Nobody said it was easy. Nobody ever said it would be so hard.

It has been nearly a week. I want this to end.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 29:21
Pace: 9:28
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 73°
Climate: cloudy, clearing
Mood: sad

Music From the Big Love (1994-2024)

The Scientist - Coldplay

Calling All the Monsters - China Anne McClain

Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand

Make Me Feel - Janelle Monae

Fantastic Mr. Fox AKA Petey's Song - Jarvis Cocker

Shenandoah - Rufus Wainwright

All Night Long - Peter Murphy

A Tale - Cirque du Soleil

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165 lbs. (-0-)

• Cleveland Heights (2023)
• Cleveland (2000)
• Orlando (2000)

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Me? I flew.

I used to be like, no zombies. The very idea of zombies freaked me out. 

Vampires are people who attack people, drinking their blood is weird but it's not horrifying, no more than just being attacked and murdered. And you can talk to a vampire like a person. They are practically human.

Ghosts are freaky, I guess, because they mess with your head, what you see, what you hear. And the idea of a ghost, a spirit that lives after the death of the body, that's something I think about, it's interesting.

A zombie is the opposite of a ghost, right? All body, no spirit. No identity, no sense. Just a rotting corpse wandering around with no purpose, just the memory of being and a deep, unending hunger. Not crazy about that. Don't really want to think about it.

Except, now, for the metaphor. That society has broken down, due to a virus, a plague, God forbid, fungus. Our kid has us all watching The Last of Us together. It's not really about "the infected" is it? It's about the last of us, and we have been infected with something else.

There is no utopian future. All the good things science fiction promised us will never happen. It is all about disintegration, and what we do to each other as it happens.

So, anyway, that's why the Zombies, Run app. I'm into zombies now, because I think I am one. 

Information Exchange 0117

Distance: 3.25 miles
Duration: 28:46
Pace: 8:51

Missed a day, could not be helped. Next week, we need to be out of the house by 6:00 AM. Can I get fifteen runs in September?

Fall '25 Workout

Thunderstruck - AC/DC

Tesla - Mau P

Is Everybody Having Fun? - John Summit ft. Gorgon City & rhys from the sticks

Tambourine - The Dare

Stop Playing With Me - Tyler, The Creator

dashstar* - VIP - Knock2

Notorious - Malaa

Bangarang - Skrillex ft. Sirah

So Pretty - Reyanna Maria

Kyoto - Skrillex ft. Sirah

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 73°
Climate: sunny & warm
Mood: all right

Stretches: yes -- not enough, though 
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

I have been this weight, more or less, since February. I often gain weight during the September rehearsal period. Consistency. Mindfulness. I'm never hungry. Often, I am bored. 

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

Update (later that same day): For the first time, one of my posts has been flagged for sensitive content warning: "This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content as outlined in Blogger’s Community Guidelines." I have not edited the original post. Can you figure out what the content advisory regards? Because I am flummoxed.

Update 9/21/2025: No longer flagged, no explanation. Weird.

... and then I die.

Night of pain, and a sore day. I fell asleep on my left arm and when I woke up it was a world of hurt. So, of course, I thought I was having a heart attack. (I was not having a heart attack.)

So, recovery run it is.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Duration: 28:18
Pace: 8:42
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 60°
Climate: cool & humid
Mood: decent
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

In the run up to Y2K, there was a theory that the date 9/9/99 might also cause havoc as "9999" was a shutdown code in older computer systems.

This did not happen. January 1, 2000 also arrived without incident, and nothing bad has happened ever since.

To commemorate the "little y2k" I made a mix tape. This is what I was into twenty years ago today.

Now it's a Spotify playlists. Enjoy!

(Missing: "Cinnabar" and "Oops!" by Tipsy, "Comfy Club" by Pnu Riff.)

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 166 lbs.
Goal: 160 lbs.

Evening run. Gotta run in the evening so you can write in the morning.

New shoes, Under Armour. Like running on clouds.

What's That Lyric?
The Sky Is Broken - Moby

The sun is up. The sky is blue.

