I just want to taste your Chapstick.

Driving lesson.

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 35:25
Pace: 8:51

Route: Cain Park Loop

Temperature: 61°
Climate: sunny & cool

Mood: good

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec.

Upper body: 10 reps. (3x)
Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh cherry, mango, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry w/granola & yogurt

Lunch: ramen w/fried egg, edamame

Coffee Break: coffee w/cream 

Dinner: egg roll, sesame chicken & Szechuan broccoli w/rice, IPA

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 173 lbs. (-1.0)

Goal: 170 lbs.

What's The Lyrics?

Chapstick - COIN

Life is so brief. And time is a thief.

Air quality is hazardous due to Canadian wildfires. Those with health conditions should spend little time outdoors.

But what about me?

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:38
Pace: 8:54

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 57°
Climate: overcast & cool

Mood: all right

Sometimes it’s all too overwhelming, the beauty and the horror. And sometimes someone reminds me what it’s all for, why I do what I do, and the way that I do it.

Sometimes I feel a fool, and others like a good and decent soul.

 

Middle School Playlist (1979-1981)

Young Turks - Rod Stewart

Golden Brown - The Stranglers

Keep It Dark - Genesis

She's Lost Control - Joy Division

Spirits In the Material World - The Police

Over You - Roxy Music

Sausalito Summernight - Diesel

I'm Not the One - The Cars

 

Daddy is running fast again. The flatness in my stomach acts as bellows, as it should. This is not easy with a pillow down there.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: tbd

Upper body: tbd
Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, granola with yogurt

Lunch: Paprikash, Starbursts (2x)

Dinner: chicken tenders, fries & Fat Heads Bumble Brew (1x), Dortmunder (1/2x) 

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 174 lbs. (-2.5)

Goal: 170 lbs.

There's a new me coming out.

Cooler temps now, which is fine. Camp planning. Mornings are for me, now. Evenings are … I’m not sure. I need focus. I need a plan. So far, it’s just … I’m not sure.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:19
Pace: 9:08

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 55°
Climate: sunny & cool

Mood: very good

Middle School Playlist (1979-1981)

Arrow Through Me - Paul McCartney & Wings

Atrocity Exhibition - Joy Division

Hateful - The Clash

Porcelain - The Pretenders

Centerfold - J. Geils Band

Let My Love Open the Door - Pete Townshend

Madness - Madness

I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross

I didn’t listen to all of these songs when I was a preadolescent, but some of them slipped in. A vibe, as the kids say. It truly was an epic era of music.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec.

Upper body: 10 reps.
Water: yes

Did I mention I am pansexual? I'm pansexual. Always have been.

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh blueberry, raspberry, yogurt & granola

Coffee Break: latte w/oatmilk

Lunch: half leftover BBQ beef sandwich, Starbursts (2)

Happy Hour: fizzy water

Dinner: edamame, sushi roll, broccoli tempura

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 176.5 lbs. (+1.5)

Goal: 170 lbs.

Godammit.

Better run — there's a God and He's coming for me.

Let's take it easy for a day. I have aches in both knees and I have also inflamed my varicose vein (do your own research) but, you know? I am still running.

Besides, what new music have we been listening to?

Spring 2023 Playlist

youth+ (165 BPM) - Jean Dawson

No Reason - The Chemical Brothers

Death Wish - Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit

One That Got Away - MUNA

Leaving the Light (172 BPM) - Genesis Owusu

Lipstick Lover (170 BPM) - Janelle Monáe

Massive BPM on the new tracks. Man, that Genesis Owusu. I love him.

Distance: 2 miles

Duration: 18:13
Pace: 9:06

Route: Boulevard Loop

Temperature: 57°
Climate: overcast & cool

Mood: all right

Cool weather is important, too, I guess. Nice cool run, after a few steps it's not even cool to me anymore. I don't prefer it, though.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: tbd

Upper body: 10 reps. (3x)
Water: oops

Drink the water, man. Never forget the water, I don't care how short the run is.

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, fresh apple, banana, strawberry, blue berry, raspberry, blackberry w/granola & yogurt

Coffee Break: latte w/oatmilk, cinnamon cake doughnut (worth it)

Lunch: leftover Paprikash

Snack: apple, flavored almonds (28)

Dinner: TBA

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 175 lbs. (-0-)

Goal: 170 lbs.

Well, we know where we're going. But we don't know where we've been.

The New Psychedelia.

Speaking of summers long past, my brother completed his studies in early 1985 and returned home for a year or so while he searched for his dream job, or the nearest thing to it. This mainly involved his creating cover letters on my dot-matrix printer for days on end (the noise: iykyk) addressed to every single NPR affiliate in the United States.

He was twenty-three, I was nearly seventeen. He weren't friends yet, he still joined his friends in lavishing me with verbal abuse when they were around, but when we were on our own we became friendly. We dropped wisdom, stayed up late to watch Night Flight, he bought Heineken and taught me about the simple pleasure of potato chips and good onion dip.

One evening Night Flight produced a salute to the Talking Heads, to celebrate the release of Little Creatures (released June 10). The program featured clips I had never seen before, like the one for "Cross-eyed and Painless" which they claimed was the first to include breakdancing, and also their newest track, "Road to Nowhere" which my brother and I watched on repeat, laughing ourselves silly. 

