I’ve joined a running group. They appear to be sadists and/or masochists. Nice people, but clearly into S and M.

They invited me to a trail run at a park I’d never been to called ‘Standing Boy Creek.’ They should call it ‘Ass-Whipping Boy Creek.’

I did 8.6 miles in 76 minutes including some of the gnarliest, nastiest hills I’ve run on since high school.

At one point, we weren’t even on a trail, just running through the woods, across a stream, and then up a freaking mountain. At least it seemed like one. I was following this other guy, a Ranger from Ft. Benning, and he missed a turn so we got separated from the main group. They apparently finished the loop, then several turned around to do the loop backwards in order to find us during their 20 mile run. With two dogs. Ranger guy got us back, but it was a little scary. Meanwhile, the dogs ran farther than I did. This was not their first rodeo.

I got home, laid down on the floor to stretch, and haven’t gotten up since. That was 40 minutes ago.

Please send a forklift, aspirin, and bourbon.

Oh, and I’m meeting them again on Wednesday. Apparently I’m into masochism.

So they’re not really my thing, but it turns out LCD Soundsystem’s drummer Pat Mahoney is a guy I grew up with—one his brothers and my brother were inseparable for years.

Dude was just a monster of a creative force—incredible painter and sculptor. I took a couple art classes with him at MFA one summer, and it was like shooting hoops with Pistol Pete. He simply saw and did things on another plane. He went to RISD and I always knew one day he’d be somebody I knew when.

I don’t imagine he would return the feeling ;)

5.5 miles of muddy trails. Heaven.

Ran all of it in the Minimuses which are without question the best shoes I’ve ever run in. I got a little tired at about 4 miles and felt my form weakening—got into heel strikes over forefoot and slowed down. Last mile is uphill so it’s all in the toes anyway, but great run. Would do again.

Siouxsie was on the first Lollapalooza tour but was sick for the Boston date. My friend Pete and I then gave our stubs (good for admission to a make-up date with the Banshees at Avalon or one of the other Boston clubs when they came back) to a couple of girls who we thought liked us.

Yeah, never saw Siouxsie or those girls again.

So I won my office pool no matter what happens tonight, and will come in 2nd in the KSK pool if UConn wins tonight, 4th if Butler wins.

Right now I’m in 25679th in the full ESPN challenge, which is way higher than I’ve ever done.

My secret: Watch no games in the regular season, watch as much of the conference tourneys as possible, ignore Digger, Vitale, Bilas, et al. Also: luck. Pure, unadulterated luck, as UConn could have gone the way of Pitt and the Domers.

My winnings: Red snapper—tasty fish Nothing!

I must type this phrase 100s of times a semester in my online and in-line comments. And it’s always funny to me because I think of a history teacher in my middle school, or as I called it then ‘Junior High’ and ‘Hell.’

I can’t remember his name as I didn’t have him, but this fairly fat and dumpy man who was missing one of his central incisors but who was reportedly a sweet man used to yell say ‘BE SPECIFIC!’ all this time to his students. My god, I can’t imagine the insipid responses to junior high American history quizzes, tests, papers, et cetera he must have received. He probably learned to hate history.

What’s funny is that at one time in his classroom he had painted this slogan on the wall and would point to it all the time. He probably didn’t even say it, but just point—like ‘dummy, that’s why you failed.’

Then one summer they painted his room over, and his slogan was gone.

But for years he kept pointing to where it had been. And I would totally do the same.

That was fun. 5.5 miles, first 3.5 on the trails, then 2 miles on the black-top. All at a good pace.

Three newbies on bikes were having trouble figuring out the trail up the rocks. So I showed them. They never caught me.

Then when I left the trail, I ran down another runner. On an upslope. He was about my Dad’s age, but still. A kill is a kill.

I’ve been grading since the end of the boring Bolton/QPR match this morning.

That’s about 9 hours of finals, papers, portfolios, etc.

Until a month ago, I would be kicking back with a whole mess of beers.

And there’s a Harpoon IPA about 15 feet from me right now.

This is as hard a moment to not drink in the last month (tomorrow will be four weeks since my last drink).

This sucks. I’m not saying I’m friends with Bill W, I’m saying that I want to allow my body to heal in the best possible conditions—lowering my calories, my caffeine intake, and no alcohol.

But a beer would be awfully fine right about now—the BoSox are on, I’ve got that insane Gorillaz with Andre 3000 and James Murphy jam going, three dogs and no humans around, and I’ve had beef barbacoa in the slow cooker all day.

I really hate that automatic qualifiers get shunted into them.

The play-ins ought to be the last eight at-large teams battling to get into the tourney.

PT, posted a quiz, drank coffee.

Day: DONE.

Guess I should catch up on Community.

Because of my newish phone, I’ve been listen to and watching a ton of baseball. I don’t really know why (other than it’s a great game), as the BoSox are headed for a losing season, but damn if the Mariners and Giants and Dodgers aren’t great to listen to on my late night drives.

I want to get new caps too. An Ms hat for sure as Seattle is where I want to be. Maybe a Giants cap too.

In short: sprots.

Because of the recent nonsense, I’m going back to my old avatar. You are excited beyond words.

Sugar’s ‘Copper Blue’. Both the band and this album in particular are amazing.

I keep typing D for B throughout my attempts to get blackboard to work for me. Which I just typed as dlackdoarb. No, really.

And just wrote ‘hoddling’ for ‘hobbling.’

What is the what?

So not only can I not spell worth a lick—spelling bees were the best and worst days in school for me. Best because I was done quick, worst because I was always stressed out like woah—but I can’t even type properly.