Hey

Hey! What's going on? Lissen up.

Brandi started counting calories. I did, too. I'm a follower. Almost immediately, I realized I was taking in a lot more than I thought I was, back when I wondered why I wasn't losing weight. Now I know why Subway doesn't show Jared eating that three pack of chocolate chip cookies. Now that I'm not just exercising to lose weight, I can focus on the marathon.

Hey.

Yeah, October will come all too soon if I don't start ramping up my mileage. Luckily, this time, I'm almost as ahead of the game as my sister Heather is on everything else. Last week, I ran 9 miles. You're supposed to ramp up by about a mile a week. I have 29 weeks. Possibly, I may be able to scale up more slowly than my first and only marathon.

Hey.

...is for horses, Brandi's most lovable bit when we drive along country roads. When she spots a bale, she points. "Hay!" she says, but it's not as funny typed. Try it with your friends.

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...makers are what boxers use to punch each other out. I feel that way in the morning. I try to tell myself I'm drinking that Diet Coke at 9:00 AM because it tastes so good. Who am I kidding? Caffeine is bad for you unless you have the genes to clear it out of your system. I have no idea if I have the genes. I don't smoke and drink in moderation. Can someone tell me how I can steer clear of an early grave and chug away at sweet things and not gain weight? Also, let me know if I'm asking too much.

Hey.

T. Hate is for losers. I try to keep a good attitude, but work sometimes gets me down, particularly when I feel a boss or co-workers lie to me. I'll probably blog more about this as I'm able to pull away more from it. Suffice it to say, if I had the opportunity to quit my job, pretend to be a gay hairdresser and tour around the country for the next six months giving, you know, "flamboyant" advice to straight women about their hair for a $50,000 paycheck, I'd do it. Which is why it's funny that I'm auditioning for just such a role on Tuesday. Time to bone up on my Sean Hayes impersonation. This may be a bit of a stretch for me. Forgive me, Brandi, for I may have to leave the wedding ring on the keychain this time. I hope next time the American Psychiatry Association has people giving out hilarious Lucy-style psychiatric advice in the style of Niles Crane. I can do a David Hyde Pierce.

Hey.

...beas corpus. Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. Help, I am being held against my will in my job and my apartment. I want to live in a nice place and sleep for money, but apparently there's no money in being lazy, and I'm just going to have to toe the line until I can come up with the one thing everyone needs, nobody has, somebody can't market, and Microsoft can't co-opt. It might be an uphill battle.

I'm breaking out of the mold, though. I wear sneakers to work. I used RealVNC to access my Unix-based, elegantly interfaced at-home Mac mini from work. Technology is like growing extra arms; it's great until you get to the pits. Buying a car helped. Having a bicycle helps more, or would if I could just get my butt in gear and fix my flat. My cell phone doubles as a computer, and has more processing power than the one I owned ten years ago and a screen resolution just under half what I owned when I first went to college. Sprint, when you sold me the data plan, y'all got served.

Hey.

Rrrr. It's time to shave. I've got hair coming out of every pore on my face and an audition on Tuesday that I don't want to walk into as Harvey Fierstein. Time to get rid of the steel wool. I'll miss the maturity it gave me. I keep catching my eye in plate glass windows, somber, sober, bits of gray under my chin reminding me, "You're old. Eventually, you'll die, but before then, you'll turn into a fleshy raisin." Thanks, beard. On top, the advance of gray has slowed to a crawl. I feel a very mild betrayal coming from my body, like asking for a Gatorade and receiving a Propel. Sure, it's a little better for you, but, man, it's not what I asked for. My shoulders seem to have grown hair in sympathy. This may be the first summer I wax for the beach. The pain doesn't bother me, just the shame. Should I get one of those big sticks you can attach to an electric razor to shave your back? Or just wear a t-shirt and intimate I forgot to do my situps? Choices...

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...lows and pretty little angel wings, my comedy students are starting to enjoy class, which is great because I'm going to start kicking their butts. I teach ComedySportz 202, scenic study. After a boring beginning last week where I talked way too much, this week went a lot better, with more scenes, more action, more living examples of what it means to bring something to the table when you write and act simultaneously.

I read an article about younger folks making more demands when they start jobs. More vacation, more pay, more opportunities for promotion, and if they don't get it, they walk. All well and good, but what does it really mean? More excuses to live with Mom and Pop, waiting for the perfect opportunity. I dig boldness, yeah, but too much reads as arrogance. Sometimes you've just got to bite the bullet and take the best thing you can get. Do I sound like a spoiled white collar, white American with a bachelor's in drinking? Bite me. I did my time in food service. I might again, just to show those young non-bearded, non-graying schmucks. Want some attitude with your latte?

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Z. Purple haze. My calluses are coming in again for guitar. Before I started playing, I always thought you got calluses on your strumming hand. Funny how you just assume it's the more active one. Wire strings hurt. I'm starting in on bar chords, but they are really touch and go. My incentive: "Puff the Magic Dragon". Start in G, go to B min, C, back to G, A7, D7, G again. That first switch usually takes me a couple of minutes to get right. I want to get to the point where I can play it and not have the eight year olds I'm hypothetically supposed to be entertaining wandering off to see if their college loans are in order. Funny how I always wanted to play guitar, you know, without all that rigamarole of learning how to do it. It's the allure of the Matrix. Sure, machines took over the scorched earth, turned people into batteries, kept everybody alive by liquifying the dead and feeding them back to the living and trapped everybody in a bottle reality that looks suspiciously like an idealized Chicago. Keanu Reeves learned kung fu in, like, three seconds. Wish they'd downloaded an acting program.

Cheap shot, sorry, couldn't resist. Pure jealousy, Keanu. Now that Hugo Weaving, on the other hand...

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...zel eyes. What can be prettier? My wife has big, brown, beautiful eyes and looks like a movie star. She's stunning and nothing drives me nuts faster than anyone disparaging her inner and outer beauty, not least of all, her. What beasts lurk in our subconscious? Wicked, wicked beasts, always looking to tear us down. Do I look fat in this blog?

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...drian's Wall, the northernmost line separating Roman incursion into Great Britain, now, more or less, the line between England and Scotland. Mason Dixon of its day. The line between you and me, barbarians and civilization. Do the haters win when we close all our borders down and stop trying to meddle in the dark corners of the world? Are they winning already?

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..des, I'm running out of words, and time, and brown hair, and patience for people too clever by half. Play well with each other. It's a cold world out there, but, thanks to oil addiction and carbon emissions, getting warmer. Scientists agree: it's going to be an interesting future. Watch out. It's happening now. And now. And now.

Yes.

Now.