Watch his body writhe.

I did not mean to do this.

How is my body? Not bad. Regular running makes me back hurt, my hip hurt. But you know what? Not running does that, too. Just differently.

The nail on my left big toe has been ... well, you don't want to know. It needs attention. Also, I used to have beautiful arches, now they are falling. Sometimes that hurts.

Week One Total: 18.75 miles
Training To Date: 18.75 miles

Also, Happy Father's Day. Last night was rough, I stuttered the first line of the play, that was something new. My tongue balled up in my mouth and I couldn't speak.

This is why I hate acting, I can't trust my muscles or my brain, it's terrifying. I wouldn't trust to put me in a play, ever.

Distance: 6.75 miles
Duration: 1:04:25
Pace: 9:32
Route: Uptown Loop
Temperature: 64°
Climate: overcast, cool & humid
Mood: good
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

Very nice run with Chris, down through Lakeview, around MOCA and up Murray Hill. We both made our way up that hill will little issues, kept chugging along, never stopped. We're both much stronger than we were at the beginning of the year.

Talking Chicago, are we going to try for four? I've done my four hour marathon, twice, and I am uncertain I will ever break my time in the Twin Cities. This is Chris's first full marathon, though, so I am following his lead. And if breaking four hours is the goal, so be it. I think we can both do that.

One so we completed our first week of marathon training! This would be an excellent day to support my TEAM CHALLENGE campaign to find a cure for Crohn's and colitis! Will you join the team, and get us to the finish line? Hit the TEAM CHALLENGE button at top right (or this link!) Many thanks!

1969 Playlist
Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Moby Dick/Bonzo's Montreux - Led Zeppelin
We Got More Soul - Dyke & The Blazers
The Acid Queen - The Who
I Want You Back - The Jackson 5
Someday We'll Be Together - The Supremes
The Chokin' Kind - Joe Simon
A Boy Named Sue (Live) - Johnny Cash

One more playlist. What will 2019 bring? Any suggestions?

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 166.5 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

You run to the store for quick relief.

Upstart Mechnicals Improv Club

One week of camp down. Last night's performance of King Lear was off the chain (and isn't that an odd sentence.) Stayed out, rose late, and yet -- time for a brief run.

These are brief run days. I will need to make some sacrifices in the near future.

Distance: 3 miles
Duration: 25:01
Pace: 8:20
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature:
Climate: overcast, cool, with light spotting (i said it)
Mood: determined
Water: no!

Totally forgot to drink any water, at all, before going out. Luckily it was not a problem -- today. Adding that to my checklist. A little rushed this morning, the kids have their culminating Heights Music Camp performance. But it was a brisk, cool run. Cool, but sweaty.

1979 Playlist
Bad Girls - Donna Summer
My Sharona - The Knack
Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
She's Lost Control (Peel Sessions) - Joy Division
Rapper's Delight (12" Version) - The Sugarhill Gang
Even the Losers - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 167.5 lbs. (-2.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

This cowboy's running from himself.

Pengo judges you.

Last day of school, regular school, with classes, for all of us. The boy's last day was yesterday, graduating eighth graders get the last day off. The girl had a test. The wife, commencement, and I visited actor-teachers at a high school.

Big fights broke out at our high school. Nice work, assholes, we're all over the news. Twitter is on fire with talk of gangs. It was a fist fight between five young women, that shit happens everywhere.

Distance: 3.7 miles
Duration: 32:36
Pace: 8:48
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 72°
Climate: sunny & hot!
Mood: could be better
Stretches: yes
Bandage: yes

Okay, so I'm running the park today and there's these guys marking out paths for a big, scheduled trail run tomorrow. It's called The Forgotten, to raise money for the Easy Cleveland Parks Association The guys say I can just show up, and maybe I will.

2014 Playlist
Batches & Cookies - Lizzo ft. Sophia Eris
Riptide - Vance Joy
BoJack's Theme - Patrick & Ralph Carney
Light Will Keep Your Heart Beating In the Future - Mike Doughty
Shut Up and Dance - Walk the Moon
#Selfie - The Chainsmokers
After the Disco - Broken Bells
Daffodils - Mark Ronson ft. Kevin Parker
My Type - Saint Motel
I'm Not the Only One - Sam Smith

Not a great year for me, but there was a lot of great music.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 170 lbs. (-2.5)
Goal: 170 lbs. Achievement Unlocked

King Lear opens at Beck Center tonight.

