The exact moment change happens is almost imperceptible. I can sense that a paradigm shift is happening but that may only mean that it has already happened and I am simply just becoming aware of it. Either way, change is inevitable and a good thing.

Running is an intoxicating drug. When the flow hits the pavement, magic happens and everything else is suspended. Some say that I am running 'from' something and I sometimes think about what that might mean, but generally I just run and run and run.

The other morning I saw a few racoons in the area in which I normally see racoons and Im like nearly delierious at this point from the run and my mind is in that ... place... where there is space between the raindrops kind of space... anysay, so I start to think... 'hey... why cant I be more like the racoons - they arent thinking of any of this bullshit that is going on in my mind - they are just thinking about chilling and eating and safety. I think maybe there is something to be said for racoon-ness these days.

saturday 8.9 rest

sunday 8.10 1st 5k race of season @ hwood beach - 32.28 - sucked. hot. no legs.

monday 8.11 3.2 miles very nice and easy at 715 in neighborhood

tuesday 8.12 walked/jogged ty park 2 full loops + 5 sprints upndownhill approx 5 miles

wed 8.13 4.5 miles @ beach early. awesome! + mowed 1 hour

thurs 8.14 mowed 1 hour + walked 2 mile loop at park

fri 8.15 ran easy 3 mi in hood @645 + biked 12.5 miles in 62 mins hard

sat 8.16 7 miles 84 mins the bomb! running at 5 at beach... easy... wonderful...lots of rests

sun 8.17 rest

mon 8.18 jumprope, crunches, leg weights and 40 mins walking at intervals

tue 8.19 jumprope 1000X + 5k run between storm bands. very slow and hot at 1030am

wed 8.20 ran 4 miles @ 530. hot and tired

thur 8.21 jumprope 1150X + crunches with medicine ball

fri 8.22 ran 3.5 @7am. felt really strong but hot

sat 8.23 ran wonderful 6.2 miles at 440 am. 74 mins awesome baby!

sun 8.24 mowed 2/3 of yard + edged (1.5 hr) + biked 11.25 hot hot hot

mon 8.25 ran 3.5 at 7am. strong

tue 8.26 ran 3 mi early but out of gas. need to rest

wed 8.27 early stroll of 3/4 mil + biked 13.67 miles and felt tired but really good ride

thurs 8.28 ran 3.5 miles very strong - avg 10mins/mi

fri 8.29 biked 12 miles

sat 8.30 ran 5.3 miles in 58 mins w/ negative second half split

sun 8.31 biked 14.5 miles in 1 1/2 hrs. mostly windy

Aug totals
biked 89.8 miles (approx)
ran 63.6 miles
walked 15 miles

mon 9.1 ran 5.25 at 645 am. hot + biked 9.5 miles hard into wind

tue 9.2 ran 1 mil. walked 1 mile

wednesday biked 14.75 miles

thurs 9.4 ran 4 miles at 5 am - supereasy and not tired in 41 mins + biked 18.3 miles

fri 9.5 biked 17.5 miles

sat 9.6 walked 5 mi

sun 9.7 ran 4 miles superchill and mowed for 1.5 hours

mon 9.8 mowed .5 hr + biked 20 miles!!! yes!

tues 9.9 stairmaster 20 mins + crunches +armweights

wed 9.10 walked 2 mi brisk

thurs 9.11 ran 5.5 miles

fri 9.12 biked 20 miles

sat 9.13 ran 4 miles

sun 9.14 biked 20 miles

mon 9.15 ran 4 miles, biked 7.5 miles

tues 9.16 ran 3.5 miles

wed 9.17 biked 11 miles

thurs 9.18 ran 5.75 miles early - awesome!