1968 Playlist - or - "The Beatles"
Back In The U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
Martha My Dear
Savoy Truffle
Revolution 1
Mother Nature's Son
Glass Onion
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
Blackbird
I'm So Tired
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I Will
Julia
Helter Skelter *
Good Night

Ultimate Classic Rock has a feature called the 45-Minute Album Police. It is not a unique opinion that there is not a single double album in the history of popular music that needs to be that long, that could not have been improved upon through some common sense editing.

Blood, Sugar,Sex, Magik comes to mind. Sign O' The Times. Even George Harrison himself knew he was being a dick when he released his first solo record as a three-album set and named it All Things Must Pass.

The White Album (which any prig will tell you is really titled simply, The Beatles) is certainly too long, a disjointed mess which includes numerous beautiful tracks lumped in with novelty songs, Paul's old-timey music hall bullshit and "Revolution 9" which no one has ever listened to in the presence of another human being.

I chose the edit by Nick DeRiso, because I liked it well enough, and because it was the first list on the page.

I chose to listen to this album for this run because in July I turn fifty, and a few months later, so will the The White Album.

Distance: 5.5 miles
Duration: 46:19
Pace: 8:25
Route: Forest Hill/Cain Park Loop
Temperature: 48°
Climate: just gorgeous
Pavement: dry
Mood: apprehensive, but forward-looking

What I most remember about this album is that I first listened to it when I was nine or ten, when I was first introduced to the Paul is Dead legend. I have no doubt that John put in one or two, but at the time, I was hearing clues everywhere, and this record -- according to legend -- is full of them.

As a result, it wasn't until I was an adult that I could listen to "Revolution 9" at all. Even today, whatever John and Yoko were intending it to sound like, it plays for me like a long, creepy seance.

Stretches: yes

Just a perfect day for a run. Welcome, spring. Clear, blue sky, light breeze, smiling faces in the park, on the street. And I run, I am running. No, it's not perfect. I am not without pain. But still, I run. The running is happening.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 164 lbs. (-0.5)
Goal: 165 lbs.

Outrun my gun.

Good luck, Charlie.
No, really. Be safe.

There have been many sweet moments in our little life here as a four-piece family. It is not embarrassing at all to say there are certain pieces of Disney Channel created event tunes which make me want to cry because they remind me of when my daughter was a "tweener" and enjoying the harmless, pretend teenage lifestyle represented in the programs on that channel.

That time before today.

2011 Playlist
Breakthrough - Lemonade Mouth
Not Fade Away - Florence & The Machine
Feel So Close - Calvin Harris
Paradise - Coldplay
Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People
Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene Remix) - Radiohead
Guns & Horses - Ellie Goulding

Pain in my hip, but man I ran well. Keep going. Just keep moving.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 33°
Climate: very light precipitation
Pavement: damp
Mood: conflicted

Over the cold. Just over it. This is when that happens, it's March and you look at the forecast and it's low-thirties for the next ten days.

We are officially postponing Calvin's Day until the wife returns from France (yes, she's going to France!) which means there is a greater possibility - though by no means a certainty - that it will be a nice day. Who knows? Sometimes it snows in April.

Stretches: yes

I had a good thing going, and I still do -- I exercise every day. At least ten minutes, every day. Not much, but also far from nothing. But the writing has stopped. Sleep habits have gone to the wayside and waking has become an issue. I can do something about that. I'm an adult.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 171 lbs. (+1.0)
Goal: 170 lbs.

wtf

This is the longest night.

Peace, Love and Little Doughnuts

Yesterday I weighed 155 pounds. This morning, 158 lbs. The past forty-eight hours have been tension-filled and active, and yet full of play, good conversation, interesting events, and far, far too many doughnuts.

We closed the theater camp, once more creating a private improv club for the teenagers, one for which they were invited to bring treats. These included two dozen items from Jack Frost which are hands down the best in the city. I was good and ate one.

Though in the afternoon, as were packing up the camp and shipping out there were several left over so I had a second. And as it took some time to pack up I had several odd pieces which had been broken off by others.

With new colleagues at Sokolowski's Inn

Last night, as part of this weekend's Theater Communications Group 2015 National Conference, I had the honor of hosting a Dine Around events for visiting artists at Sokolowski's in Tremont.

Though work and family business kept me away from most of the conference, I was happy to represent and have this opportunity to meet some half-dozen charming folks representing three theaters in the D.C./Virginia region.

And of course, pierogis.

This morning Great Lakes Theater held a light breakfast at the Hanna Theatre ... a light breakfast of doughnuts, that is. This time from Peace, Love and Little Doughnuts and Doughnut Lab. 

I had a doughnut, I had one more doughnut.

Distance: 4 miles + ???
Route: North Chagrin Reservation

Driving home from the after party last night, not yet midnight, I was already tired. Not because it had already been a very long day, but that kind of tired you get when you know you are tired, and you are aware that you have to wake early and that there is still so much to do. I had had two beers over the course of the entire evening, just two, but I was exhausted.

And I thought of the running I needed to do today (4 miles) and on Sunday (8 miles) and I thought, how the hell am I going to do that? My wife was leaving town with our daughter, I would be on my own with the boy, and I was not happy about leaving him to watch Minecraft videos for an hour and a half.

I had to take him to his band practice, which is way out east and my wife suggested I take a run while I was out there. The North Chagrin Reservation is lovely, and I thought sure, why not? Even if I don't know the paths, I have my phone, my mapping programs, it will be fine.

It was far from fine. I took a trail, which became a road, and then a street. I should have turned back, but I looked at the map program and I thought I knew which way to turn. But after four miles, I noticed that I was far from where I had started with little clue as how to get back.

That was then I tried a path, a hiking path, to cut through the woods. And then I got lost. I had a live map, I could even hear traffic, but I could not see where the trail led, and I walked, and then I ran, and then I panicked, and I was in those woods, running trying to get out for fifteen minutes.

Then I followed a road for another fifteen minutes, which was mostly uphill. This was after running four miles, and whatever else I had done in the meantime and I was very thirsty and very tired and very, very unhappy.

Temperature: 81°
Climate: humid and overcast
Weight:158 lbs.
Hydration: poor
Stretches: no

I told myself I was not going to bother running eight miles tomorrow, why should I? It's several hours later now, and I am thinking of it as a challenge. Besides, It's Father's Day which in America means I can do whatever the fuck I like.

What's That Lyric?
I Feel Better - Hot Chip 

I ran to your heart to be near.

 What is making Pengo unhappy today?

1. doubt
2. fear of failure
3. racism
4. "misrepresentation of fact"
5. euphemisms
6. bad parenting
7. violence
8. responsibility
9. Mad Men
10. lack of focus
11. cat hair & dust
12. cancer

Temperature: 68°
Distance: 2.85 miles
Avg Pace: 7.59
Climate: humid and beautiful

As the day becomes the night, Cleveland winter turns directly to summer.

Rehearsals began last night, and I am depressed I will have little time to engage the girl in running. She is an independent soul, she can take this upon herself. I will text her this afternoon for encouragement.

Cat's In The Cradle (2015).

Weight: 160 lbs.
From Goal: -0-

Eating two slices of pizza without gaining a pound is not something to be proud of.

Sunday Alcohol Units: -0-

What's on Daddy's iPhone? 
Pictures of You * - The Cure

This is my road to my redemption.

Twenty years ago, one life ended, another began. On the surface, this departure may be obvious. It may appear facile to suggest that the sudden and complete collapse of a five-year relationship and recent first marriage represents the end of a "life" or that my current "life" is defined by the commencement of my relationship with the woman with whom I became romantically involved at that same time.

In fact, the loss of our first child in 2001 marked a much more significant change in my sense of self, redefined entirely what I feel is important or where my concentration truly belongs.

And yet. The near-nervous breakdown I had in early Spring was before my relationship with Toni began, and though that set the stage for what was to follow, I will not concede our "hooking up" to be the catalyst for the lines I was about to cross, in my personal relationships or in what at that point had most defined my professional and artistic career, Guerrilla Theater Company.

By the end of 1994, I was unsure as to whether I had a single friend in the world apart from her, nor exactly who I was going to be for the rest of my life. I had spent my life following people. I resented them for it, but that is where I chose to be, it is what I was used to. From that point on I began my uncertain attempt to take control, and to lead.

