2013: The year Millennials discovered the word "Millennial" a term coined by William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1992 in the groundbreaking work Generations: The History of America's Future.
Nineteen Ninety-Two. You were labeled before you were born. Im'a take your grampa's etymology.
God, you people can't do anything original, can you?
In brief: Twenty years ago these sociologists predicted that the children of the Baby Boom generation would 1) over-praise their children but 2) leave them without a single job.
As Douglas Coupland described Baby Boomer cultural behavior in his novel Generation X (1991) "grabbing the best piece of cake first and then putting a barbed wire fence around the rest."
We know this. We are the generation inbetween the most self-absorbed generation in American history and the second-most self-absorbed generation in American history.
Watching it all unfold after having read the book on it only makes it that much more amusing.
Here's the thing. Before the Baby Boomers called you hipsters, they called us slackers. And they called us lazy and useless and we did that without social media. They also called us stupid. So, you know. Stop complaining about your gold-plated education.
But hey, they're not my parents.
This video might be funny. But I can't hear it over all the whining.
2013 Playlist The Fox - Ylvis Royals (170 bpm) - Lorde Walk Us Downtown - Elvis Costello & The Roots Bezerk - Eminem Clarity - Zedd Mirrors (155 bpm) - Justin Timerlake Blow Me (One Last Kiss) - Pink I Love It - Icona Pop Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke
Temperature: 72°
Climate: bright and sunny
Distance: 4 miles
Weight: 174 lbs.
DANGER: Feels like a tiny piece of glass in my big left toe. Could be:
Tiny piece of glass.
That other thing I really don't want to think about.
The cold, this cold, does not bother me. And I hate being cold. But running I heat up pretty fast. I am well dressed. But when it is this cold, with the snow coming down, it makes for some odd sensations. My face is bright with cold, ice matted into my beard, but under my jacket I am even sweating.
It took six years to extinguish the last round of Plantar Warts. I believe I killed this round in under three months. Of course I had to give myself a serious infection in order to accomplish that ... my foot blew up like a balloon and my crotch was so swollen I couldn't sit up. You would hope that would be enough damage to destroy a topical virus.
Sorry, was that graphic?
2008 Playlist The Kids Don't Stand a Chance - Vampire Weekend vs. Miike Snow Just Dance - Lady Gaga ft. Colby O'Donis Disturbia - Rihanna Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyoncé Jai Ho - A. R. Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah & Mahalaxmi Iyer Mercy - Duffy Check Yes Juliet (167 bpm) - We The Kings Black & Gold - Sam Sparro
Distance: 3.5 miles Temperature: 23º Weather: brisk Groundcover: more snow. and more snow. Weight: 166 lbs.
No, I have not run since Thanksgiving weekend. There has been absolutely no exercise going on here. I do not weight any more than I did (holding steady at 167 lbs.) but I have changed shape. I have had daytime fantasies about doing a push-up, but it's always when I am walking from one place to another, when I am in a relatively private place and not in motion, it never occurs to me.
I need to drop in the middle of the hall in the Bulkley Building and give a good twenty crunches. Everyone would love to see that.
There are good reasons - actual, true, non-pathetic excuse good reasons not have run during large parts of the last month. I have been ill. Maybe you do not wish to read any further, but it is running and general health related. Previous I had a battle with extreme and entrenched Plantar warts, which grew all out of proportion and threatened to take over the world. I actually ran the 2006 NY Marathon with a mosaic on my instep and a smaller one on my big toe. The things we do for love.
With the assistance of talented doctors (unlike that quack who used to be my GP and tortured me when I first asked for her help in this matter) they were vanquished in 2008. I have actually blogged about that.
Recently however, I found a new on on the pad of my right foot (same foot! same, poor foot!) and decided that, rather than ignoring it as I had done with the previous incarnation, I would take matters into my own hands and treat it vigorously with medication left over from the previous skirmish.
Sorry for all the war metaphors. It is the only fighting I do. Me against skin viruses.
However, this time I was defeated by the medication. FORMALAZ is simply a solution of formaldehyde. And after a few weeks of successful treatment, one evening my foot blew up like a balloon. My left, too, puffed up and I could not sit up or walk. I was put on a series of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs and told not to exercise for a while. So I didn't.
