I'm not the kind of girl who likes to be alone.

We begin. A five-night run of I Hate This hosted in our own home. I've been wanting to bring this back to honor the 25th anniversary of the birth of our first child, and some time over the summer (probably when I was running) I got this idea.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:08
Pace: 8:45

FOREST HILL PARK UPDATE: Things are happening! Negotiations with Metroparks have reopened, and this week there has been a LOT of activity, pulling down rotten trees -- LOTS of rotten trees.

I will keep you updated.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 54°
Climate: cool, baby. idealk.
Mood: good!

Fall 1989 Mixtape
Sowing the Seeds of Love - Tears For Fears

Love Shack - The B-52's

Higher Ground - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Bust a Move - Young MC

One - Bee Gees

Miss You Much - Janet Jackson

Yeah, let's keep jamming with the seasonal playlists. Fall 1989, I was emerging into final form. Confident as an actor, as a theater artist, evolving as a cartoonist. A bit more responsible, living in a solo apartment, less anxious in my personal relationships. I was twenty-one, something resembling a man.

Then I turned a corner, in a moment of inspired self-confidence asked out a young woman, and the rest of my life began.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 164.6 lbs. (-1.6)

The Old Man (cat) kept me up a lot last night, which is okay. He's a sweet old cat. He sleeps with me under the covers but needs to go to the bathroom a couple times. Better to get out of bed than go in the bed, I guess.

But also, we have a neighbor up the street, I'd heard about him, but never heard hi, he revs his engine, constantly, at two in the morning. Crazy. 

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Never was a story of more woe, than this of Romeo ...

Keep going.

Fuck. I'll come in again.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:14
Pace: 9:06

Oh! What a week. What a month! And here we go. I have a week of house performances starting tonight. Then there's the series against Tampa. Oh! Writing workshops, supervision, got to organize props for that other play.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 67°
Climate: muggy!
Mood: good

Eric Lee & Tracey Gilbert
"Romeo & Juliet"
Guerrilla Theater Company (1994)

Fall 1994 Playlist

Undone (The Sweater Song) (160 BPM) - Weezer

When I Come Around (Live at Woodstock 94) - Green Day
Cadillac - Combustible Edison

Come To My Window - Melissa Etheridge

Picture This - Blondie

Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

Prayer For the Dying - Seal

So many endings, so many new beginnings. The 90s were in full swing, the Late 90s were only just beginning.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165.6 lbs. (-0.6)

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Twenty-six years, on my way to hell.

Fall 1994 is about a lot of things. It's about both of them. Falling in an out of love again. Romeo & Juliet and walks though Harlem. Concerts and concerts and movies and parties and bad, bad acts. It was about being in my twenties.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:32
Pace: 8:52

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 59°
Climate: after the rain, just lovely 
Mood: good

This is what we listened to.

Fall 1994 Mixtape

Headstart For Happiness (162 BPM) - The Style Council

I Don't Understand Anything - Everything But the Girl

Gentleman Who Fell - Milla Jovovich

I Melt With You (156 BPM) - Modern English

Wish - Nine Inch Nails

Burn - Nine Inch Nails

Intermittently - Barenaked Ladies

As I cycle through songs from that auspicious season, you will notice they were not all released that season, but they were ours, at that time, as we shared them with one another (or angrily screamed the lyrics together in the car.)

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 166.2 lbs. (+2.6)

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

And now the rains. Last night's game was very exciting. I am also very glad I was not there in person, I don't fare well sopping wet and shivering.

Still. Guardians!

Then he ran.

"Lapdog"
Peter de Sève
The New Yorker
Oct. 12, 2026

Twenty years ago, I took a 48 hour trip to London to share I Hate This with members of the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (SANDS UK). It was a conference where the director wanted to pitch a tour of the show around Great Britain.

Yes, in the midst of marathon training, I took a very brief transatlantic journey. 

"A small man, on the another side of the planet, going for a run. Different air, different land, same pair of shoes."

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:40
Pace: 8:55

I tried some of that British Lucozade, a "performance energy drink" much like Gatorade. The name was originally Glucozade, get it? 

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 47°
Climate: cool & crisp
Mood: 

We are getting close to recreation center time. Not looking forward to it.

Fall 1983 Mixtape

Big Log - Robert Plant

Undercover (Of the Night)- Rolling Stones

Owner of a Lonely Heart - Yes

Stand Back - Stevie Nicks

Puttin' On the Ritz - Taco

Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis Reservoir
October, 2023

Suddenly Last Summer - The Motels

I need to make a Fall 1994 Mixtape, full of all the things we were listening to in October 1994.