Lucky for me, I found someone who believes in me. Or more to the point, who I believe believes in me.

Temperature: 50°
Distance: 3.25 miles
Remember: Do not run on an empty stomach.

The air is moist before the dawn. The inferno on the horizon racing me towards home. Pam pam pam my feet hit the pavement pam pam pam. Pick ‘em up, put ‘em down, pam pam pam. Pam pam pam! PAM PAM WHOOSH! Light as a feather, heading for home, my toes barely touch the street, worry and fear and shame and doubt have brought me to this place, devoid of mass. Light as a feather, I fly home.

- from And Then You Die (How I Ran a Marathon in 26.2 Years)

I began starving myself around Memorial Day, 1994 - and running. I ran further than I ever had before, not even sure where I was going, uneducated on these neighborhood streets, from the house we had moved into seven or eight months earlier.

Carrying a Walkman, like a brick, in my hand, I would run for an hour, listening to The Downward Spiral.

Amplified Heart was released July 19, the week Toni and I fell for each other. We listened to this album over and over during a weekedn in NYC together in August. It is a powerful album, and a swan song for EBTG's light jazz of the 1980s and early 90s. Later I learned it was their first album after Ben Watt had almost died, so it was also a rebirth. From their 20s into their 30s, and presaging my own. Abandoning a facade of maturity, moving into true crisis, stripping affectation (see: 1992's Worldwide) embracing true adulthood, but also the joy of ever-present now.

1994 Playlist

- or -

"Amplified Heart" by Everything But the Girl
Rollercoaster

Troubled Mind

I Don't Understand Anything

Walking To You

Get Me

Missing

We Walk The Same Line

Please don't let me hit the ground.

Today was not supposed to be weird.

I was visiting a school downtown, no big thing. A Cleveland public school off West 25th St. I parked and walked along the sidewalk to the front door of the school, fishing out my lanyard, putting it around my neck. I had attended a matinee at the Hanna so I looked better than usual, I had a suit and tie.

Then I heard this woman calling help. I looked across the street, it was this short, old lady. She was looking right at me calling, "Mister! I need your help!"

I was suspicious. I said, "What do you need, ma'am?" She said, "I need help! Please help me!" She didn't look like she needed help, she looked fine. Also, her voice was odd, not very passionate, like a person who really needed any kind of assistance. Just calling, "Help me!" I walked across the street.

"What is happened?" I asked, "What do you need?" Did she think I was deaf, she just answered my question simply, "I need your help!"

Now I am at the door, and she reaches out her hand, so I take it. "My sister has fallen down and she can't get up." She's pulling me into the house, and I do not want to go into a strange house off West 25th Street, but I follow her into a small, cramped front room. Was I going to be jumped by her grandsons?

"She's in there, she fell down." I say, okay, all right, have you called 9-1-1? She had, and I set down my satchel and looked into the room off the dining room, very small dining room, and there is a bed in a very small bedroom, and a lump in mauve, a woman squeezed face-down between the bed and the wall.

Oh, God.

"Help her!" the woman calls, and her sister, on the floor calls, "I can't get up!" So I know she isn't dead, and well, I put my arms under where I think her arms are and lift her up. I have no idea what I am going to see, but I just see the face of an old woman with an oxygen tube up her nose, and then she really starts in.

"Are you the paramedic?" she demands, and I say no, I'm just the guy. She shouts that she can't breathe, and when are they going to get here? Her sister is urging me to get her off the floor and I try. One big herculean effort, like some person who can lift heavy things, but seriously, people.

I do my best. I get her into kneeling position, which must have been awfully uncomfortable, but at least she's not face down on the floor anymore, but we aren't going anywhere. Now what?

Her sister hands me the cordless, and I speak with the 9-1-1 dispatcher. She says they are coming.

"They are coming," I say.

"Why aren't they here?" the large woman in my arms demands.

"Calm down," says the dispatcher.

"Calm down," I repeat, "They're coming."