friday 9.19 biked 11 miles

sat 9.20 ran 3.5 miles

sun 9.21 biked 16 miles

mon 9.22 ran 3.5 miles

tue 9.23 ran 4 miles + eliptical 20 mins + legweights

wed 9.24 stairmaster 25 mins + armweights

thurs 9.25 ran 3.5 miles

fri 9.26 walked 8 miles disney

sat 9.27 ran 3 miles

sun 9.28 ran 4 miles

mon 9.29 stairmaster 25 mins + legweights

tues 9.30 ran 4.5 miles

wed 10.1 biked 13 miles

thurs 10.2 ran 4 miles easy

fri 10.3 biked 18 miles

sat 10.4 ran 4 miles

sun 10.5 ran 3.5 miles - walked 3 miles

mon 10.6 stairmaster and legweights

tue 10.7 ran 4.5 miles + armweights

wed 10.8 off

thur 10.9 ran 3.5 miles

fri 10.10 ran 3.5 miles

sat 10.11 off

sun 10.12 ran 3.5 miles

mon 10.13 ran in pa 3 miles, hiked 1 hour strenuous, walked all over

tues 10.14 off

wed 10.15 ran 3.5 miles

thurs 10.16 ran 4.5 miles

fri 10.17 easy walking 1 mile

sat 10.18 ran 4.5 miles

sun 10.19 mowed 1.5 hours

mon 10.20 ran 4.5 miles

tues 10.21 biked hard 30 mins/ 10 miles at gym

wed 10.22 ran 4.5 miles

thur 10.23 ran 3.25 miles

fri 10.24 ran 3.25 miles

sat 10.25 ran 4.5 miles

sun 10.26 ran 3 miles

mon 10.27 ran 4.5 miles

tue 10.28 ran 3.5 miles

wed/thur off

10.31 friday ran 3.5 miles

11.1 sat off

11.2 sun ran 3.1 miles

11.3 mon ran 3.0 miles

11.4 tue ran 3.5 miles

11.5 wed ran 4.5 miles

11.6 thur ran 3.5 miles

11.7 fri off

11.8 sat off

11.9 sun ran 3.25 miles

11.10 mon off

11.11 tues ran 3.5

11.12 wed off

11.13 thurs ran 4.5 miles

11.14 fri ran 3.25 miles

11.15 sat hiked 6 miles

11.16 sun off

11.17 mon ran 3.5

11.18 tue off

11.19 wed ran 3.5 miles

11.20 thur off

11.21 fri ran 4.5 miles

11.22 sat off

11.23 sun ran 4.5 miles

11.24 mon off

11.25 tue ran 4 miles

11.26 wed off

11.27 thur ran 4.5 miles

11.28 fri off

11.29 sat off

11.30 sun ran 4.5 miles

12.1 mon walked 6 miles

12.2 tue ran 3.5 miles

12.3 wed off

12.4 thur ran 4.5 miles

12.5 fri off

12.6 sat ran 6 miles - nice

12.7 sun off

12.8 mon ran 7 miles

12.9 tue off

12.10 wed ran 6.2 miles. easy

12.11 thur off

12.12 fri ran 9 miles early am. top 5

12.13 sat off

12.14 sun ran 6 miles. superslow 77 mins

sat 7.12

3 miles run
5 miles bike

sun 7.13
walk 6.5 miles

mon 7.14

4.5 miles run - 51 mins

tues 7.15
mowed - 1 hour

wed 7.16
mowed - 3 hours - hard
40 min walk

thurs 7.17
biked - 10.75 miles / 64 minutes - awesome!
walked 5.5 miles - carefree and could go more

fri 7.18
3.68 miles - 39 mins - hot and humid as shit at 445 am

sat 7.19 biked 12.5 miles super hot and very slow

tues 7.21 ran 3.2 miles @ 445am. getting over a cold and no real legs today

wed 7.23 ran 5.3 miles @ 615am. pack of milfs kept me going

thursday 7.24 mowed 2.25 hours. easy

sat 7.26 ran 2 miles -superhot at noon!

mon 7.28 ran 3 miles in 34 mins superhot 930 am. need to get out earlier!

tues 7.29 ran 4+ miles - running before 6am and beautiful sunrise. easy negative split

wed 7.30 - did full round of legweights first time long time. 55 crunches and 8.5 mi bike

thurs 7.31 ran 5.3 miles - 61 mins out before 5 am. beautiful!