It is possible this story has a happy ending - the wart may be gone. I am not sure, it's a wait-and-see game. But it is no longer an excuse not to be running.
Also, I have been writing. Actual writing, the first draft of the new script is largely intact, if not complete. Time I spend in the early evening or early morning is spent with children, being Christmassy, washing dishes, making excellent meals, being homebound and happy.
And again, there no longer exists a compulsion to move. My serotonins are successfully entering my neurons. I am without crippling anxiety.
However, this must stop. It is not healthy for me to be sedentary. I do not fit comfortably into my jeans - this has more to do with shape than weight. But weight is an issue. I have a target of 155 and intend to hit it by April 7 - if that is the opening date of my solo performances, though it may change, we haven't gotten final word on that.
A new year approaches. I want to join a gym and do running indoors, I think that may be a motivating factor. Resuming the outreach tour always makes me drop a few pounds. And once the holidays pass there will be more time.
Ha ha, that was a little joke. There is never more time.
But I am optimistic for 2011. How could I not be? The past year has been an emotional challenge, a professional challenge, a personal challenge, and a global challenge. I am pissed off and thrilled and confident and boy am I busy. And I like busy.
I also like running. I should do something about that.
I wish I had taken pictures of my right foot, from back in the day when I had Plantar warts (past tense, hard to believe, past tense.) I thought of that from time to time, but never believeing there would be an end, I didn't seriously believe there would be any change, or any progress. It was depressing. Now I could look at them and marvel.
At the very worst stage, maybe a year and a half ago, I developed a fissue - no, not that kind of fissue, it was in the pad of my foot, a nasty rift between two warts. The doctor told me to take it easy at that point, to let it heal before we proceeded. I had gone too far.
It is now, that the warts are gone, that I understand why gouging them out and stitching my foot was the path of last resort. From time to time I have felt a tingling in my foot, one which makes me believe the area is not clear, that there may still be activity, that they have not gone away. And then I check the area and find it remains smooth, no sign of new warts, none at all.
And then I use a bright light and I could see it, barely perceptiable the scar from the fissure. That's what tingles from time to time. That area has been affected, nerves have been slightly damaged. If they had extracted the warts, it would have been much more damaging, much more serious.
From time to time, I learn that it is possible to trust a doctor.
* Too Much Foot Information
Distance: 4.25 miles
Temperature: 58º
WARNING: Nostalgia
This is where we shopped. This is where we laughed. Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.
They remodeled the Kroger's. They had done this before, but never so extensively. It was a bit of a shock. In fall, 1986 my girlfriend and I went shopping for dorm food here, just as we had gone shopping for her family at the supermarket of West 25th Street and Clark that summer. Grocery shopping with her was a very romantic thing to do, it felt very grown-up, it was couplish.
After she left and in the years that followed, there were stops with friends, of course - after hours avdentures in the middle of sweltering summer after the station went off the air, getting snacks and snacks and more snacks. The only souls in there, we owned that place.
And on and on ... in recent years I would fear running into my former in-laws there, but they have moved. Even after their most recent redesign the layout of the place had more or less remained the same, and more than any other building or location in this city, that place held strange ghosts.
But not now, not really. Not so much. I had to force myself to see things that weren't there, and then stopped. The wine and beer section by the dairy, always such a dark warren, a foreign outpost at the far reaches of the frozen (food) wilderness, its all bust open now, and too brightly lit for my taste. The organics grown near where they used to, but their soil was so long sown with the acidity of the canned tomato aisle I find it difficult to believe the milk is any good.
I could go on. Time here gives me the opportunity to let my mind wander. I rpomised the wife I would only sit on the Internet to log my runs, and so I use that as an excuse to write nonsense. Still, it's fun.
1986 Playlist The Boy In the Bubble - Paul Simon Pretty In Pink - Psychadelic Furs Breakout - Swing Out Sister The Brazilian - Genesis I Walk Away - Crowded House The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades (158 bpm) - Timbuk 3 I Am Superman - R.E.M. The Edge of Heaven - Wham! Girls & Boys - Prince Hold It Now, Hit It - The Beastie Boys Swallowed By the Cracks - David & David
"I Am Superman." Hmn. I never considered it before, but for R.E.M., this track shows the musical accomplsihment and emotional maturity of The Beatles' "Run For Your Life."
