Well... all right

...in the words of one of my favorite Buddy Holly songs.

 

 (Do you like my new glasses?)

My funk seems to have lifted. (Not the funk from running in ninety-degree heat, just the one in my mood.) The Seoul weather is still hot as the hinges, as they used to say in my family. (Implied: as the hinges. Further implied: on the gates of Hell.) But it's just August hot; that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad skin-crawling humidity has abated. School's back and my classes look good and my schedule, unlike last spring's, is quite tolerable.

I feel back on track with my running, having done six one-mile runs below goal pace this morning wearing my wonderful new sockses and shoeses. I'm counting on the cooler weather 11 weeks from now to help my speed, along with my weighing less (and for the first time in a long, long time, I've actually dropped a few pounds: six in two and a half weeks, or roughly half of what Buddy weighs in the above picture.)

The cross country club is back, though of the eight kids who came out the first day, six were wearing Chuck Taylors (which will rip up the kids' lower extremities if I don't make them buy running shoes). On our first day out, Wednesday, we got a half-mile from school and started running when the skies opened up and we all became drowned rats, even the girls who huddled under the bridge as long as they could. I wonder how many will come out tomorrow and still come out next week after they have to buy new shoes.

Still, the air's better, school's better, and I still have that crazy marathon dream...

Well, all right, so I'm being foolish.
Well, all right, let people know
About the dreams and wishes you wish
In the night when lights are low...
Well, all right, well, all right.

Marathon Day is November 7, which I hope won't be the day that I die.