july totals:
running- 34.6 miles
walking- 13.5 miles
biking- 46.75 miles

friday 8.1 biked 6 miles very very liesurely

sat 8.2 superhot ran at 10am 90+temp 2.64 miles

sun 8.3 ran 6.43 miles superearly. wowzer. +mowed 1.25 hours - hot and tired

mon 8.4 mowed 40 mins + walked 6 miles

tues 8.5 ran 4.2 miles at sunrise. easy 47 mins _ biked 14 miles

wed 8.6 did leg weights 30 min

thurs 8.7 ran 1 mil time trial walked first min then ran .94 in 7.41. +75 crunches+ walked 3.5 miles

friday 8.8 ran at ty park @745am - 2 full loops in 41 mins. maybe like 3.5 miles

after seeing my
children and my wife
safe
i realized that the
wreck that just happened
could have changed the future
and the
now
that truly left
an
indelible spot
in my mind

struggling is really a foolish thing to do
but
my mind continually leads me down the same path
i wrestle awkwardly
with the process

crashing into the sand
waves finally reach the land
carrying a wealth of memories
awakened with new thoughts
and drowning in you

time stops
but oceans do not sleep
tides continue to creep
longing is not the answer

ebb and flow of thoughts
washed away and forgotten

empty mirrors reflect the sea
shoreline's mist not what it appears to be
twilight is uncertain in every moment

the frenzy surrounding the hype right now while maybe being only minimally noted by amateur journalists is both real and palpable. this week a wave of optimism and opportunity seems to be sweeping gently over my rolling, transient landscape and alot of shapeshifting seems to have resulted. at least in the paradigm anyway, but fuck it, who really cares.

the risk of redundancy is always everpresent when you havent written in a while and at the same time, a mere glance backwards usually reveals that your writing is possibly only a glimspe of some transient long forgotten feeling that you just had to hold on to for just one more moment

what i have learned this week is that the universe is really an immensely magical place. much of our detriments lie inside of our skulls and it is nice sometimes not to have to function with lock down status and instead just functioning on cool breeze status. even without the illusion of being imprisoned, we are still imprisoned in some deeper transformative inhibiting way.

that being said, i suppose it is time to say goodbye to lethargy and hello to cultured optimism. im not trying to be all smarmy or gawker-ish about the whole thing but sometimes the method of being coy is revealing enough

i have really tried to take the time this week to acknowledge several things that seem to be going on internally for some time. i think that posting them makes me somewhat accountable to my thoughts

1. i am very busy with lots of obligations that keep me going
1.5 it is long overdue to pay reverence to that concept

2. i have been taking more time lately for me. instead of running from things, i have begun walking towards them and warmly embracing these things as my friends.

3. to be awake and aware is a special gift that cannot be wasted or ignored or even longed for

is there anything more dreadful than an obligation to be obligated to something and you have no idea why you are even obligated in the first place anymore, or alternatively, you can barely even remember what it felt like when you initially obligated? thats how i feel right about now and have been for about 10 days or so.

morose i dont think is really fitting here, but something close to the 'feeling' of moroseness without being too damned pretentious about the whole damn thing.

inside the whirlwind
the eye is quiet
yet it seems loud

the noise
is
cluttering
and
fucking up the whole damned
listening part

anyway, so thats how im feeling about now... like im inside the epicenter of the whirlwind, if there even is such a place, and everywhere i go i am kind of like pigpen with his dustcloud except mine is not just a clould of dirt, although it might as well be... im not even sure if semantics is really what it is at this point, but it is rather getting to be a pain in the ass.

mutation

radiation

what choo gonna do? about your ass?

talking about... nuclear war

maybe sun ra had it right, and maybe im just looking for answers that i think are somewhere else besides right at my feet. i think ive seen this movie before and possibly starred in it.

finally the obligation to write has been met with enthusiasm rather than with scorn. i promise that i am trying to write more but that other part of me always seems to say... later... so im always a bit torn about how much writing i am doing.