Distance: 2 miles Temperature: 52 degrees Weight: 158.5 lbs.
Listening to: PODRUNNER Classic - Mo Betta Run (150 BPM)
Wart-free and proud. After almost seven years, I believe those f*kers have finally been scraped, burned, dissolved, gouged, purged from the soles of my feet. God, that was awful. Always loved me feet, big feet guy. And I have spent the past seven years ashamed to take off my socks.
This will work, if I can keep up with it - a nice, easy, two mile run, followed by a half-hour of stretches and free weight work. Not every other day, every third day. I think that will do just fine for the time being. On other mornings I will continue the regimen I have been since I began physical therapy.
I guess this will work until the weather gets lousy. This happened in 2005 - missed an entire summer's worth of running due to an injury.
Hooked up the old Podrunner mixes. Lyrics have been wearing me down.
Last Monday I went into the podiatrist's. I had a liquid nitrogen treatment six weeks earlier, and had been applying prescription strength acid to them. There were still thick, white layers coming away, I figured I needed another blast of pure cold.
She scraped away all the white materials ... and pronounced me clean. I was clean. They were gone.
I walked out of the office in a daze. I expected to be hobbling out, but I was striding out with the same awareness of my absence of pain as I was when I strode in.
And I began to cry. Seriously. I had no idea this was troubling me so much emotionally but it was undeniable.
At last, my foot is complete again.
It has been a week since I last ran. I will do the Cleveland in two weeks. Not a way to train.
1989 Playlist Dreaming I Am * - Bob Mould Eat For Two - 10,000 Maniacs Dry County - The B-52s Say No Go - De La Soul Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over) - Technotronic My Little Sister * - Michelle Shocked The Sensual World - Kate Bush Garden of Eartly Delights - XTC Love Song - The Cure Pure - Lightning Seeds Across This Antheap - XTC Cooldown: Shake Your Rump - Beastie Boys
(Last Year's 1989 Playlist) Brave New World - Michael Penn Express Yourself - Madonna On the Greener Side - Michelle Shocked Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy On the Verge - Nicholas Robinson Sin - Nine Inch Nails Veronica - Elvis Costello Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants Bust a Move - Young MC
Run stats: Days to Cleveland: 14 Distance: 5.15 miles Weight: 167.5 lbs. Stretches: yes Temperature: 53º Weather: RAIN
Monday morning, we froze those f*ckers. Froze them. I managed the pain through seriously controlled breathing. I think I scared the staff. I hobbled my way home, took the day off, sat in bed and edited a playscript. There are some super blisters forming, but today I felt good enough to run.
I have absolutely no faith in this treatment. Nothing works. Nothing.
1997 Playlist Miss Modular - Stereolab Missing You - Basement Jaxx Around The World - Daft Punk Summer Bummer - Crazy Penis My Baby Portable Player Sound * - Pizzicato Five Dig Your Own Hole - Chemical Brothers Busy Child - The Crystal Method Water From A Vine Leaf - William Orbit Cooldown: Wannabe - Spice Girls I'm Afraid of Americans - David Bowie
(Last Year's 1997 Playlist) One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces - Ben Folds Five Parsec - Stereolab Burning Ground - Van Morrison Block Rockin' Beats - Chemical Brothers Smack My B*tch Up - Prodigy The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails Atom Bomb (Atomix 1) - Fluke Tubthumping - Chumbawumba Good Sh*t - Cornershop
Man. Remember the mid-late-90s? Good times.
Run stats: Days to Cleveland: 45 Distance: 5.15 miles Weight: 171 lbs. Stretches: yes Temperature: 37º Weather: cool & sunny Gear: jacket, thermal hat, sunglasses, shorts, long-sleeved shirt
It was not lost on me last Friday that it's been a year since we departed for NYC for the 2006 marathon. Recent events have made it necessary, even desirable, to cut back. But there have been astonishing drawbacks. Let me tell you about them!