Your mind won't wiggle and your knees will bend.

Today at noon!

Another night of reckless, decadent abandon. Sarah has returned to us following her West Coast adventure, and so the boy determined to create a fried feast of chicken wings and (for the vegetarians among us) buffalo cauliflower.

Whether due to the absinthe or the weather I woke with a slight pain in my head, but rose dutifully to consider and memorize lines. Lear opens in three weeks.

Distance: 4.65 miles
Duration:47:29
Pace: 10:12
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 46°
Climate: cool, after the rains
Mood: weary
Stretches: yes
Bandage: yes

Oof. Not as delightful as yesterday. A cool, overcast day, not unpleasant. But two out-of-shape guys, each of whom skipped breakfast, who did four miles yesterday, chugging a long, also walking.

My calf has gone two days, back to back, without pain or issue. Will continue to monitor and take care to wrap, and to stretch.

1985 Playlist
How Will I Know - Whitney Houston
Smooth Operator - Sade
Like Wow Wipeout - Hoodoo Gurus
Shadows In The Rain - Sting
King of Rock - Run-D.M.C.
Stay Up Late - Talking Heads
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) - Kate Bush

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 174.5 lbs. (-0-)
Goal: 170 lbs.

I will shrink and I will disappear.

It was my intention to be fighting weight by the time we entered rehearsals for King Lear at the end of this month, and who knows? While I may not shed twenty pounds by then, I may in fact shed ten. How much of what I am carrying is fat, how much water, how much rotten food?

Yesterday was one of concentrated not eating. Not grabbing a handful of whatever, cookies at the office, nuts at home, chips as the corner store. None of the snacks sitting bagged at the end of the counter, I should throw those out, no one needs those. None of us.

Distance: 1 mile
Route: Rec Center
Mood: decent

Breakfast: coffee with cream, rice with soy sauce, banana
Lunch: Two soft tacos (shredded chicken, ground beef, fillings), chips with salsa & queso
Snack: Beer
Dinner: Cheesy tuna noodle casserole (with peas, mushrooms), wine

Brief run at the rec center, much to do today, and yesterday took a lot out of me with the sudden drop in caloric intake. Did you see my diet yesterday? That was half of the calories I usually consume, and you will notice it was still high in fat, salt, and sugar.

So, brisk run to take me on my way. I didn't like the music of 2011 much, anyway.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 181 lbs. (-3.0)
Goal: 180 lbs.

That's not three pounds lost weight. That's three pounds I did not eat yesterday.

2011 Playlist
Somebody That I Used to Know - Gotye
Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene Rmx) - Radiohead

If I gain weight tomorrow, it's because of Taco Tuesday and it's totally Jeremy's fault.

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

You can walk, or you can run.

Last week I posted something on my other blog how Nineteen Eighty-Six is not the worst year in popular music, and you should read that.

I would have dedicated today's playlist to the "Hot Side" of the Wham" sawn song Music From the Edge of Heaven, but after the (nearly) eponymous title track "Edge of Heaven" and the quirky "Battlestations" we are left with some truly horrid and warmed over remixes of "I'm Your Man" and "Wham Rap '86."

The stuttering repeat thing was big in 1985/86, and really, really awful. Practically destroyed Annie Lennox for me.

Ensemble Theatre presents the World Premiere of "The Way I Danced With You," through April 7, 2019.

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: better
Exercises: no

Three miles, one brief stop for water. No walking. I am gaining strength and stamina. This is working.

1986 Playlist
American Soviets - C.C.C.P.
Brand New Lover - Dead Or Alive
Dear God - XTC
Graceland - Paul Simon
State of the Nation - New Order
Dreamworld - Midnight Oil

Cooldown:
Wild Wild Life (Extened Mix) - Talking Heads

The eating is a problem. Going to the fucking grocery store is a problem. Yes! We will not get a family size bag of Doritos, but we do need crackers, so I will get these Cheez-Its! Seriously? Cheez-Its are not crackers and should not be in the cracker aisle but should be placed next to the chips and ice cream and deep fried Oreos.

I ate half a box before getting home. This is what happens when I visit the new Dave's on Chester.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 182.5 lbs. (+1.0)
Goal: 175 lbs.

Goddammit.

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You ran away.

Another opening, the same old show. Good lord, I have been working on this thing for years, and now here it is. Will anyone come to see it? Will anyone care?

I have doubt.

Distance: 2.5 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: anxious
Exercises: yes!

1982 Playlist
Athena - The Who
Eaten By the Monster of Love - Sparks
Band of Gold - Modern Romance
Scorpio - Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five
Gypsy - Fleetwood Mac
Mickey (En Español) - Toni Basil
Runaways - XTC

Was going to hold at two. Running hard, very dry, feeling winded. Then that last song came on and it was hard to stop.

Been working the machines. Feel weak. But a great way to deal with frustration.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 183 lbs.
Goal: 175 lbs.

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

You can run down the waveband.

Still with the kink in my ankle. Only when I wake up. Doesn't trouble me when I run. Not yet, anyway. Today we tech for the show. It is fascinating to enter a production in this way, jumping in at the last minute.

At the same time, my new script About a Ghoul is in rehearsal at Talespinner and I have been receiving notes from rehearsals with suggestions here and there for changing lines -- even the name of one character for whom I had received a poor translation.

I had read that the word "Samira" is Arabic for friend or companion, when (in Morocco, at least) it means "one who stays up late like an owl." While I love knowing that, it is an inappropriate name for the character!

And rehearsals for The Way I Danced With You begin Monday night at Ensemble. What a busy, busy month!

Distance: 2 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: good
Exercises: no

The 'Strange Science' Behind The Big Business Of Exercise Recovery, Fresh Air (2/11/2019)

Today Fresh Air told me that marathon runners refer to Ibuprofen as "Vitamin I." Thanks, Terry!

Seriously, though. On yesterday's episode, author Christie Aschwanden (Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery) teaches us that everything we know about recovery is wrong.

For example:

1. Ibuprofen is actually harmful as a prophylactic pain reliever or for regular use as an inflammatory.
2. Proactive drinking is bad for you.
3. Relief from a foam roller is psychosomatic.

Well, we knew that last one was true. Anyway, a worthwhile listen.

Baseline: 179.5 lbs.
Today: 179.5 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 175 lbs.

Two miles, straight through, no stopping, no machines. Big day. Gotta move.

1977 Playlist
Every 1's a Winner - Hot Chocolate
Mr. Blue Sky - ELO
Blame It On Cain (demo) - Elvis Costello
We're A Happy Family - The Ramones
The Things We Do For Love - 10cc

Cooldown:
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Ian Dury & The Blockheads

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You need to be there when your baby's old enough to relate.

Exciting news, I will be holding up a costume in Witness For the Prosecution. In the role of a barrister I will have no lines, but will be filling in for those actors who have day jobs and cannot be present for the student matinees.

Having a costume fitting this morning, which reminds me I am doing a show this summer for which I will also need a costume ... I have a tendency, during shows in which I play a significant role, that I lose weight as the show goes on, things begin to sag from my hips.

It would be nice to get out ahead of that before April. But I'm not even trying.

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: good
Exercises: yes

Quite a morning, feeling good, practically charging down the track. Moving onto heavier weight levels, I think I am improving. Waking up I couldn't imagine going through with it, now I can't imagine not having done so.

Forgot to weigh myself. Seriously.

The late 90s were truly the last musical renaissance, the last time something new and unusual was being created -- and it was being created out of the detritus of the entire twentieth century. Spooling together big band sounds and psychedelic tech and lounge and world music and it was just crazy. Some of it even got onto the radio. And we all still listened to the radio.

1997 Playlist
Walking On the Sun - Smash Mouth
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five
Sleep On the Left Side - Cornershop
Queen Bee - Taj Mahal
Burning Ground - Van Morrison
How Bizarre - OMC
Missing You - Basement Jaxx

"Smash Mouth" is two words?

Visit my Team Challenge Crohn's & Colitis page and support my bid for the Chicago Marathon!

You seem to me like a man on the verge of running.

Actual size.

Early morning, the wife and I rose to catch the sunrise. After running, exercising (I failed to do so yesterday) and showering, I made bacon and pancakes for everyone.

Well, the adults, anyway. The children, if you can still call them children, slept late.

Yesterday I received some unpleasant professional news; I won't go into it, but it was disheartening to say the least. Not earth-shattering, just disappointing. I do not understand some people.

Distance: 2 miles
Pace: 9:16
Route: Topsail Beach
Temperature: 75°
Climate: warm & sunny
Mood: not good

Easy run today, in shoes. The tide was high and I am holding on. Sad to think tomorrow may be the last run here of the season. Are we almost through with Topsail for the year? Is the summer progressing so fast?

Exercises: yes, fuck yes.

What's That Lyric?
99.9° - Suzanne Vega

This gotta worth the miles you made.

Cressida & Troilus
Alex Belile, Photographer

Met Chris at the rec center for a run through the park. We took an interesting course to find a water fountain, when we did we stood and talked in the shade for a while before continuing on. It's hot! But I like hot, and so much less irritating than runs in the cold and wet.

Distance: 5.57 miles
Pace: 8:57
Route: Forest Hill Run
Temperature: 82°
Climate: hot & sunny
Mood: good, thank you.

So, it's been over a week since my last run. Not surprising, I have had both theater camp and dress rehearsals for Troilus & Cressida. The latter opened successfully Friday evening, so my nights are once again free.

Very pleased with how the show turned out, the camp, too. Summer is now well underway. I wonder how much running I will get in when we travel to North Carolina. Will my sciatica make beach running impossible? I know enough now not to rip up my feet the first morning out.

Stretches: yes

Two weeks with the chiropractor. I need to do my new regimen of stretches with greater regularity. They are harder, because each require more muscle work in my right arm.

Perhaps I will explain in greater detail in the future, but I am arching my side to the right, both standing, with my arm resting against the wall, and also on my side. Doing it right means my side and right arm are getting quite a lot of work.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 163 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 160 lbs.

What's That Lyric?
Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above - CCS

These are my intentions.

Blank Canvas Theatre

Here's a thing. My kids eat breakfast before they go to school. That means around 7:00 AM. If I eat with them, I am hungry by nine. If I wait to eat breakfast until nine, then I can make it to lunch.

1999 Playlist
Push Downstairs - Underworld
I Want You To Want Me - Letters to Cleo
Blame - Everything But the Girl
Porcelain - Moby
The Generator - Lilys
Push Upstairs - Underworld
Compression - Everything But the Girl

First performance of The Way I Danced With You at Blank Canvas last night. Nice crowd for a Thursday, I mean a really nice crowd. It was good to see so many friends there. Friends and strangers. It also felt good to hear people reacting to the work, they are a lovely duo and the director has done remarkable work with them.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Pace: 8:39
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 28°
Climate: bright & cold
Pavement: dry
Mood: good

It has been a difficult wee, schedules a little crazy. The wife is in France (yes!) with her mother and her sister. I feel ad to be leaving the kids home alone most nights to go to rehearsal, but they're fine, really. And friends are helping with transportation. Still, it's a little dizzying and it makes my heart ache. I am fortunate it is just for a few nights. That's the only way to put it, fortunate.

Stretches: yes

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 168.5 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

I try to remember to take my phone with me for every run now, in case I have a heart attack.This isn't a joke.

Law man has put an end to my running and I'm so far from my home.

The first day of spring, and I am on my own. The children are here, of course. But the wife, her sister and mother are flying to Paris. They should be there by now, except the transportation gods thought they needed a little more time in Airportland, to be guided through different cities, and to get to know each other better over warmed-over mall food before being distracted by the City of Lights.

She left yesterday morning before lunch. They should get there by this evening.

March 20th is, of course, the vernal equinox. It is also Calvin's Day. But the children will go to school, I will go to work. Visiting the zoo, the aquarium, his grave, these things will have to wait until we are re-united. And that is all right. Waiting is also a thing I can do.

1979 Playlist
Renegade - Styx
Let's Go - The Cars
Disorder - Joy Division
Got the Time - Joe Jackson
Got To Be Real - Cheryl Lynn
Ring My Bell - Anita Ward

Distance: 2.35 miles
Route: Newbury Loop
Temperature: 28°
Climate: cold & cloudy
Pavement: dry
Mood: hungry

Stretches: yes!

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 169.5 lbs. (+2.5)
Goal: 165 lbs.