im sitting on the back patio with some xmas lights up at twilight. ive got a beautiful breezy sunset in paradise. i hope that the perfectness of this moment is like a permabuzz that grinds me all day.

and so there it is... i guess there is always this search for that special something that makes you feel like you are you 'best self' and too often we are staring at it right in the face and mistake it for a fisherman or a piece of a allegorical innuendo.

was it for this my life i sought?

maybe so, maybe not

either way... it is good to be somewhat familiar with myself again after a brief period where i seemed to be disaquanted for a while. Not totally detached or anything, but just kind of out of touch with *acting* as my best self when i probably am very capable... but habit is a real bitch when you let it dictate your bus and you forget that you are the driver... so slowly i wake up from time to time and say...'hey... i am driving this damn thing' and ... so maybe i should just put some energy into whatever i think makes me happy and feel like my best self the most and just ride that wave and see how it feels. so much of my life seems to be on autopilot without really conciously thinking and really examining the choices i am making on a daily or a moment by moment basis. my hope is that later when i have a really different view i can read this and decipher exactly how unreasonable things seem to be and how i believed that they were 'real' and that this whole thing just kind of rules my overall model.... the truth is i really dont know what the fuck i am saying... this has become a free write and i hope somewhere in here i can find whatever it is that i seem to be looking for on the outside of this webpage.

the distance between yesterday and today seems a bit faint while the distance between two days ago and today seem like light years apart. the distance traversed between two moments in the last five minutes seems like crossing a great crevase (or is it crevasse?) across a glacier. in fact, it is hard to even remember what motivated me to write before all of the grand distractions of the universe happened.

each day that i am given the gift of experience, i hope not to squander it on impefection or disconnection. i must remind myself that i am able to cultivate some wonderful things but i must carefully attend to the garden that i have been given

this morning i get to go under anasthesia for a follow up look down my stomach. im kind of looking forward to that post anasthestic feeling ... last time i woke up to hear neil young's down by the river gushing out of my ears although my wife assured me that no such music was playing.

besides getting some potential answers about my stomach issues... the idea that im embracing is that the wake up period allows me to kind of 'start over' or restart if you will... and i hope to take full advantage of the opportunity. my real desire is just to have a new beginning to improve myself. i feel like im so totally out of sync with what i can possibly become and i just need a jump start to get going in the right direction

i finally have some vacation time to kind of get away from the daily grind. other than teaching at the college a few evenings this week, i have no daily work responsiblities all week. that means total chill mode and i think it has come at the right time.

im trying to just sit back a bit and enjoy it all while maximizing the good things that are going on in my life. today im really looking forward to seeing my son's basketball game and getting some exercise in. the less that i worry about the universe, the smaller my problems seem to get

its amazing how easy it is to spot the deficiencies in myself. often times i find myself so very far from where i think i should be and i guess in a way if i should really be somewhere else then i would be there. i find it just plain old silly sometimes how much i chronically am chronically stuck in the mud and wondering how the fuck i got here.

it really is all relative cause when the sun is shining you could be thinking 'oh wow... this is truly a gift of a day' or you could be sulking in the corner wondering 'why me...poor me.'

it is in one of these moments where i can conciously become aware of my self destructive behavior and yet i am doomed to repeat it like a broken record. when i feel down down down there is just no end to the poor choices or the meta analysis of the poor choices that i seem to make.

that old familiar black fuzzy cloud has crept back in again and it seemingly has kept me from my best self. it is almost at times like i feel i have to go down to the depths of despair in order to pull it all out again and tell myself that its all really all right. and i guess it is in the larger sense, especially with all of the mindless and souless activity that i see out there in the world. but there is also the wonderful reminder of the gentle kiss of my daughter, or the way my son's eyes shine when he is having that special moment with me as he tells me about his ball game. my wife always seems to sense these epsiodes and really is good about giving me the space that i think i need to just go thru it all. in short, even when the sky is about to fall and crumble into a billion pieces, optimism always seems to lurk around every corner.