As I have relaxed into sleeping in for a change, my headaches have returned. These past two weeks have been just awful, a return to days I was hoping I had put behind me. But the causes are much clearer. Lack of exercise, lack of proper sleep (I said proper - getting five hours of sleep all week and then taking in ten on Saturday is not a good thing for me) and being nudged in the crotch all night long by a restless child all adds up to woozy, sick-making mornings.
WARNING: This is gross.
And then there's the mosaic. Do you mind if I continue to call it that? It's like saying "departed" for dead or "popular" for whoring around. The formaldehyde treatment has been going well for over two months. But it has taken its toll, and the skin between the warts has dried severely, and that combined with the callouses that develop had created a serious mess by last Sunday night. There was still seepage Monday morning, so I called my podiatrist, whom I love, and he bumped up my appointment to Tuesday.
I love that part where doctor's ask you about your kids or how work has been going, or something specific about what you are up to that they know is important to you. I means they are about to inflict pain. I am ready for this. I am game. He went at my foot with a razor while I talked about all the great time I have been spending with my kids (mmmnnn) and how much they were looking forward to Hah-hah-Halloween and how much driving I have been doing lately and mmmnnn-I am sorry I am not taking this better, sorry, sorry about that. It is an interesting conversation.
I laid off the treatment for a week, padding my foot, letting everything heal and dry out - funny, there was a lot of raw skin, but no blood! Man, he's good. And, of course, I have avoided the street.
And if I can make five miles, once a week ... it's not great, but it's better than nothing.
Daddy Runs Fast 2006 -or- Tunes That Got Me To The 2006 NYC Marathon It's My Life (Vocal Mix) - Liquid People vs. Talk Talk This Is Where It All Begis - Plasticman The Glamorous Life (Club Edit) - Sheila E Upside Down- Jack Johnson Callas Went Away - Enigma This Charming Man- Stars Hips Don't Lie - Bamboo (2006 FIFA World Cup) - Shakira ft. Wyclef Jean Mi Tumbao - Tres Corona Badass - The Crystal Method Cooldown: Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae
Last night, over dishes, I was sharing some minor bit of info about the NYC Marathon - we'd talked about Ryan Shay, I was telling her how I'd probably be paying attention to the Olympic Marathon for the first time in my life - and she said something like, "You wish you were there now, don't you?" In a way, yes. But honestly, no. I liked having a summer and fall this year, more time with the kids, later mornings and nights. It was so difficult. But I still plan on going back in 2011.
Daddy gets about ninety minutes of alone time on Saturday mornings while mom and the kids go to their music classes. I could have pushed it out to 5 miles or so, but that's all the time I get and there's preening to do. It's not easy to keep this shorn look alive. One day too many and I start looking shaggy.
Beautiful end to a difficult week last night. C. came over for a session of sketching, then she, mom and the kids contributed on making handrolled tortellini while I cleaned up - and there was "witch" cake as a surprise. Later I went with E. downtown to "celebrate" the 15th anniversary of the weekend we started our first theater company.
Fifteen years. Jesus. There was much drinking.
UPDATE: Following my shower I "shaved" the callouses that have built over the mosaic ... only they aren't so much callouses anymore, some have become scabs. There is actual bleeding, which I have been careful to avoid. I applied the Formalaz anyhow, which, as you might have imagined, felt like pouring formaldehyde into an open wound. "Felt like," because that is what I was doing.
The pain affects my entire foot. My toes instinctively curl in reaction to the pain, which affects the muscles in my entire foot. I limp. It takes a while for the pain to subside. It still really hasn't, some three hours later.
My thoughts are with everyone running the Chicago this Sunday, especially R. - who will complete his fourth marathon! In any event, it's supposed to be mid-80s, deathly humid ... with thunderstorms. Oy. Drink, drink, drink!
The Doritos ... must ... stop ...
WARNING: Disgusting Wart News
Wednesday I visited my podiatrist about those nasty things on my feet. So you know, I have tried Compund W (the regular kind, and the kind for Plantar warts which use pads) as well as the "duct tape" method. There was another podiatrist I had been seeing a few years ago, but he was way on the West Side and my visits were irregular.
In any case, nothing ever worked. The "mosaic" is on the pad of my right foot, close to the "drop-off point" to my toes. Treatment like duct tape did a treat on necrotizing the flesh underneath, but in that particular place it not only gave a burning sensation, but effected the tissue underneath, making my foot feel like it was broken. I was hobbling everywhere - or slithering. Like Byron.