Little Creatures - Talking Heads (1985)

And She Was
Give Me Back My Name
Creatures of Love
The Lady Don't Mind
Perfect World
Stay Up Late
Walk It Down
Television Man
Road to Nowhere

Distance: 4.15 miles

Duration: 38:45
Pace: 9:20

Route: Forest Hill Loop +

Temperature: 70°
Climate: sunny & warm

Mood: excellent

 

The program also including the promotional video for Stop Making Sense, in which David Byrne stages a film junket where all the interviewers are played by himself in various guises. The piece includes quotes I still incorporate into daily conversation. Unfortunately, one of the interviewers is DB in blackface, because, you know. "It was a different time." 

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: 90 sec.

Upper body: 10 reps. (2x)
Water: yes

Keep up the exercises. I missed a day and it hurt.

Breakfast: coffee w/cream

Lunch: fresh strawberry, banana, blackberry, blueberry, raspberry w/vanilla yogurt & granola

Treat: chocolate chip cookies (2x), milk

Happy Hour: grapefruit soda, fizzy water

Dinner: potato & mushroom Paprikash, cucumber salad

I believe I have lost twenty pounds.

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 174.5 lbs. (-0-)

Goal: 170 lbs.

You can't not finish strong with this album.

Road to nowhere.

Love me 'til my heart stops

"1983 - The summer we got MTV, I started smoking pot and had my first compulsive masturbation. I don’t think those things are unrelated." - from "And Then You Die"

Fact, when we first got MTV I wanted to leave it on all day. If I had had a TV in my bedroom, I would have, so that it was just on when I walked in the door.

Many music videos, the best ones, were transportive. They took you some places new and different. Like, really different. Either exotic or weird or just not here.

Like so many of the artists that were revealed to us (or to me, anyway) their image and sound arrived simultaneously. I would learn later that Talking Heads did that cover of "Take Me to the River" I'd heard on the radio was back in 1977. 

First, however, I would meet the band named Talking Heads through the sweaty nerd in "Once In a Lifetime" (Remain In Light had been released three years earlier, but I don't remember hearing that on the radio at all) and "Burning Down the House" which was on some serious heavy rotation when the album Speaking In Tongues was released on May 31, 1983.

Speaking In Tongues - Talking Heads (1983)
Burning Down the House
Making Flippy Floppy
Girlfriend Is Better
Slippery People
I Get Wild/Wild Gravity
Swamp
Moon Rocks
Pull Up the Roots
This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)

That last, "This Must Be the Place" has, over time, become one of my very favorite songs ever written. A love song composed of abstract and unassociated phrases of love that add up to a lifetime.

You got light in your eyes.

Did I find you, or you find me?

Sing into my mouth.

Make it up as we go along. 

I would fail to put it any better.

Distance: 5 miles

Duration: 49:18
Pace: 9:51

Route: Forest Hill to Horizon Loop

Temperature: 78°
Climate: sunny & hot

Mood: very good

 

Why run when it is over eighty degrees? Why not wait until the sun goes down? Well, I'll tell you. Because I can't run in the dark anymore. Really. Not a good idea. And you know, I think I never could and I just got away with it. One of these night I am just going to wipe out and I would rather that not happen.

So, anyway running in the heat doesn't bother me, which should be obvious by now.

 

But man, one hour before sundown? Perfect.

 

Pride.

Stretches: yes

Plank: 90 sec.
Abdominals: 10 reps

Upper body: tbd
Water: yes

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

Lunch: pepperoni slice w/spicy ranch dunk, coke

Happy Hour: iced coffee w/milk & sugar

Dinner: spinach salad w/citrus vinaigrette, fresh strawberry, blueberry, cherry tomatoes & toasted walnuts, beans & greens, OJ 

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 174.5 lbs. (-1.5)

New Goal: 170 lbs.

Too fat, fat you must cut lean.

These monkeys.

Weak and tired Wednesday morning. No surprise there. Twenty runs in one month? Two months in a row — not counting March Mildness? That's amazing. I am a different person than I was three months ago. I love how the human body can do that.

Distance: 4 miles

Duration: 38:15
Pace: 9:33

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 76°
Climate: blues skies & heat

Mood: good

Speaking of months, last night we brought the craziest month of my recent existence to a close, with our son's high school graduation and a big meal at Edwins on Shaker Square. But then I had to drive my brother to the airport at 5:30 in the AM and that threw everything off kilter.

Still. A celebration!  

Soul Coughing Playlist

The Idiot Kings

Houston

St. Louise Is Listening

Mr. Bitterness

Super Bon Bon

Misinformed

Bus to Beelzebub

Down To This

Collapse

Unmarked Helicopters

Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago

 

So, we were listening to Soul Coughing. Dude talks a lot about losing weight.

 
Stretches: yes
Abdominals: tbd

Upper body: tbd
Water: yes

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, banana

Coffee Break: latte w/oatmilk

Lunch: fruit smoothie bowl w/strawberry, mango raspberry & (OMG) chocolate peanut butter granola & Nutella drizzle

Happy Hour: Pineapple guava seltzer

Dinner: mac & Cheese (1 C.) & marinated brussels sprouts

Cocktail Hour: Ruby Grapefruit fizzy water

Baseline: 195 lbs.

Current: 176 lbs. (-3.0)

Goal: 175 lbs.