next week.

I really appreciate all of these suggestions, and promise to act on at least one of them. I do have great friends who care about my physical and mental well-being.

They are all women.

Temperature: 48°
Climate: windy
Distance: 3.25 miles

Now, this serious question ... in the 2006 NYC Marathon, can I now claim I beat Lance Armstrong, or does this mean he was never actually there?

1977 Playlist
I Feel Love - Donna Summer
Cretin Hop (186 bpm) - The Ramones
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment - The Ramones
Swingtown - Steve Miller Band
Neat Neat Neat - The Damned
Sound and Vision - David Bowie
We Will Rock You (162 bpm) - Queen
Jungle Fever - The Chakachas
Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac
Best of My Love - The Emotions

Rock, disco, funk and punk. No wonder we were so confused.

Get busy, child.

For Christmas, my wife got me a very special present; a memory foam mattress. Our king-sized futon had intrenched divots, no matter how you turned it, it was like sleeping in a ditch. My knees, my shins, my back were aching, every night. I could not sleep the night through without waking to take pain reliever.

The new mattress has been very helpful with my legs. The pain there is gone. But not so for my back. My wife believes it is because I do not couple running with upper-body weight training, and about that she is correct. I think so much about doing sit-ups, and working out with weights, that I can make myself believe that I actually have, but it is not true. I need to spend time each evening with the free-weights, at at the very least, stretching.

And so, here were are in January, no less than fifteen pounds overweight, and without the musculature to keep myself from standing and sitting like some kind of old man. I think I can make my way out of this. I hope I can.

Temperature: 36°
Climate: cool & dry
Distance: 3.75 miles

This morning the ex-wife tagged me on this great list, 20 Things No One Tells You About Running from the awesomely titled Shut Up + Run blog. These things are true, with this one exception:

1. Your feet will look like crap. Actually my feet did look bad for a long while, but now I treat them like little princesses and they are pretty and you will love them.

1997 Playlist
Winter Ceremony (Howie B Left Foot Mix) - Sacred Spirit
Turn It On - Sleater-Kinney
Busy Child - The Crystal Method
Piku - Chemical Brothers
Dig Your Own Hole - Chemical Brothers
Paranoid Android (164 bpm) - Radiohead 

Don't run away. It's only me.

"How come my foot hurts?" - Christopher McDougall, Born to Run

The past several days I chose not to run. Rest is good. However, so is seeing a doctor and getting the right shoes. But I digress. I chose not to run. In fact, if you had looked through the window of my front room* on Thursday evening, for example, just after dinner, you would have seen a nine year-old in a chair, an almost-seven year-old kneeling over the couch next to his mother, and I in another chair, reading. All of us, quietly reading. And that was better than running, by far.

However, Friday was also prohibitive, as was Saturday. Randy M. did an assessment of my foot. His girlfriend has been suffering from Plantar fasciitis, and though my pain has been on the top of my feet, there has developed associative pain beneath. This is not good. He recommended ice and elevation, which I have entirely failed to do, but who cares, Randy's not some fucking doctor, screw him.

A few weeks ago, the ex-wife asked if I had read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run. I had to admit that not only hadn't I read it, but that I have a copy that was given to me one or two Christmases ago, staring me from the bookshelf.

In the past several days I have 1. finished the first draft of a new play for Great Lakes and 2. completed editing Henry VIII for Cleve Shakes. Right now I am in the fourth of five weekends of performances at Beck Center, I am not in the process of memorizing anything at all. For the first time in a very long time, I have leisure time to read. And so I am reading Born To Run.

I am looking forward to where it goes, though it begins with a demoralizing premise -- runners don't become stronger, running a lot does not make you more resistant to damage. Running a lot is damaging. It's like assuming that since you are hitting yourself in the head with a bat, one day getting hit in the head with a bat will not harm you.

My left foot hurts. I believe I have damaged it. I have two choices, the only two choices a runner has in these situations: Stop running. Run anyway.

Week 14 Total: 19 miles
Training to Date: 372 miles

Distance: 6 miles
Route: Neighborhood loop

Temperature: 28º
Climate: light rain & chilly ... then sun
Weight: 167 lbs.
Snack: chewy granola bar
Hydration? yes
Stretches? yes

I am tired of cold. Still, felt good to get out. The Cain Park Neighborhood Association was out in force, picking up trash. Saw a few familiar faces (Hi, Kari!) The foot hurts. Not any more than usual. I have it elevated and iced (Thanks, Randy!)

155-159 BPM Playlist
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Hey Ya - Outkast
Synchronicity II - The Police
Pretty Boys - Joe Jckson
Jaded - Green Day
Whammy Kiss - The B-52's
Mike Mills - AIR
Whip It - Devo
Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson
Puzzlin' Evidence - Talking Heads
The Long Hair of Death - Stereolab

Cooldown:
Driven To Tears - The Police

* Don't ever do this.

Back on the mic is the anti-depressor.

In spite of my having spent a good part of Tuesday in bed (ugh) today was the laziest day by far. Time in the surf, to be sure, and a nice, long walk with the wife down a sand bar and back. And then ... reading. Writing. Even a short nap. MIL looks fetching with a bandana around her head, she's a pirate. Little too much Disney Channel going on here, we all stayed up until 11 PM last night watching Lemonade Mouth.

OMG.

Since getting over whatever stomach virus I had, I have developed a really painful kink in my neck. This evening the wife stove her toe on the beach. The ex-wife has informed me she is somewhere on this island. This vacation has become the Voyage of the Damned. Still, nice night for a run.

Except for the gnats. Gnats at twilight, just a tip.

Route: Topsail Beach (3)
Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 81º degrees

Far East Movement. Because the time between Black Eyed Peas albums is just too long.

Dynamite Summer 2011
Breakthrough - Lemonade Mouth
Tightrope - Janelle Monáe ft. Big Boi
2012 (It Ain't the End) - Jay Sean feat. Nicki Minaj
Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
Break Your Heart - Taio Cruz ft. Ludacris
Rocketeer - Far East Movement
House of Love - East 17

Bridget Mendler, Triple Threat. Can't act. Can't sing. Can't act like she's singing.