More and more white, crumbly skin would come away, but it was apparent by the never-shrinking footprint that remained that I wasn't getting anywhere.
Eight weeks ago this new doctor prescribed Formalaz, which has worked differently than all those salicylic acid treatments. He says there is progress but I am withholding hope. I am supposed to use a pumice stone to strip away the callouses that the body creates to protect the foot in response to this severe treatment, but these callouses have gotten so thick I feel like I am not scraping away the dead, hard skin so much as buffing it to a shiny luster.
I'm not even using a pumice stone, I am using a metal corn remover. After what the doctor used to strip away the callouses, a scalpel and then a handheld sanding drill, I don't feel so bad about the harsh treatment I normally give them. He stripped them down to skin ... and large white footprints. Again, I don't see any progess. But he's really nice. I'll see him again in November.
Distance: 3.25 miles Weight: 168.5 lbs. Stretches: yes Drink: Accelerade Start Time: 10.20 pm Temperature: 68º Weather: warm & dark
Boy, running at night is so much more pleasant, I can't tell you.
Playlist: All Good Things (Come To An End) - Nelly Furtado Starbursts Over Orion - Modaji Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson Mister Sister - The Tender Box + Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beat He Can't Love You Like I Love You - Michael Stanley Band
+ This one's for you and all your Man-Friends, Mrs. Beasley. Thanks for reminding me that the old hometown really is a great place to raise your kids ... unless they're gay.
Nelly Furtado "All Good Things (Come To An End)"
SPOILER: Final six minutes of "Six Feet Under" This song is better than the one they actually used.
• Didn't feel like eating anything before heading out, force-fed myself a banana. This was a very good idea and another testament to man's ability to actually learn from his experiences.
• The stuff is called Formalaz. Its effects are not yet painful, though drying is definitely taking place.
• My shoes are entirely blown and I need to make time to get a new pair. I was on my feet for close to ten hours in them on Friday, a lot of it just standing. Yesterday my feet hurt in a way they hadn't since I was engaged in major training last fall.
Playlist: Daft Punk Is Playing At My House - LCD Soundsystem Acceptable in the 80s (Tom Neville Remix) - Calvin Harris Everybody Everybody - Black Box Music Plus 1 - Cornershop Spinning Top - XTC I Didn't Mean To Turn You On - Robert Palmer Obsession - Animotion Next To You* - The Police SOS - Rihanna Bazamba - Sister Soleil
Cooldown: Idioteque - Radiohead
Daddy's White Russian
2 shots Smirnoff
1 shot Kahlúa
stir in rock glass with two ice cubes
Two tbsp heavy cream, 1 tsp sugar, beat until pleasantly creamy
Pour whipped cream slowly over ice, serve
Mom and Daddy enjoy this number with a big bag of Corn Twistees while curled up watching Life On Mars.
Visited my new podiatrist on Tuesday. I like him. Maybe because he's young and cute and says nice things about my feet.
They are in good shape, apparently, my feet. They bend well, they have a good pulse (who knew?) there's just problem A and problem B.
Problem A, yes, the warts. He has a new treatment, something I never heard of before, A prescription that is 10% formaldehyde. That's right, you f*ckers are already dead you just don't know it yet. We'll see how well the stuff works (or how hideously painful it is) in the next six to eight weeks.
Then there's the bunion. He praised my use of the toe-spacer, which actually seems to work, somewhat. He also recommended orthopedics, but my health care plan, which kind of blows, does not cover them (they have also refused to pay as much as they used to for my migraine meds, God I love this country.)
Distance: 3.15 miles Weight: 163.5 lbs. (?) Stretches: yes Drink: PowerBar Endurance Sun Tea Lunch: sunbutter & preserves sandwich, baba & celery sticks Time: 1:00 pm Temperature: 77º Weather: hot & sunny
Playlist: Shine - Take That Regret - New Order Hounds of Love - Kate Bush Miami Vice Theme (1985) - Jan Hammer Gimme Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment - The Ramones Around the World - Daft Punk I Must Confess - Everything but the Girl Happiness In Slavery - Nine Inch Nails Warmdown: I Created Disco - Calvin Harris
Distance: 4 miles
Weight: 167 lbs.