Needed to get a prop - a yearbook - across town last night. There will be staged performances of my new play The Way I Danced With You at Blank Canvas Theatre this weekend. I encouraged the boy to come with me by promising dinner at Happy Dog. Not a light supper, but highly satisfying.

Half Marathon Training Week Three

Bright, sunny day. Cold but sweaty. Much more pleasant than last week, but also shorter. Talking, making our way up inclines is easier. Something to distract. We have a good time.

Distance: 4.4 miles
Duration: 41:04
Route: Lakeview-Uptown Circuit
Temperature: 38°
Climate: cool and bright
Pavement: damp, mostly clear
Mood: good

Headed to see a run-through of the play this afternoon. Hope that goes just as well!

Stretches: not really. a little.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 167 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 165 lbs.

I have chased so many dreams.

Tried to get three in at the rec center, then got a call from the girl that rehearsal broke a little early. Still, wasn't sure there would be exercise today. I am surprised that there was. Yippee!

1985 Playlist
Lay Your Hands On Me (12" Version) - Thompson Twins
Some People - Belouis Some
Stay Up Late - Talking Heads
Listen Like Thieves - INXS
America - Prince & The Revolution

Like the 80s? Join me next weekend for performances of my new script, The Way I Danced With You at Blank Canvas Theatre.

Distance: 2 miles
Route: Rec Center
Mood: okay
Stretches: yes

The girl is performing in her first two act play, Noises Off, at the high school. That's pretty exciting! It's driving her nuts.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 170 lbs. (+1.5)
Goal: 165 lbs.

Too many White Russians.

You got me tripping.

The girl can't help it.

So, I'm directing Troilus & Cressida this summer. Boy, what a piece of work. Acidic smartassery. Sometimes I think Shakespeare hated absolutely everyone, if you weren't Anglo-Saxon royalty, you weren't shit. It will be hard not to stage this sincerely.

2006 Playlist
Clumsy - Fergie
Eleven (Extended Club Mix)
Tracking Treasure Down
Dust In The Wind - Gabriel & Dresden
Punkrocker - Teddybears ft. Iggy Pop

Distance: 3.25 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 62°
Climate: breezy!
Pavement: dry
Mood: creative

Lots of thoughts about the solo show. Complete re-write, neat one hour. Answer all the questions. Intimate, audience of ten, surprisingly location. Probably in the summer. To raise money -- in case I need it -- for a race.

Pace: 8:49
Stretches: yes

Okay, so? I run faster in the warm weather. Will this hurt me, that is the question. Did my stretches, I will have to remember to record how the rest of this day goes.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 172.5 lbs. (-1.0)
Goal: 170 lbs.

Popcorn for dinner. Deeply unsatisfying. Mall movies popcorn. Also, my teeth. Chewing strictly on the left side. Very unpleasant. Hate this.

There's a 750 Norton busting down January's door.

FREE LOVE FREE LOVE

Lots of theater recently. Late nights and drinking.Intense discussions, hushed whispers and talking a bit too loudly in crowded spaces. Also, an interview. What is real, what is artifice?

I live in theater, and sometimes that makes perfect sense and sometimes it seems entirely fake. Often, it's beautiful.

1987 Playlist
I Still Believe - Tim Cappello
We're The Replacements - They Might Be Giants
Lean On Me (Remix) - Club Nouveau
Behind the Sun - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Rent - Pet Shop Boys
Bad - Michael Jackson
Got My Mind Set On You - George Harrison
Hang on St. Christopher - Tom Waits
Rock Steady - Sting
How Beautiful You Are - The Cure

Christian rock does not necessarily suck. Only if you call it that.

Distance: 3.85 miles
Route: Forest Hill Run
Temperature: 41°
Climate: cool
Pavement: slushy
Mood: not bad

With the exception of some treacherous ice dunes, that was a lovely run. My back has been acting up, several nights either standing for plays or sitting for plays has caused some distress, but otherwise I am managing without any serious issues.

And running. Standing tall and moving. Not so fast, but constant. Today, in shorts. Magnificent. And the furthest I have run since September.

Stretches: yes

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 180 lbs (+3.0)
Revised Goal: 175 lbs.

You fought valiantly, perusing the menu, agonizing over whether to have the wrap or the fried sandwich, even at one point declaring you may have the Caesar, but then requesting the Reuben.

