Now the party's over. I'm so tired.

Made it!

A long day of driving, many thanks to Ze's uncle Nick for providing us the truck. And I've learned so many things! How to attach a U-Haul trailer! How to drive a truck hauling a U-Haul trailer! All kinds of crazy things for a fifty-eight year old never to have done before.

Distance: 2:45

Duration: 24:29
Pace: 10:01

It turned into a late night, I don't want to go into the details. They are embarrassing. I had an existential crisis in the room I had rented for myself to stay in and asked our kid to pick me up to stay with them.

As a result, I got to help them put their bed back together, so I think it was a good thing. But that was hard. 

Route: Humboldt Park Loop
Temperature: 76°
Climate: overcast, threatening rain 
Mood: glad to be running

Songs For My Funeral
Avalon - Roxy Music

Pictures of You - The Cure

Dust in the Wind - Gabriel & Dresden ft. Molly Bancroft

All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow
Stuck In the Middle With You - Stealers Wheel

Strange discoloration on my right forearm, like a bruise but it doesn't hurt. Weird. Bug bite? Been around a lot of different insects the past several days. Maybe I will develop superpowers. Or get sick.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes

Our child has landed an excellent first apartment in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. I headed out for a run, to see what the park is like, and noticed there were far fewer cars on the side of the street where we had parked the trailer. Sure enough, there were temporary signs posted that street cleaning is today. So, instead of taking it back after, we got ourselves together to return the thing right away. Another milestone.

Humboldt is a nice city park, the paths haven't seen some love in a long time. Lot of food trucks getting ready for lunch -- but then we had a tornado warning. I hope they were all okay. 

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA

And that's it. Cincinnati, Athens, Chicago. Tonight I head for home, and there will be no one to greet me but the cats.

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

I don't want to feel like we're apart a thousand miles.

I love to make her laugh. I love to hear it.

Distance: 5.9 miles

Duration: 55:01
Pace: 9:19

Music From the Big Love (1994-2024)

Before Today (Adam F Remix) * - Everything But the Girl

No Tomorrow - Orson

Fare Thee Well (Dunk's Song) * - Oscar Isaac & Marcus Mumford

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark - Fall Out Boy

Hell You Talmbout - David Byrne

Life in Quarantine - Benjamin Gibbard

Rehbab  - "Glee" cast

Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash

Chaise Longue * - Wet Leg

Wait for It - Leslie Odom Jr.

Flathead - The Fratellis

Run On - Elvis Presley

Honeymoon Suite - Suzanne Vega

Magical Trevor - Mr Weebl

Winnie the Parakeet - Sherry Crane

What Makes You Beautiful - One Direction

Party in the USA - Miley Cyrus

Route: Forest Hill-Cain Park Loop
Temperature: 81°
Climate: sunny & hot
Mood: not great

• Cleveland (1996)
• Cleveland (2018)
• New York City (2016)
• Memphis (2000)

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

Planks: yes
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: yes

Sugar? Yes, please.

Life is hard. 

Distance: 3.75 miles

Duration: 36:36
Pace: 9:45

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 46°
Climate: sunny & cool

Pavement: dry
Mood: all right

 

Full strength on the sidewalks. All I need is above forty temps and SUN.

2015 Playlist

Disappointing - John Grant ft. Tracey Thorn

Return to the Moon (Political Song for Didi Bloome to Sing, wth Crescendo) - EL VY

No Cities To Love - Sleater-Kinney

The Less I Know the Better - Tame Impala

Lone Dagger - Caravan Palace

Cake By the Ocean - DNCE

Sugar - Maroon 5

Leave a Trace - CHVRCHES

Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars

What was 2015? Ran my fastest marathon, and the most enjoyable. Things were happening, I was writing, plays that got produced. The Great Globe Itself, Rosalynde & The Falcon. Performed in White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Saw another person perform I Hate This. And my parents and all of their children and grandchildren watched A Christmas Carol together. That was a good year.  