so ive still heard nothing about the jobs ive applied for. nada. zip. and neither has my wife which has made things just downright fucking creepy. it just totally wierds me out that peeps just cant fucking make a decision and tell you one way or another. but maybe there are forces going on that i dont even know about. it is really easy to jump to conclusions when you have an emotional investment in the outcome.

and to be honest, perception seems to be at the wheel of the bus these days. judgment #498 here i come....so what do i need to do to get myself back on track and away from the fuzzy green ball of light that is the dark cloud of depression.

i truly enjoy exercising first thing in the morning. yesterday i had to sit around and wait for the cable guy and didnt get to do my thing until later and it really fucked me up. this am i was able to get out early and hike along a really terrific spot on the beach at the state park. the tide was low and i was able to walk on the creek side of the dunes only getting my foot wet from time to time. it was beautiful calm and serene out there and i truly loved it.

im still trying to be patient and i guess i am being patient for the good things that are coming my way. it has been nearly 2 weeks since i submitted the apps for the jobs im interested in and i think that maybe this week i will hear something either way. this friday im heading out to see a kickass show - the heavy pets and the bendy pastorius group at the culture room. this week should be a good one as i have testing in the public school during the early part of the week, and then friday is a workday which probably means sign in and out and get some good biking or hiking in somewhere. the following week is a short week as friday is the first day of a 10 day spring break. im stoked and ready for a good time

on march 31, the first monday of the break i need to go back and have another endoscopy. they are putting me under and i kind of look forward to that suspended state of animation. last time when i woke up i could hear neil young's 'down by the river' gushing out of my ears. i also swore that i could hear the doctor talking saying 'lets do this before he wakes up' and actually 'felt' or rather 'observed' from an out of body perspective the entire procedure. the only downer was that my brain felt a little fuzzy for a few days and i could not remember how to set the alarm inside the house... it was kinda weird but ok.

so writing again has been very liberating and i always wonder why i dont do it more. its kind of like confessional that nobody cares about but me and im glad the words and forum are here to serve as a good reminder about where my head is at. i think over the last 20 years, lots of things have changed since i started writing off and on but mostly nothing has really changed when it comes down to some of my core issues; achievement and self worth/self loathing. i think ive just come to deal with these things better.

in good news, my kids appear to be doing great and are healthy. my wife and i seem to be getting along alright and i just hope the good vibe continues

sometimes a few days of rest make all the difference... that and exercise. i have gotten back on the 'pony' so to speak this week with a combo of both running a bit, biking a bit and doing some weights. today is a 'cough cough' sick day and it feels really good just to have the day to do some things that i want.

when i wrote earlier about change... im waiting to hear about a couple of jobs that ive applied for. i realize that over the past 10 years that i have probably put way too much emphasis on thinking that something was actually going to happen but lately with the way things have been going at the college i really thought that this time it was going to be 'it.' its been 10 days since the app window has closed and ive heard nothing - nada... so now im wondering if again i have put all of my emotional eggs into one basket and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. on the other hand, im still somewhat optimistic that perhaps something good might come out of it all.

in the bigger scheme of things, its all good really. my kids are healthy and my universe isnt crumbling at this moment. i seem to have a good set of supportive friends who are more than willing to call me on my shit and im super fortunate to have an electricfying wife. sometimes too electricfying but its all good really.

so... why do i seem to be waiting for the depression to slowly creep back in... i can sense that it is just around the corner kinda waiting for me with a big bully stick in it's hand and im kinda leery of feeling too good but i do feel pretty good overall.

so here i am with a little bit of hope in my back pocket and some very good vibage going into the weekend

its a very odd saturday morning and again i didnt sleeep all that well. i went to sleep about 9ish or so and woke up at 1, stayed up for an hour and slept again til 5. a big storm was rolling in and my stomach was bothering me. i guess my stomach was on my mind and i need to get my stomach scoped again as ive waited too long to do it. i feel as though i am on the cusp of some really good change in my life and am just in a wait and see mode