Things are going great ... and they're only getting better.

I cannot see anything.

Forty years ago I was just beginning my college experience, and it was a lot. I think of what was on the television in he communal spaces. In my dorm, that was in the basement, and it was mostly music videos. In Hog's dorm it was Transformers. 

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:18
Pace: 9:07

The music videos all seemed to be communicating the same thing -- neon and pastel was dead, the playful first half of the 1980s was shifting into something more dour and serious (See: Miami Vice Season 3) in grays and blacks.

Route: Forest Hill Loop

Temperature: 70°
Climate: damp
Mood: all right

And my girlfriend's dorm room, like all the dorm rooms, painted cinderblock and tile floors. It was a cold dynamic, and as the days also cooled, so did our attention for each other.

Not our affection, mind. Our attention.

Fall 1986 Playlist

Notorious - Duran Duran

Big Time - Peter Gabriel

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades - Timbuk3

Higher Love - Steve Winwood

In Too Deep - Genesis

You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 169.2 lbs. (-0.2)

"Lombardo"

Last night was Pandemonium. When I performed at Pan ten years ago, I was enticed to extend the evening by going to a local establishment. It was so late I think I thought I was sober but of course I wasn't.  The next day I had a terrible hangover and actually got sick in front of the kids; we were driving across town for a photo shoot for Talespinner. I should have stayed home. Anyway, I was humiliated.

Last night, CPT was serving three premium NA beverages at the bar, a beer, a wine and a mule. When I arrived at the stage where we were performing with an Athletic Gold Lager, it began a conversation (starting with, "Oh! Where did you get that?") about the choice not to drink. It was really cool.

I was in bed by eleven last night. I was also up at three AM, uncomfortable and with my thoughts running, so I got up for a bit and did housework. That was also cool.

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

More exercises, please. I feel good, by the way. My knees feel all right, minor pain during rehearsals last week (I was on my feet a lot) the rest of me is copacetic. That's where I am today.

My heart is aching.

Body by Perrier

Forty years ago, I would run occasionally. Honestly, it wasn't much of a thing. I was dating a young woman who had first inspired me to run when we were in middle school together. She's call and ask if I'd like to go for a run and we would run. 

Distance: 3,1 miles

Duration: 27:58
Pace: 

Actually we would run a little bit and then walk and talk. It wasn't dating in middle school, but it was romantic as fuck. When we actually went out, in 1986, we did all kinds of things, but running wasn't one of them.

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 52°
Climate: overcast w/light rain
Mood: maintaining

Slight headache this am, would love to have slept longer. Never thought I would actually get out, but once again, the moment I started moving I was in love.

1986 Playlist

Oh l'amour - Erasure

Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys

Left of Center - Suzanne Vega ft. Joe Jackson

Shellshock - New Order

I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You) - Grace Jones

September Gurls - The Bangles

Gyneco zèbre - Gabriel Yared

Come On Home (Extended Mix) * - Everything But the Girl

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 161 lbs. (-4.0)

Is it? Really? I have been grazing, a lot. A lot of little candies at work. Chip bags now, that has to stop. I eat well, but OH! The junk food.

Planks: TBA
Push-ups: TBA

Sit-Ups: TBA

Fifteen runs in April. Well done. A consistent year, so far.

I hear you're mad about Brubeck.

Will you be there?

The mornings start later, the mornings get cooler. It is supposed to be a beautiful, warm day tomorrow, and then the rains come.

Running out of doors, feeling the air, watching the leaves turn. Giving the geese a wide berth. It's a lovely park.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 28:28
Pace: 9:11

Most days I had to start thinking about my writing task from the moment I got up ... so I felt obliged to take with me into the park whatever music I was writing about. As I ran, finding an alertness parallel to whatever I was listening to, I would form an idea of a way to start an essay or description of a sound as I felt it through moving limbs and whizzing atmosphere, sometimes an idea so crazy I had to dare myself to type it out.
-  by Ben Ratliff, "Run the Song"

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 42°
Climate: clear & cool
Mood: better

Sophisti-pop 80s Workout Playlist

Tinseltown In the Rain - Blue Nile

New Frontier - Donald Fagen

These Early Days - Everything But the Girl

Appetite - Prefab Sprout

The Love Parade - Dream Academy

Mermaids - Andy Pawlak

If You Don't Love Me - Prefab Sprout

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 160 lbs.

Wore shorts, but with a hoodie. That was ideal. A lovely fall day, cool but not windy. The air, the sky, the pavement, the trees. Deer in yards.

The Sophisti-pop thing ... we didn't call it that in the 1980s, the term came later. But we were in it, wearing ties and blazers, saddle shoes and concerned about our hair (I could never do anything with my hair, anyway, no loss) smoking cigarettes and sniffing glue.

Then, nearly ten years after, Toni and I were courting and we were lost and I was married to someone else, and she showed me Washington Heights and she showed me her room and we listened to vinyl records from our teen years and fantasized about an adolescence together we never had.

And then and then, some six or eight years ago, I discovered the Blue Nile. How could I have never heard of the Blue Nile? And it took me back to 1994 and to 1986, and I got all confused. And I was happy in my confusion. 

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: TBA