This is not how battles are won. Part of a fried cheese sandwich for lunch, fried onions and sweet potatoes as a snack, friend corned beef sandwich for dinner.

Also, now that I think of it, five of my last nine meals were high calorie dishes ordered from restaurants.

The problem is clear. Fix the problem, fix yourself.

Take a rest.

Thugg Lyffe

Rehearsals at CPT this week, employed as an actor for a short new work as part of Entry Point, which is in two weeks. I wrote recently about creating in the cold, this is a prime example. Slipping and sliding down the Shoreway to collaborate after dark with new friends and old on something unknown. It is a life-long tapestry.

Distance: 2.5 miles
Avg. Pace: 8:37
Duration: 21:32
Route: Three times around the block.

Currently I am on a meal-only diet, which is to say, I eat at mealtimes. It leaves me not so much hungry, but listless. I had to sleep in yesterday morning. Between meals I get food crazy, not so much hungry, just obsessed with whatever it is I need to eat next.

Pavement: snowy
Temperature: 14°
Climate: cool
Mood: driven

Keeping to the neighborhood, running the block, heading out at first before I warmed up my head was so cold I wanted to have the opportunity to bail. But it's tedious, like a frozen treadmill. Thank heaven for the music.

Nose stung a bit on the final lap, probably just as well I didn't take a longer loop route. I should return to weaving up and down the streets, the varying elevation might keep me cheerful.

Baseline: 174 lbs.
Today: 170 lbs. (-0-)
Goal: 170 lbs.
Ideal: 165 lbs.

1991 Playlist
Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey) [Extended Decision Mix] - De La Soul
Money Don't Matter 2 Night - Prince & The New Power Generation
Cream - Prince & The New Power Generation
Come As You Are - Nirvana
Unbelievable - EMF
Kiss You Back - Digital Underground

Keeping physical.

Twelfth Night (As Told By Malvolio)

Why would I choose to run in the middle of a blazing, eighty-something degree day?

Because I am a good father, that's why.

Distance: 3.3 miles
Avg Pace: 8:50
Duration: 29:09
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 84°
Climate: HOT
Mood: uncertain

Like a lot of boys, mine is addicted to the screen. Minecraft videos, Clash of Clans, Battle Bots, just everything. It's summer vacation, I watched a lot of television when I was his age - a lot. However, I did it in the living room, where Mom could see me and remind me to get the fuck out of the house.

Just kidding. I have never heard my mother say fuck.

Today was the first performance of Twelfth Night (As Told By Malvolio), and so this morning I first took him to the art museum (where he was more interested in playing on screens in Gallery One) while his sister was in classes and where the wife met us to head off the see the show at the MLK Jr. branch of the library.

Before this excursion he was on his screen, and returned to it immediately after returning home. I asked him to find something different to do than lying in bed watching Minecraft videos to soon after find him watching Battle Bots.

We need to do something physical, I said. We do.

He suggested a bike/run through Forest Hill, so that's what we did.

The best years of our lives.

The wife and I were married on this date, seventeen years ago. Today I am alone in my house, she on the road to Topsail Beach with the kids. These things happen.

I am directing an abridged production of Twelfth Night to be performed at the Cleveland Public Library in celebration of Shakespeare's First Folio. So, it was either go to Alaska or take our annual trip to North Carolina. These things happen.

When these conflicts are work related, they seem almost worth it. The very first trip the family took to North Carolina was in 2010, I missed that, too. It was our first year of Camp Theater. I thought I'd missed out on something I'd never have the chance to see, but it's turned into an annual celebration with my in-laws, so it doesn't sting so much.

And our production of Twelfth Night (As Told By Malvolio) is going to be very good. We previewed it for a private audience at the library on Friday night, where it went over very well.

Distance: 3 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 81°
Climate: hot!
Weight: 164.5 lbs.
Mood: good

Yes, running in eighty degree weather can wear you down, but I do have plans to work inside and out, to tackle some projects -- or at least commence them -- projects which have waited patiently in my mental and literal to-do lists for such a day as today.

Also, I need to finally watch the Tonys.

Rock Me Amadeus Playlist
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
Caravan of Love - The Housemartins
I Love You - Yello
Let Me Go - Heaven 17
Master and Servant (Slavery Whip Mix) - Depeche Mode

Warmdown
Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four) - Eurythmics