Wating in line. Being on TV.

Notes on my first night in NYC

1. Hadestown is insane.
2. IN.
3. SANE.
4. I’ve never seen or heard or experienced anything like it.
5. Everything about it—the music, the staging, the acting, the on-stage orchestra, the singing, the choreography, the sets, the costumes, the PASSION—is just off the charts.
6. I have no idea how anyone could learn all the incredible intricacies of the music and the choreography and the staging around the well-utilized turntables.
7. Especially the poor swings and understudies.
8. You could tell the whole audience didn’t want to leave and break the magic when it was over.
9. Did I mention we were in the third row center?
10. Because we totally were.
11. I got two slices of pizza, a Gatorade and a piece of cake for dinner on my way back to the hotel.
12. $28.68.
13. I don’t want to talk about it.
14. I swear I just heard two girls in our hotel hallway call me Danny and invite me to play with them.

Those are not Mickey Mouse ears perched on my head

That is not a light saber jammed in my neck. But that IS the confident smirk of a man who just did 3x10 on the incline bench with EIGHTY-POUND DUMBBELLS.

My summer thong bod is finally here.

Reppin’ 75 lb dumbbells on the incline bench because I’m a BEAST

and reppin’ Iowa Public Radio on my shirt because I’m an INFORMED NEWS CONSUMER AND CITIZEN:

My blood starts pumpin'

I hate to brag, but eight years ago when I saw the 9 to 5 Broadway tour in Chicago, not only did Dolly Parton walk right by me in the lobby, but it was her birthday and I *personally* (well, along with 1,799 dear friends) sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

Who has two shaky typing thumbs and just did four sets of 10 incline presses WITH 65 LB DUMBBELLS?

THIS PRETTY PROUD (and shocked) GUY!

I love to brag, but we just had a photo op with Cinderella before having dinner in her castle AND SHE PERSONALLY WISHED ME A HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY

And someday when Disney has developed the photos, my prints will come.

I love to brag, but my ridiculously unnecessary impulse shoe purchase is way cooler than your ridiculously unnecessary impulse shoe purchase

I hate to brag, but ...

I hate to brag, but I now have a snore score and you don’t

I’m kinda disappointed that nothing I did last night qualified as epic, but in my defense it was my first time. Plus it was a weeknight and I need to be responsible.

Also: You know how once you’re older than 30 you can’t wait to get to sleep every night? Well, add your first SnoreLab recording session to the equation and that excitement TRIPLES. Last night was the most awesome night I’ve had getting into bed in years. We pentagenarians still know how to party hardly (oops—HEARTY) once the lights go off.

Does your state highway system have a rest area that's dedicated both conceptually and architecturally to the work of Iowa native son and American Gothic artist Grant Wood and to the broader organic visual vocabularies and contextual rural ideologies of the 1930s American Regionalist art movement?

No, your state highway system does NOT have a rest area that's dedicated both conceptually and architecturally to the work of Iowa native son and American Gothic artist Grant Wood and to the broader organic visual vocabularies and contextual rural ideologies of the 1930s American Regionalist art movement.

But MY state does.

And I just peed there.

I hate to brag—oh, let’s not kid ourselves; I LOVE to brag!—but I just got an awesome haircut and you didn’t:

Also: My Batman shirt is better than yours.

I hate to brag ...

(oh, let’s not kid ourselves; I LOVE to brag) but I’ve been upping my flossing game in the last few months and I just left the dentist’s office and the hygienist told me that my teeth were so awesome that they were by far the best she’s seen all day. ALL. DAY.

When you go up in weight for your dumbbell presses. And you’re wearing super-cute shoes.

But the insanely muscular dude who’s ON THE BENCH RIGHT NEXT TO YOU doesn’t even notice. Or give you the traditional Cupcake of Congratulations. Rude.

Rainbow sprinkle beignets

Yeah. My morning is already WAY better than yours.