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec.
Water: yes

Friday

Breakfast: coffee w/cream

Lunch: nigiri sushi & rolled, salad

Snack: banana, dried fruit & nuts

Dinner: arugula Caesar, latkes, shrimp, carrots, fancy whiskey drink, dessert!

And a lot of dessert!

Saturday

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, blueberry vanilla granola, banana yogurt, fresh strawberries & raspberries 

Lunch: cheeseburger, fries, Coke Zero

Dinner: ribs, salad, gnocchi in red sauce, garlic bread, Christmas Ale

Running every other day feels like a long time between runs.

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 183 lbs. (-0.5) 

Goal: 180 lbs.

You're born to run.

Actor-Teachers 2019-2020

We are in residency rehearsal process. I don't really think about training moment to moment, there are far too many other things to occupy my mind, notably the end of all things.

Even in the midst of attending curriculum night at my children's high school (children plural, they are both high school students now) I am aware that this will end, that a day will come when neither of my children are engaged in lower education.

All good things.

Distance: 7.5 miles
Duration: 1:07:20
Pace: 8:57
Route: Cain Park Loop (2x)
Temperature: 59°
Climate: cool, ideal
Mood: not good
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

Good run, not bad. I have a lot of things coming at me all at once and finding it difficult to cope. Keep your head down. Keep moving forward.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 166.5 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 160 lbs.

Eating in the rehearsal hall for me has become impulsive. That's not accurate -- it's impulsive everywhere. Got to finish that beer, yes, I will have that pie, handfuls of kettle popcorn and gummy worms. It's obscene.

Not eating is also a thing to do, you can choose not to do that, not to compulsively eat, and in its absence feel that you are accomplishing something.

What's That Lyric?
Come Home With Me Baby - Dead or Alive

All this energy calling me back where it comes from.

Photo: Chuck Thompson

This is how my brain works. We're packed, we're driving. I'm driving. It's hot, and I am wearing shorts, new shorts which I had just purchased, nice new shorts for the vacation. Generally, I avoid shorts when I want people to take me seriously as an adult. I'd just as soon wear jeans than khaki shorts. But it's vacation, and I have learned to calm down, I am an American on the highway and I can wear shorts.

Only the air conditioning is on full blast and I am cool. My arms are cool and my legs are cool. I am thinking these things, as I am driving. We're talk about brain time, these thoughts, from the beginning of the post and through the next paragraphs were thought in the time it took to type "This is how."

My arms are cool, did I pack enough my hoodies, for evenings? Yes, I have, but I know it's going to be hot and I only have two pair of pants, and will that be enough but I also remember I have long pajamas as well as short, and if it does happen to be cool in the morning, I can wear those.

But what about my feet? I have flip flops but not my cold weather slippers, will I regret that? But no, because when I get up in the morning I can come downstairs and keep my feet warm in front of the fire because Dad will have already --

And my eyes well up because I have surprised myself again.

We hadn't even left Cleveland Heights.

Father passed in February. Upon learning of his death, the proprietors of Flood's Cove made the trip to Friendship to pull the chair he would sit in out of storage and place it on the porch in his honor. That was beautiful. It meant a great deal to know it was sitting there for him.

We're all here, Mom, my bother and his family, and even my niece from England, on her own. It's very hot. I have all I need. I am glad we are all here.

Distance: 3 miles
Avg Pace: 8:31
Duration: 25:33
Route: Martin Point
Temperature: 79°
Climate: hot
Mood: good

Yes, It is my birthday. Today I am forty-eight years old. Big first day, much reading and resting but also an excursion to mackerel fish from the motorboat. I manned the boat, the boy did the fishing. In the old days he was content to fish from the dock at high tide, but now we must trawl. He is eleven, he can manage is own line, entirely, and any fish he catches.