"And you calm down," the dispatcher tells me. I didn't know I sounded hysterical, but apparently I was. This was stupid. My tie, my lanyard kept falling into the poor woman's face.

"Why aren't they here yet?" she yelled, "I can't breathe."

She was breathing, she wasn't choking, but she was wheezing, it was very difficult for her.

"I am sorry," I said, "They will be here, lean back, against my legs, they will be here."

And they did, they got there. The two paramedics took they're time coming in, I urged one to get her off the floor and he looked at me like I was some kind of asshole for telling him that. They told me to move aside and I did and she just sat there, like I hadn't needed to hold her like that. I just stood around while paramedics and a couple of firemen moved furniture in preparation of getting her out of there. Her sister was in the living room, asking questions that none of them answered. I stood there, in the dining room, not knowing what to do.

Finally, the firemen told me I could go. The sister thanked me for helping. I left, and went to the school, and washed my hands, and tried very hard to watch a scene from Macbeth. I was shaky, pumped with adrenaline and that was unpleasant. I could still smell her, though the smell was not unpleasant.

After class my actors asked if I was staying for the next class and I said no, I had to leave. I told them why, in brief. Andrew said, "Oh man. You should go get ice cream or something."

He was absolutely correct. Which led to another story.

Temperature: 66°
Climate: nice. shiny and nice.
Distance: 3.25 miles

Why Can't I Be You? Playlist
Regret - New Order
Temptation - New Order
Love My Way - The Psychadelic Furs
Add It Up * - Violent Femmes
Girlfriends In a Coma - The Smiths
The Killing Moon - Echo & The Bunnymen

It's how I'm programmed to function

2009 Heights 5K Earth Day Run

Start: 6:45 pm

Time: 00:21.12

Weather: 50º

It has been a drag lately, with the rain and little time to hit the road. I was looking forward to this, and glad I made it. I promised to be a downright beautiful night, but when the sun dipped below the trees it got a bit uncomfortable with cold. But I showed up shortly before the start, and so did not have to wait long.

They discontinued the annual 5K three years ago due to lack of interest, I do not know what inspired them to try again, but I am glad they did. There was only a few dozen of us, but that was good enough for me.

Preparing to begin, I made a mistake. For some reason, I developed a desire ... to win. I mean, I didn't think I would win, or place, but you know, maybe take a medal in my division. I might leave with something. Could there actually be three people there in my age range? And I am now, again, the youngest in my age range! I can take my imaginary competitors, right?

Foolish. Vain. Pointless. And, inevitably, counterproductive.

Don't get me wrong, I ran. I ran fast. I didn't beat my previous best, I did not break back-to-back seven minute miles. But I did all right.

But I also had that awful feeling in my chest that I used to get when I was trying really hard, a feeling of fear, and futility. I hate that feeling. Only it used to slow me down, that feeling of dread. This time fear propelled me. That and a special playlist with bpm between 165 and 175.

I also felt like I was going to vomit halfway through. And my sides were aching. Really annoying, I never feel like that.

I started with the pack runners in the front, and slowly but surely, I passed people. A few people. And no one, during the entire race, passed me. I passed the only woman in front of me - I was faster than all the women in the entire race. There were two guys, one my age, another college age, passed both of them near the end, I thought that was foolish, but I was wrong. I just kept going.

It was cold. My ears hurt, they hurt a lot when I was finished. And you know what? I didn't get anything. All of the guys in front of me? They were all, so it seemed, between the ages of 40 and 49. All of them. I didn't even get a packet of seeds. Earth Day, they were giving out seeds. I was faster than the fastest guy under 29. Nothing.

I will never strive to medal again. It's just pointless. All serious runners are my age. By the time I'm 50, I won't be able to do this anymore.

165-175 BPM Playlist
The Fear - Lily Allen (not over 165 bpm, but a nice warm-up)
Foundations - Kate Nash (like Lily Allen, but ginger)
Brand New Colony - The Postal Service
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service (a two-fer!)
Enid - Barenaked Ladies
Hounds of Love (New Mix) - The Futureheads



I was doing so well on the 42 Runs, and now I have just lost it. I hope I can pick that back up - summer is supposed to begin Friday.