from Jackass to James Lundeen...

Day 995, Session 158:
When/Where: Monday March 16th & Wednesday March 18th - Running.
First song: Jackass by Green Day
Last full song: James Lundeen's Christmas by Garrison Keillor
Progress: 3547-3563 of 8507
Total Songs Heard: 2043

Observant readers among you may have noticed that the song total jumped over 1000 songs. I added a whole shit ton of music through from acts playing at SXSW 2009. If I were a really cool music blogger I'd be at SXSW 2009, but it's debatable if I'm actually a music blogger at all (I'm going with not really, although I was invited to a SXSW party this year.)

Smart readers may ask, "Why the hell would you add 1000+ songs when you just determined that you won't be finishing this project for 5 more years?" That is a fine question. So here's the thing... this project is never going to make me famous, and it's highly doubtful that it will ever make me a good writer, but the important thing is: this project gives me something to do. So 1000 more songs = 75 more entries or so. I just hope that I can come up with 75 some more entries to write about.

Now on to today. Well today and Monday and Tuesday.

The last few days it suddenly got nice in Chicago. The first nice weather of the year always make me itchy. I'm not a practicing manic depressive, but the first nice springy days of the year always leave me feeling manic. We had one nice day a few weeks ago and I went for a 40 minute walk. This time we strung three nice days and I took it a little farther.

Monday I took a staggering 15-minute run. I say staggering because I had been sick a lot of the weekend and fasted most of Sunday and Monday in an attempt to find some sort of equilibrium. Running when you're out of shape is hard enough, running when you've only eaten half a can of chicken noodle soup in the previous 36 hours is a recipe for disaster. Basically I ran for 5 minutes, felt like shit, walked for 5 minutes and then ran 5 more until I felt like I was going to die. Good times. That's why I don't have a separate entry for Monday, I only heard* 4 songs before giving up and packing it in.

Tuesday was a good day. I've lived in Chicago for 8 years now, and I've never gone down to Lake Michigan by myself. What can I say? I'm not a big fan of lakes. Tuesday was different though. It was so nice, that I just had to get out there. I also had to get out there because my cousin sent me Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley came with a letter requesting that we take pictures of Stanley around Chicago. Never one to let the children down, I took advantage of the 70 degree day to get some shots of Stanley around Chicago. Here's what I came up with...

Stanley at the Lake:

Stanley and the skyline:
Stanley at the zoo, which was closed :(
Stanley at Wrigley:
I figure doing a good job on this Stanley thing is one more indication that I'm ready to do thing for kids and therefore totally prepared for fatherhood... you know, except for the being totally unprepared part.

I didn't actually listen to any music on Tuesday because I was on my bike the whole time and iPod listening while biking just isn't safe. All in all I spent about 2 hours biking around (and another hour shooting and taking in the beautiful day.) By the end the legs... they were sore. So sore at the knees that I had trouble sleeping last night. I will overcome.

Wednesday should have been a day of rest, but I've been at rest for way too long. The kid is now 3 months out, and part of the reason I've been out running/biking around the last 2 days is because the kid is coming. When this project is done in 5 years, I don't want to be so out of shape that I'm unable to keep up with the perpetual motion machine that is a little kid. The ass groove on my couch is deep enough that I figure it'll take me 5 years to get into good enough shape to keep up with a kid, so instead of resting on Wednesday, I went out again for a run. This one was much less disastrous. I was able to run the entire 25 minutes. If I keep at it, I may just be able to keep up with this life yet.

*'heard' may be an overstatement, mostly I heard my heart pounding in my ears.