I manage the boat. I can manage the boat, but I find it stressful, so much so that I pulled a muscle in my shoulder. Before my birthday dinner we had our first wine hour of the season (our last wine hour was Dad's birthday) and by the time the meal was over I was headachy and very sore.

What to do? Take a run. It was either that or go to bed, right? After two days of driving and all the time not running lately, it was arduous and invigorating. Very glad I went out.

Did not go all the way the end of Martin Point, just far enough to log three miles. It's too darn hot.

My co-workers have made a tradition of going out for ice cream on my birthday ...
... when I'm usually on vacation. Thanks for the photo, guys!

Why Me? Playlist
Save It For Later - The English Beat
The Boys Are Back In Town - Bus Boys
No Way Out - Jefferson Starship
Eyes Of A Stranger - Payola$
Rock of Ages - Def Leppard
Destroyer - The Kinks
Cleveland Rocks - Ian Hunter

I remember I cried when my father died, never wishing to hide the tears.

Wasn't going to run today. Feeling spoiled, the weather has been nice in Athens, and I knew it would be better tomorrow. Why go out today when it's a little cool? Got the night to myself, the wife is home now but at rehearsal for her new show so I watched a small amount of TV, did some personal marketing work, put away laundry, washed dishes, thought about my dad and just started crying.

So I'm taking a run.

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Boulevard Loop
Temperature: 37°
Climate: cool
Weight: 164 lbs. (-1.0)
Mood: not good

No, that didn't really help. But it was a good run, and fast. So, there's that.

Trying to avoid Facebook, which has just been depressing. I think I will pour a drink and watch some more Daredevil like a normal fucking human being.

1971 Playlist
Life on Mars? - David Bowie
Alone Again (Naturally) * - Gilbert O'Sullivan
If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out - Yusuf Islam
I Feel the Earth Move - Carole King
Soul Power (Part 1) - James Brown
Four Sticks - Led Zeppelin

How old do the kids need to be before we can watch Life On Mars with them?

Warmdown
Rock and Roll * - Led Zeppelin

Alone above a raging sea.

Melancholy intrudes. What happens when dad comes home and starts dinner and the children all move to their personal spaces in the house and he is left alone to drink beer and listen to all those songs from his adolescence while cooking?

The music did not move me to this mood, I was like this and that drew me to the music. But it was not helpful.

I should be glad, good news is all around. Issue 8 passed and I don't know what would have happened if it had not but it wouldn't have been good. Levies passed, democracy was given another chance (well, Issue 2 doesn't help that department but no one realizes that yet) and the work continues.

Reading great Christmas stories written by Cleveland school kids. Visiting our young actors in schools and enjoying their great work and company. One play is going up this weekend, another is entering the design phase. Today was bright and sunny.

So what gives? No idea. Recently however I have become overwhelmingly preoccupied with the fact that in spite of best intentions I inevitably break everything nice I come into contact with.

A couple of days ago I was in the attic, rooting around in some old papers, and found what was supposed to be an amusing, romantic short story, something I had written over twenty years ago.

It was the saddest thing I ever read.

Distance: 3.4 miles
Avg Pace: 8:13
Route: Boulevard Loop

So, anyway, a run sounded like a good idea. And it felt good, it did, the running. Just not sure what action to take next.

Going to rain tomorrow. Perhaps the last summer day ever.

Temperature: 64°
Climate: warm, humid
Weight: 159.5 lbs.
Mood: not good

Oh, here's a thing. Chris at work reminded me last night that registration for the Turkey Trot would increase today, so I signed up. So that is a good and positive thing.

What's That Lyric?
Just Like Heaven - The Cure

I seem to run out here.

Last Sunday was the halfway mark, eight weeks into a sixteen week training period. As it was celebrated plotzing on a treadmill for less than three miles, the significance seemed to have escaped me.

Sunday I am due to run eighteen miles. Not sure yet where that will take me. In the past I have gone down to Dead Man's Curve and back. That can be a drag. Maybe I will be able to think of something better.

