Let the man go through.

What an amazing day! It is truly astonishing what my family and I can accomplish around the house when we have absolutely nothing else to do. I cannot remember a Saturday in the past several years when there hasn't been something to do.

...

... we forgot a birthday party, I know it.

Anyway, we were all sorting, bagging, putting things away -- in my case, safely getting mold off things. It was a great success. Then I whipped together garlicky kale and whole wheat pasta and we all watched Project Runway.

"Little House on the Gay-rie." How's that?

Distance: 5.2 miles
Temperature: 75º
Weather: Full moon!
Weight: 173 lbs.

Okay, he's something running relevant. I ache. Ever since I was running those hills and uneven roads in Maine, I have been hurting. My knees, my back, but in a very odd and unpleasant way, my hips. Not in the socket, the was it hurt during training for example, but behind the iliac crest -- I believe I have that right. Not my hip, really, my pelvis.

Um, should I be worried about this? Is it because I am carrying more weight these days? Or just because I am ageing?

Tonight's run was awesome, by the way. Full moon, not ridiculously humid (by Cleveland standards.) And people were sharing the sidewalk for a change.

The Distance Genius Mix
The Distance - Cake
The Sound of Settling - Death Cab for Cutie
Add It Up - Violent Femmes
Super Bon Bon - Soul Coughing
Under the Milky Way - The Church
We're Going To Be Friends - The White Stripes
Hang Me Up To Dry - Cold War Kids
Jerk It Out - Caesars
Radio Free Europe - R.E. M.
Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms
The Beginning of the End of the Beginning - Smashing Pumpkins
The New Pollution - Beck

What is up with all this rock-pop crap? Daddy needs techno.

Watching the wildlife

Running Euclid Heights Blvd. at 5.30 am is all start and stop as skunks rise up and wobble across the sidewalk - it's like playing Frogger. Raccoon on Monticello. Deer on Compton. My crepuscular friends.

Podrunner: Under The Sun (179 bpm)

My head has normalized, so much so that the lack of apparent weirdness left me feeling listless and depressed. That and homegirl Valerie Mayen got auf'ed. I do yawn an awful lot, all day and whereas I usually sat up nights staring at Facebook and not going to sleep, well, now I go to sleep. And if I have the chance I stay there. Deep sleep. I have never been a deep sleeper. Right now, I am.

A scene has formed, in my head. A year's worth of reading and research is beginning to pay off. Yes! I have ideas. I need to write them down.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 50º
Weather: beautiful and cool
Weight: 161.5 lbs.

Headed off to shoot a piece for Kill Will this morning. I get to be in Kill Will!

This calls for a toast

Seventeen runs in January, nine in February, and in March ... five. This totally sucks.

It was not my intention to take ten days to get back onto the street. The fact is, I am under a lot of stress. This weekend - I hope - was a breaking point.

That just flowed out of me naturally, it was not my intention to blogroll.

The tour closed, I have some major deadlines in April, there are some artistic situations I am unhappy with (no, you can't) and a bout of headcolds that was passed around to everyone in the family except for the one person who needs to slow down the most. The boy.

And no, I do not know what I was thinking having three martinis with Dave and Ben on Friday night, I do not know what I was thinking. But they tasted very good. At least the first two did, I have no idea what the third one looked like.

So yesterday morning ... well, okay, most of the day was, while not exactly a wash, just very, very difficult. Did I take the boy to his piano lesson? Yes. Did I take them to see the Balto exhibit? Yes, I did. And the wife and I had something we have not had in a very, very long time.

No, not that. Longer. A dinner out at a very nice restaurant and never bothered checking the time or the prices on the menu.

Sp, cool, right? I was going to get up early and make that ten mile run, out the Ghandi and back, that I have been longing for, right? No. This morning it was a that-time-of-the-year, head-shocked, seasonal MIGRAINE. Like two hooks caught in my eyeballs, wrapping up into a skullcap of pain, reaching back to where the hair begins.

I got the morning, but she got the afternoon where I took some less than cheery, yet willing, youngsters on a series of errands before settling in for a new Sunday tradition - dinner watching Project Runway. It's all part of my lifelong scheme to make the boy fabulous. Not sure it's working, he HATES the sight of Michael Kors.

"Why is he always on there?!"

However, I did cut out for ninety minutes when dinner was being made ... to think.

Not much time thinking these days. No, not at all. Not for me. I cannot think.

But I did. I thought. I had a prospective email. About a festival of new works in D.C. And it made me think. It will not pay, but it made me think and though you really shouldn't accept gigs that won't pay, anything that makes me interested is worth my time. At least it is today.

Tonight I am going to sit up thinking. And writing. And that's new.

Oh, and I ran.

2005 Playlist
I Write Sins Not Tragedies (170 bpm) - Panic! At The Disco
Don't Look Back - Telepopmusik
Keep Hope Alive (JDS Mix) - The Crystal Method
Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
Winners - 7 Seconds of Love
Solsbury Hill - Erasure
Water of Nazareth - Justice

Distance: 3.25 miles
Temperature: 50º
Weather: very light rain
Weight: 157.5 lbs.

hit me baby one more time

Went in yesterday for PT, and we started using machines. I was in there for an hour last Friday, almost two yesterday. Melissa added to my reps and now my home workout has gone from 60 to 90 minutes, I need to get up at 5.30 just to get it all in.

But you know, they're a good 90 minutes. I listen to Capital Radio and enjoy an hour and a half of pop music and active solitude. It's almost like running.

Well, no, but it has elements in common with running. Which is not the same thing.

Meanwhile, something about this ordeal has resulted in a full-on re-emergence of my meralgia. I think it was the way I need to lie while my left knee was still actively in pain. But that awful, screaming feeling in my right thigh returns whenever I lie down, unless I crush it by resting on my right side, which is difficult to do all night. So I was up several times last night.

Hope I can stay awake for PR tonight. Veronica is such a bitch.