I’ve never been known as one to “exercise.” Or “exert” myself. Or get up out of my “chair” all that much. A few years ago I lost a significant amount of weight without exercise and I think subconsciously I felt that I had proved I didn’t need it. But lately I’ve continued on the same dietary path I was on and am not able to maintain the girlish figure I once had.

So today I went for a run. Not on the treadmill, in the great outdoors, and I don’t think I’ve ever had this much energy in the morning. It was difficult considering how little I’ve moved over the last few years, but exhilarating.

I’m hoping to make this a habit and eventually love doing it. I say eventually because today I felt several times like I wanted to throw up or lay down on the sidewalk — and I only went 1.26 miles. I’m going to use iMapMyRun to track and map my runs.

If Eddie Izzard can run a marathon a day, I can at least start running around my neighborhood. I think this will be a good thing.

This morning, Dylan and I were reading poems (well, I was reading, he was listening). We came across this one from Raymond Carver

At Least

I want to get up early one more morning,
before sunrise. Before the birds, even.
I want to throw cold water on my face
and be at my work table
when the sky lightens and smoke
begins to rise from the chimneys
of the other houses.
I want to see the waves break
on this rocky beach, not just hear them
break as I did all night in my sleep.
I want to see again the ships
that pass through the Strait from every
seafaring country in the world—
old, dirty freighters just barely moving along,
and the swift new cargo vessels
painted every color under the sun
that cut the water as they pass.
I want to keep an eye out for them.
And for the little boat that plies
the water between the ships
and the pilot station near the lighthouse.
I want to see them take a man off the ship
and put another up on board.
I want to spend the day watching this happen
and reach my own conclusions.
I hate to seem greedy—I have so much
to be thankful for already.
But I want to get up early one more morning, at least.
And go to my place with some coffee and wait.
Just wait, to see what’s going to happen.

And after we finished, I said that it was sort of an exciting poem. And I asked Dylan what it made him feel like. And he smiled, a coy little gem, and said in a flash of excitement, “it makes me feel like I want to go to Starbucks and drink a coffee.”

The Itsy Bitsy Spider was the only song that would keep Dylan sane on long (or average length or very, very short) car rides when he was a baby. Once we discovered his love for this stirring anthem, invoking it kept us from pounding our heads on the dashboard or otherwise turning the music to unholy levels.