Distance: 4 miles
Duration: 32:15
Avg Pace: 8:03
Route: Forest Hills

Slower today. Humid again, muggy.

This past week I heard news of two middle-aged men who died in accidents. One I knew, the other did not. The first tragic, the second ... avoidable. I want to say stupid but it's horrible enough.

When we were at Niagara, I wondered how many iPhones are lost to the falls every single day. How many phones, sitting at the bottom of the falls. There have to be many, people drop their phones all the time. Maybe they break, maybe they don't, but you can always just pick them up. You lean over the wall, just stick you hands out over the wall that divides you from the ceaselessly rushing water. Drop that phone, it's just gone. And it was like everyone there had a phone, hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

This week a colleague, the father of one of my children's classmates, he died in a fall. It was just an accident, a tumble down the stairs. Like the owner of Happy Dog, a workplace tragedy. I think of this man's wife and his daughter, and his absence. It makes me sad, and I will be honest it fills me with fear for my own life, and what would happen if I were not here.

I would like to think that if I was on a roller coaster and lost my phone, that I would ask for assistance rather than trying to fetch it myself. If we were in Montreal and one of our phones were dropped into the tracks of the subway, wouldn't we ask for assistance? Would I be foolish enough to try and get it myself? Well, fuck no, for one thing my wife wouldn't let me.

I know nothing about that guy. He's about my age, probably has a family. I don't need to know. It's haunting. My wife took the girl and her friends to Cedar Point on Wednesday, apparently a fun and memorable time for everyone involved. I'm so glad they weren't there yesterday.

Temperature: 72°
Climate: muggy
Weight: 157 lbs.
Intake: yogurt, granola & raisins
Hydration: yes
Water Stop: no
Stretches: yes

What's That Lyric?
Revolving Doors - Gorillaz 

I am slowing down as the years go by.

My neighborhood. My life.

Yesterday was the annual block party. Our fifth, so much has changed since 2009. 

The block party marks the end of summer.

A summer we were subsumed by rain at a minor league soccer game and hid in the bathroom.

When the boy finally got a proper-sized mitt.

We toasted Eric Coble at Dobama, staged testimony in support of marriage equality at the Play House.

Met a new school principal, held a yard sale, went swimming.

Ran races in Bay Village and Friendship.

The girl grew two feet taller.

My wife got a new job, and in a way so have I.

Friends were married, new plays were begun. 

We drove to Connecticut, Maine, Salem. I drove to New York and put on a show.

And then, the block party. One season. Excuse me, there is something in my eye.

Meanwhile, my son sings the chorus to Summertime Sadness under his breath. That's just weird.

Temperature: 77°

Climate: humid & dark
Distance: 3.25 miles

Never Let Me Down Playlist

Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy

Hold Back The Rain - Duran Duran

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before - The Smiths

Sinking - The Cure

Perfect Kiss - New Order

So Alive - Love and Rockets

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 am the truth from which you run.

Wore my jacket. That was a mistake. 48º? Seriously? Had it wrapped around my waist after a mile.

After the rains. Okay, not really, they'll be back. But a perfect morning run. Asleep around midnight, woke at 5 and knew I would not be able to get back to sleep. Am I ... in training for something? Just the rest of my life, I guess.

1994 Playlist
- or -
The Downward Spiral (Side One)
Mr. Self Destruct
Piggy
Heresy
March Of The Pigs
Closer
Ruiner
The Becoming
I Do Not Want This
Big Man With A Gun
- Nine Inch Nails
Not the most obvious way to greet a beautiful spring morning when all appears correct with the world. And now my ears are ringing. I remember when I was unhappy. Or at least, unhappy in that way. And that was a very long time ago.

You know, Broken loses some of its sex appeal when you know it's all about a record contract dispute.

Distance: 5.1 miles
Duration: 40 minutes
Pace: 7.8 min.
Temperature: 48º
Weather: wet ... cool ... glorious
Weight: 169 lbs.