Stretches: yes
Drink: Gatorade
Snack: Zone Perfect bar
Time: 6.00 am
Duration: about 35 minutes
Temperature: 65º
Weather: full moon!
Podrunner: 178 bpm -Rapid I Movements Dreamlike and ethereal, building to a crunchy peak, then back to dreamlike. Surprisingly gentle for such a fast mix.
Discoveries in Children's Literature:
Verruca: a Plantar wart.
Epsom salt (also magnesium sulfate): Has been used as an agent for drawing (dehydrating) boils, carbuncles and warts.
Wight: 165 lbs. Distance: 3 miles Stretches: yes Water: yes Time: 5pm Weather: hot & sunny with a light breeze
And so. I have not written about the Plantars Warts because they upset me so. The fact is, though the recommendation on a bottle of Compound W is to consult a doctor if the situatuion has not cleared in twelve weeks, I have been applying the stuff to the ball of my right foot for almost six months. Sometimes I do not notice. Sometimes it feels like I have broken my foot. Today was like that.
I have to stop. I know it has done nothing, these bastards go to the bone. But I have to ask whether they were that annoying in the first place, compared to the misery I am occasionally in trying to get rid of them.
Comments: Ugh. There's this burning spot, the size of a quarter, on the pad of my right foot. Acid. Mmmmm.
Googled "Plantar Warts" for the first time ever yesterday. Dr. J (not the Dr. J, just a Dr. J) - also a runner - tried the duct tape route, and it worked! Just like that! Well, good for him.
Plantar-warts.com wants to give you the impression that some happy soul (sole?) took it upon themsleves to actually register a domain name just to spread the word about how successful Dr. Scholl's Clear Away One-Step pads are at defeating Plantar Warts.
WebMD braced me for the possibility of surgery, and how it would be executed (didn't need to know that.)
Anyway, I've just had it. I didn't intend to keep a runner's blog so I could moan about these things, but they are crimping my style. And I risk injury every time I go out for a run dealing with them. Overcompensating for the pain in the ball of one foot is no way to run, and I have to go slow so I don't pull anything. But this is where I am right now. Sigh.
Weight: 170 lbs. Distance: 2 miles Water: yes Stretches: yes Weather: Cold with residual snow on the pavement Playlist: 8 Mile - Eminem The Heart's Filthy Lesson - David Bowie Didi (Funk Club) - Khaled Down In The Cockpit - XTC Suck - Pigface
Comment: So. Four years ago (I think, it may have been longer) I noticed these two hard bumps on the pad of my right foot. If only I had dispatched them then. By the time I realized they were not, as I had believed, small bits of glass that had imbedded themselves in my foot (not strange - it's happened to me before) but rather PLANTAR'S WARTS, it was too late.
I have used pads. I have used straight Compound W. I even went to my doctor, who obviously knew nothing about the condition and tried to remove them anyway - by injecting novacaine directly into the warts (okay, that was maybe the worst pain I have experienced in my life to date) and then scraping part of them away (that was the second most painful thing that's ever happened to me.)
That was in January. I have not gone to her since, and am currently looking for a new general practitioner.
I saw a specialist, who was very nice, but lived too far away. He recommended epsom salt baths (uh, just for the foot) and duct tape. But I didn't follow that remedy very religiously, it was a bad time, I was about to have another child and there was just no discipline as far as my feet were concerned, I was still getting over the fracture.
In the meantime, all of these various, failed treatments have exacerbated the condition, wheras I used to have two small warts, I know have four parge ones, clustered in a very sensitive area.
TMI? Your problem, you don't need to read this.
I am currently 1) using an epsom salt bath following runs 2) utilizing Compound W and 3) duct tape. That's working well, so far, as just yesterday a large piece of skin came off, revealing the "footprints." The first time I used acid on them, I stopped after the first layer of skin came away, thinking the footprints were just some residual thing. Now I know they are part of the wart, and mean it's still there, and angry.
Am I going to lose my foot? Can anyone explain to me what's the appropriate action?
Of course not. I have no followers yet. After this post, I may never.