A lot of them would be from the mid 1980s.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 163.8 lbs. (-3.4)

It's weird we were in Arizona in early October, and then New York City in late October. Good times, for a few years there. Covid made us adventurous. I wonder if we will be like that again.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Went to see a show last night. So strange not to obsess about having a cocktail. Because I just wasn't going to have one. I also didn't clean my plate, nor that plate of appetizers. But I ate well, all day. And now I weight fewer than 165 pounds, which was my goal.

How do I maintain this? Maybe it helps to be entirely anxious an distracted by things entirely out of my control. I hate this.

I'll burn me through Ohio.

Josh Ritter at The Rialto (2023)

Fall continues. Summer fades. The other night I listened to the playlist I made from the setlist of Josh Ritter at the Rialto in Tucson, Arizona. We saw him in October 2023, when we took the train to the Southwest.

Distance: 3.15 mile

Duration: 28:06
Pace: 8:55

The wife was surprised that was already three years ago, but I'm not. The past three years we did all the things we had been waiting to do ... the boy left for college so we went south. To celebrate twenty-five years of marriage we took the QM2 and spent time in London, last year we finally took the children to Europe.

A train, a boat, and a plane.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 50°
Climate: cool, baby
Mood: getting there

But Josh Ritter. It was cool and dry when we arrived in Arizona, but it was still fall, you know? After the sun set the night we checked in we stepped out onto the street to look around. We had no plans for that evening, nor the next. The Rialto was right across the street, and I saw his name and said, we could do that.

And we did. It was a magical evening.

Pearce, AZ (2023)

Josh Ritter at the Rialto 10 04 2023

Bandits

Feels Like Lightning

Wolves

For Your Soul

Me & Jiggs

Folk Bloodbath

Young Moses

Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)

Never seen anyone smile while singing in quite that way. He really loves this.

Our Southwestern journey, though. I have been many different places with my love but this was something truly unique. Like somewhere I had never been before. I had been to New Mexico, that's not what I mean, the atmosphere, but that's part of it. We found such strange and interesting places.

And it was so relaxed and peaceful. The skies were so wide and open, and so was the clock. It was intimate, expansive and amazing. 

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 167.2 lbs. (-0.2)

I passed on cheesecake twice yesterday. Just got to say no most days. Not all days. Just most.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

What are we running for?

Still true.

Attended my 40 year high school reunion Saturday night. Good time. My clique was largely absent, got to chat with two at a pre-event on Friday, but without a home base I had to get over myself and mingle and catch up with, well, everyone else.

And I did. Some of them I knew but had never really had a conversation with, ever, not once, for the four, seven, maybe twelve years we had attended school together. Know what? We're all good people. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:32
Pace: 8:52

I did cut loose for a moment and began truth telling. It didn't go well. Party foul.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 55°
Climate: clear skies
Mood: good

Old friends.

Fall 1985 Mixtape

You Belong to the City - Glenn Frey

Don't Lose My Number (162 BPM) - Phil Collins

St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion) - John Parr

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) - Kate Bush

Invincible - Pat Benatar

The Whole of the Moon - The Waterboys

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 167.4 lbs. (-1.0) 

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

I think I am over the zombies.

I thought that we'd always be friends.

Homecoming 1985

Attended the first evening of the big reunion weekend last night, and I am as insecure as I was as a teenager. I understand now that it comes off as arrogance. And I was arrogant, too, believe me. I think it's important that we have these rituals to remind us of how terrible we were and of how far we've come.

Or maybe, no. No. We don't actually need that.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:01
Pace: 8:42

Anyway, I left it to a couple hours before departing that I would actually go. I have become accustomed to ordering NA beers at bars now. No one cares. I am SO GLAD I didn't drink last night. I might still be there. I stayed about an hour an left, talking mostly to my closest though I worked very hard to reach out to those others.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 57°
Climate: light clouds & perfect
Mood: f*cking driven

Fall 1985 Mixtape

Take on Me - a-ha

Fortress Around Your Heart - Sting

Pop Life - Prince & the Revolution

Kayleigh - Marillion

Head Over Heels  - Tears For Fears

The Sweetest Taboo - Sade

Miami Vice Theme - Jan Hammer

I mean. The 80s are fucking classic.

Today

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 168.4 lbs.

Switching to a digital scale has messed with my sense of self, and of what weight I should be, exactly. I thought 155 lbs. was the goal, but the other day I got into a pair of 32" jeans that was part of my costume for The Velocity of Autumn. That is as thin as I need to be.

I was 165 pounds. If I was ever 155 pounds I would be emaciated. No, 165 is the goal. And I am nearly there.

Huh. Everyone talks about losing weight in time for their high school reunion, and look at me.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes