Hers is a tonic while mine is a gin.

Connections, 4/17/2026
I got this immediately. Is that bad?

Seriously, though. This school year has to end. And I need to stop eating fast food, I need to plan ahead. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:20
Pace: 9:07

Also? I need to stop doing the NY Times daily puzzles. I am committed to a year-long streak of Connections, and have a month to go. And I got into Wordle, though that one isn't as important to me (though I have a 100+ day streak in that, too).

This means the first thing I do every morning is look at my phone for five to ten minutes. And then I am without any kind of motivation. I used to write first thing, now I puzzle. And I haven't written anything new since I completed the Marbury play a couple months ago. 

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 70°
Climate: overcast & coolish
Mood: not great

Beat the rain by minutes.

2007 Playlist

Ice Cream - New Pony Club

Get Innocuous! (Soulwax Remix) - LCD Soundsystem

Flathead - The Fratellis

Apologize - Timbaland ft. OneRepublic

Don't You Evah - Spoon

Love Will Tear Us Apart (158 BPM) - José González

1973 - James Blunt

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs. (-6.0)

Saw Barns Courtney last night at the Grog Shop. And between four in the afternoon and midnight I had far too much to drink. Spent the morning in bed. I have systems. I can be in control. But this week has been a mess. That's not an excuse, merely an explanation.

Great run. My head ached before I went out, it aches now, But while I was outside and running, I felt great. Maybe I should just run fr the rest of the day.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

The written word is a lie.

Okay, here's a confession. And a qualification. I do not have a drinking problem. I have  problem with drinking. Alcohol has always given me a big headache. Always. I have often wondered if I have an allergy to the stuff, like an actual allergy. It makes me ill.

But I enjoy it. Thursday night I had two beers. One at eight, anther at ten. Two beers. We watched the show (Step Nine) got in late. Bed by one a.m.? I woke up at five in the morning, headachy and also shivering. I thought maybe I had Covid (I don't have Covid) and anyway it destroyed my morning. I was sick and in pain and couldn't pull it together until mid-afternoon.

Two beers. You think I'm lying. Two beers. This doesn't always happen but it happens often enough. I was talking to our eldest about it, and about my efforts at selective sobriety since early this year (see: March Mildness) and they said, maybe you need to accept that you can't have more than one drink.

They just said that, like that, to their father. It was so simple, and so straightforward and so helpful. And they're right. That is a decision I need to make. I am so proud we have raised such wise and thoughtful children.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:42
Pace: 9:15

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 74°
Climate: overcast & humid

Mood: good

 

Halfway through my run I got a call from James, and I took it. It was like running with a friend. Modern technology is cool sometimes.

 
Stretches: yes

Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh strawberry, raspberry, cherry, banana w/yogurt & sunflower seeds

Lunch: Ethiopian leftovers

Snack: almonds

Dinner: vegan “chicken” sandwich

Alcohol? 1/2 pint Guinness 

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 172 lbs. (+1.0)

Goal: 165 lbs.

Okay, this is where I lose it. Bad habits, eating whatever. Let’s keep it together this time.

I was so miserable and now I feel so alive.

Bring it.

New Year's Eve, I consumed three  drinks over the course of a six hour party. I drank water. And I ate, oh boy did I eat, it was a very nice evening hosted by close friends and I managed to make to through the entire night without offending anyone.

But it went late, we were in bed around three. I slept warm and woke two hours later gasping for air and with a slight headache. I drank water, took pain reliever and tried to go back to sleep, and was largely unsuccessful, drifting in and out of sleep. My lips were dry, my head was hurting and then the sun rose. I cannot sleep in a light room.

I could hardly do anything, all day. I just hurt more and more as the morning progressed, and felt sicker as the afternoon began. There was nothing for it. I hadn't had an excess to drink, I did everything you are supposed to do. And I had made New Year's Day was miserable. I am grateful for a sympathetic and caring family.

So there it is. Yesterday morning I drove halfway to Athens and back to pick up work-related things that we discovered had been left behind, and then I needed to sleep for an hour or so.  I had plans to accomplish things -- some things, a few things, anyway, in the two days I had back in town before going back to work tomorrow (yes, work, tomorrow, yes.) The least I can do, the very least, is take a New Year's Run.

Distance: 3.35 miles
Avg Pace: 8:00
Route: Boulevard Loop

Now, as of 9:30 PM on January 1, 2016, I feel good. Wednesday, after driving home from Athens, I was feeling pain in my back, Across my latissiumus dorsi there were some flare-ups and I wondered if they were associated with my previous back issues. No idea, they were gone by morning and driving another four hours didn't bring them back.

The fact is, I am aware that I continue, for the time being, to be in a very good place physically for someone my age. I would like to stay that way for as long as possible.

And so, ladies and gentlemen ,,, Fifty Playlists for Fifty Years.

2015 Playlist
The Shade - Metric
Giving Up On You - Wild Belle
Price Tag - Sleater-Kinney
Restless - New Order
Leave a Trace - CHVRCHES
Huarache Lights - Hot Chip
Run - Cisco

Temperature: 25°
Climate: cold!
Weight: 166 lbs.

Running Resolutions for 2016:

1. Keep Running. I cannot say "run more" because I do not believe that is possible. I took one hundred ninety-five runs last year, due in large part to my diabetes scare and training for the Twin Cities Marathon. The best I can hope for is to keep up.
   
2. Maintain the Weight. Before the holidays I was consistently around 160. The holidays are now over. Keep eating the good things, and avoiding that bad things.
   
3. Run the Cleveland Half Marathon. We're doing it. Who knows if I will ever have a fourth complete marathon, it is not something concerns me any longer. I will when the opportunity presents itself. But 13.1? Pffffft.

This calls for a toast

Seventeen runs in January, nine in February, and in March ... five. This totally sucks.

It was not my intention to take ten days to get back onto the street. The fact is, I am under a lot of stress. This weekend - I hope - was a breaking point.

That just flowed out of me naturally, it was not my intention to blogroll.

The tour closed, I have some major deadlines in April, there are some artistic situations I am unhappy with (no, you can't) and a bout of headcolds that was passed around to everyone in the family except for the one person who needs to slow down the most. The boy.

And no, I do not know what I was thinking having three martinis with Dave and Ben on Friday night, I do not know what I was thinking. But they tasted very good. At least the first two did, I have no idea what the third one looked like.

So yesterday morning ... well, okay, most of the day was, while not exactly a wash, just very, very difficult. Did I take the boy to his piano lesson? Yes. Did I take them to see the Balto exhibit? Yes, I did. And the wife and I had something we have not had in a very, very long time.

No, not that. Longer. A dinner out at a very nice restaurant and never bothered checking the time or the prices on the menu.

Sp, cool, right? I was going to get up early and make that ten mile run, out the Ghandi and back, that I have been longing for, right? No. This morning it was a that-time-of-the-year, head-shocked, seasonal MIGRAINE. Like two hooks caught in my eyeballs, wrapping up into a skullcap of pain, reaching back to where the hair begins.

I got the morning, but she got the afternoon where I took some less than cheery, yet willing, youngsters on a series of errands before settling in for a new Sunday tradition - dinner watching Project Runway. It's all part of my lifelong scheme to make the boy fabulous. Not sure it's working, he HATES the sight of Michael Kors.

"Why is he always on there?!"

However, I did cut out for ninety minutes when dinner was being made ... to think.

Not much time thinking these days. No, not at all. Not for me. I cannot think.

But I did. I thought. I had a prospective email. About a festival of new works in D.C. And it made me think. It will not pay, but it made me think and though you really shouldn't accept gigs that won't pay, anything that makes me interested is worth my time. At least it is today.

Tonight I am going to sit up thinking. And writing. And that's new.

Oh, and I ran.

2005 Playlist
I Write Sins Not Tragedies (170 bpm) - Panic! At The Disco
Don't Look Back - Telepopmusik
Keep Hope Alive (JDS Mix) - The Crystal Method
Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
Winners - 7 Seconds of Love
Solsbury Hill - Erasure
Water of Nazareth - Justice

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 50º
Weather: very light rain
Weight: 157.5 lbs.

The muscles flex and the fingers curl

This morning's hangover never truly abated - the pain went away but not the pressure. Cleveland humidity has returned and the entire run I felt like my head was a basketball.

It's been hard these past two runs, I don't know if it was the 13.1 or just how fricking busy I have been. That, and the cat wakes us up every morning properly at 5.30. And then going back to sleep - for me - is out of the question. Can't do it.

Today's playlist was a host of adolescent memories ... and I did even listen to half of that stuff when it actually was 1981.

1981 Playlist
Lovers' Walk - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Hard Act To Follow - SPlit Enz
My Own Way (Night Version) - Duran Duran
Freeze Frame - J. Geils Band
Games People Play - Alan Parsons Project
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic * - The Police
Guilty * - Classix Nouveaux
We Got The Beat - The Go-Go's
Strict Time - Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Cooldown: Clubland - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

(Last Year's 1981 Playlist)
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Hungry For You (J'aurais Toujours Faim De Toi) - The Police
Primary - The Cure
Bad Reputation - Joan Jett
Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single) - R.E.M.
Talk To Ya Later - The Tubes
Sausalito Summernight - Diesel
Working for the Weekend - Loverboy

Yeah. We got it.

Run stats:
Distance: 3.6 miles
Weight: 170 lbs.
Stretches: yes
Push-ups: 20
Temperature: 67º
Weather: muggy