Oh, C4 pre-workout energy drink:

We are finally reunited after my months-long system cleanse from your mysteriously electrifying, limb-shaking, skin-tingling powers. I have missed your Robitussiny attempt at blue raspberry flavor and the preternatural semi-opacity in which you hide your unholy alchemy. But you are now back in my life on your new rotation into my morning workouts, your possibly emasculating niaciny chemicals are coursing through my unwitting veins ... and my shoulders are somehow the only part of me covered in flop sweat. Welcome home!

In related news that will impress exactly nobody but me, as of this morning I am officially deadlifting 5x10 sets of 185 lbs. Rowr!

Day 4 of 7

Seven days of black and white photos about me. No people. No explanations.

Flashback Saturday: Marathon Injuries Edition

Bragging rights: I'm incredibly proud that I've run seven marathons, and while I've stopped just blurting it out in song to strangers on the street, I still get a kick out of telling people about it whenever running comes up in a conversation.

If you've met me in person, though, you know I'm not built like a runner. I'm tall and weighty (and unfortunately getting weightier as I age), which absolutely excludes me from ever being (or even enjoying being) a sprinter. But twelve years ago, after discovering the joys of running for fun and fitness on Chicago's 17-mile trail along Lake Michigan, I noticed that longer distances were getting easier and easier to run ... so I took a deep breath of trepidation and registered to run the Chicago Marathon. The experience was supposed to be a bucket-list one-and-done, but I was so moved to tears by what I'd worked to accomplish just to cross the starting line that I vowed I'd keep doing it until I got too bored or too injured.

Well, duh. Injured. You can't spell marathon without injured. And though I'd survived my first marathon from my first official training run all the way through to the finish line -- which I did pretty much cluelessly all by myself with no official training program and no running buddies -- without a single injury, I started falling apart regularly every year after that. Especially in my feet. Oh, and in my ankles. Oh, and in my knees too. But -- unlike every endurance runner past, present and future -- I thankfully never had to endure the misery of chafed, bleeding nipples.

I just said nipples.

Anyway, Facebook just reminded me of a particularly troubling injury I had eight years ago -- mere days before I was due to run my fifth Chicago Marathon -- where the top of my right foot suddenly grew a painfully tender ostrich egg. I got an emergency appointment with one of Chicago's leading running doctors -- named-for-the-wrong-body-part Dr. Chin -- and learned that I had stress fractures in all my metatarsals; my body had built up a gelatinous goo of cartilage to protect it; and the muscles, tendons and fatty myelin sheathing around the nerves in my foot had started to swell in reaction to everything as though I'd had a sprain. And there was no way it was going away before the race.

But! Apparently it was a not-uncommon injury, and Dr. Chin showed me how to take care of Mr. Foot by icing it day and night, popping ibuprofen like Rush Limbaugh at a rave, saying words like analgesic and ouch, and lacing my right running shoe across my toes, up the sides and then across the top to minimize pressure on my precious baby ostrich while still maintaining a locked-in fit that would keep my foot from slipping and flopping as I ran.

And it worked! I was miserable for the entire four-plus (but still not five, because five is just embarrassing in the cool running circles) hours I ran, but I finished, I got my medal, I did my traditional walking-backward-down-the-steps-because-I-didn't-trust-my-knees-to-bend-forward-without-an-ugly-topple to find a cab on Michigan Avenue, and I went home to whimper. And stink. And shower. And keep whimpering. And then eat four pints of Ben & Jerry's in alphabetical order according to flavor name. Seriously. Because that's how I rolled after I ran each marathon. Or limped. Whatever.

The 2017 Chicago Marathon is tomorrow. And while I feel injured just from typing that sentence, I'm still thrilled that I was a part of it for so long. And I'm even more thrilled for all my friends from across the country who have trained all summer and are running this glorious -- and gloriously flat -- race this weekend. And whether you're a first-timer or a veteran and whether you're injured or in perfect working order, I hope you all enjoy every moment of the experience -- from the enormous expo to the cheering Boystown throngs at the best water station on the entire route to that cruel, cruel hill on Roosevelt Road at mile 25.9 to the mountains of free bananas in the finishers corral. You rock, I'm already proud of you ... and get ready to start blurting out your bragging rights in song to every stranger on the street.